All through supper time Betty schemed and plotted.
"I certainly am proud of the way Bob won his," she said to herself. "But
I've never been behind Bob _yet_, and that magic button's going to be
twins before tomorrow night, _somehow_!"
The hot summer sun woke her early next morning, and she hurried
downstairs to be through breakfast before Sure Pop came for the day's
adventures.
"Where do we go today?" she asked Sure Pop an hour later, dancing up and
down and looking wistfully at Bob's new Safety button.
"Sorry, friends," said the Safety Scout, "but I can't be with you
today. I'm due for a little outside scouting duty--something you twins
aren't quite ready for yet."
"Oh, say!" Bob's face fell. "What are we going to _do_ then, all day
alone?"
"Do?" laughed the merry Colonel, waving them goodby. "Why, you'll be out
scouring the neighborhood for new adventures, I fancy. And as for Betty,
if I'm any mind reader, she has something up her sleeve sure enough!"
Sure Pop was right, as usual. Bob fussed around the yard awhile, managed
to open a box of crockery out on the back steps for Mother, and soon
rambled off to see what new adventures he could find in the name of
Safety First.
Betty spent most of the morning in the kitchen, helping Mother. As soon
as Bob was off again after lunch, she began to roam about the yard,
eyeing everything like a hawk. Soon Mother saw her picking up the boards
Bob had pried loose from the box and scowling at the ugly nails that
stuck up where little feet might so easily be stabbed by their rusty
points. These she carefully bent down with a big stone.
"That's one on Bob, anyway," said Betty to herself, and went on looking
around the yard.
Her eye roved upward to the bright geraniums on the sill of Mother's
window upstairs. "Mother," she called, "have you ever read _Ben Hur_?"
"Why, yes, Betty--a long time ago. Why?"
"Don't you remember how that loose tile from Ben Hur's roof--the one he
tried to snatch back as he saw it fall--struck the Roman soldier on the
head, and how Ben Hur went to prison for it? Well, what about those
flower pots up there?"
"Why, Betty!" cried her mother, more puzzled than ever. "Ben Hur--flower
pots--what is the dear child talking about?"
Betty laughed. "I read in the paper last night that one of the big
hotels has put up signs in every room, and they say:
=PATRONS--ATTENTION=
=Please do not place articles of any kind ON
WINDOW SILL (bottles and chinaware most
dangerous). They may fall or be blown into the
street, causing serious if not fatal accidents.=
"That's because a flower pot fell from an upper window on a woman's
head. Baby's sand pile is right below your window, and one of the flower
pots might fall while she was out there playing. A sudden draft could do
it, or a door slammed hard. Do you mind if I fasten them on with wire so
they can't fall? Then I'll do it right now before anything happens!"
She had just finished the job to her satisfaction, and was looking about
for something else, when Mother called softly: "Betty, if you'll keep a
lookout and let me know if anybody comes, or if Baby wakes up, I'll take
a nap."
Betty was pleased. Here was a fine chance to play housekeeper. Mother
left a soup bone simmering over one burner of the gas stove, and a steam
pudding bubbling away over another, and went upstairs for her nap.
Betty tiptoed to the little sewing-room, next to the kitchen, and looked
in. Baby was sleeping. Then she softly shut the kitchen door and sat
down in the dining-room to read. Suddenly a shower came up, and out she
ran to close the windows in the kitchen and the sewing-room, where the
rain was pouring in.
She had hardly begun reading again when she heard Bob clatter up the
back steps, tear through the kitchen in search of his raincoat, and
hurry out again. The wind was blowing hard and swept through the open
kitchen, banging the dustpan against the wall like a fire alarm gong.
Betty read on. Presently she looked at the clock and sprang to her feet.
"Why, how long Baby is sleeping today! 'Most three hours and never a
peep. I wonder--"
A faint whiff of gas from the kitchen made her turn pale with dread.
Then it flashed into her mind what must have happened--that sudden gust
of wind had blown out the gas! As she ran to the kitchen, she realized
that she had caught the same faint smell several times before. "Oh!" she
sobbed, "what if Baby--"
Mother, sound asleep upstairs, was roused by a crash from the kitchen, a
shriek from Betty, and the sound of a shattered window-pane; for Betty,
finding that the outside door stuck fast, had hurled a frying-pan
through the window. Then she ran to the sewing-room as the life-giving
breeze poured in through the broken pane.
Startled, bewildered, still only half awake, Mother stumbled to the
kitchen and found Betty, with the unconscious baby in her arms, groping
her way toward the dining-room. Snatching them both up and rushing
toward the open air, Mother landed in a heap on the front porch, Betty
and the baby on top of her. And then--oh, glorious sound!--came a feeble
little cry from Baby, and they knew she was safe after all! There Father
and Bob found them a few minutes later, laughing and crying and hugging
each other by turns. Betty's quick wits had saved the day.
Mother was telling the whole story that evening, not forgetting the
rusty nails and the flower pots--two risks which neither Father nor
Mother had ever thought of before--when a sturdy little figure in a
Safety Scout uniform paused at the door and listened with a shrewd
twinkle in his eye.
It was Sure Pop, who had looked in to say good night to the twins. He
caught Betty's eye, beckoned her into the hall--and when she came back
to the supper table, Bob's sharp eye caught the gleam of a Safety First
button over _her_ heart, too.
Betty had evened the score!
_Safety scouting begins at home._
--SURE POP
[Illustration]