The Curlytops Snowed In Part 29

Janet grasped her father's nose in her warm hands.

"Oh, it's awful cold!" she cried with a little s.h.i.+ver.

"I know it is!" laughed Mr. Martin. "That's what made me afraid it was going to drop off. I'm glad I still have it."

"Are you cold, too, Uncle Frank?" asked Teddy.

"A little, yes. But I shoveled hard at the snow and I'm warmer now."

"Take some hot coffee," said Mrs. Martin. "Nora will pour it out for you. No, Trouble! You mustn't do that!" she cried, as she saw Baby William crumbling a slice of bread into the pitcher of milk.

"What's he doing?" asked Aunt Jo.

"Goin' make a cake," the little fellow answered. "Make cake an' have p'ay party."

"Well, you can have a play party with something else," laughed his mother. "We can't let you waste milk that way when we can't tell when we'll get more if daddy can't get out to the barn to milk the cow."

She took the slice of bread away from William and set him down from the table to which he had climbed up in a chair.

"'Member the time he made a cake when we were camping with grandpa on Star Island?" asked Janet of Ted.

"I guess I do!" he laughed. "The dough was all over everything!"

"Well, let's try it again now," said Uncle Frank to Daddy Martin, when they had had some hot coffee. "We've got to get out to the barn, somehow."

"Yes," agreed the father of the Curlytops. "I don't want the horse and cow to be hungry or thirsty. I hope the water in the barn isn't frozen.

If it is we'll have to carry some from the house."

"And that might freeze on the way out," said Uncle Frank.

"You could take a pail of hot water and that wouldn't freeze," Teddy remarked.

"Our horse or cow couldn't drink hot water," objected Janet.

"Well, they could wait for it to cool just as we do for our hot milk sometimes."

"Yes, they could do that," agreed Janet. "Oh, I wish we could go out in our bungalow!"

"Don't dare try it!" cried Daddy Martin. "If you children went out in the snow you might not get back until your ears and fingers were frost-bitten, to say the least."

"What does frost-bitten mean?" Teddy asked.

"Well, it means almost frozen," explained his mother. "Now you and Janet can take Trouble up to the playroom and have a good time, while I help Nora with the work."

"We want to see daddy and Uncle Frank dig in the snow out to the barn,"

said Teddy.

"Well, you may watch them a little while, and then take care of Baby William."

"You can't see very much," said Uncle Prank, "The snow is still coming down hard and it blows so we can hardly see one another. So you won't see much of us from the windows."

"Well, maybe we can see a little," remarked Janet, and she and Teddy, with Trouble between them, perched on chairs with their faces close against the snow covered gla.s.s. Of course the snow was on the outside, but it made the inside of the window-pane quite cold, and in a little while, Jan drew her face away and, feeling her nose, cried:

"Oh, Ted! It's frozen 'most, like daddy's was!"

"So's mine!" exclaimed Ted, feeling of his nose.

"Mine cold, too!" added Trouble, putting his chubby palm over his "smeller" as he sometimes called his nose.

Indeed the noses of the children were cold from having been pressed so long against the window, and when Aunt Jo heard what they had been doing she said:

"I wouldn't stay near the window any longer if I were you. The wind blows in a little, and it's drafty. You will get cold all over--not only your little noses. Go up to the playroom and I'll come, too. We'll have some fun."

"Just wait until we see if we can watch daddy and Uncle Frank a minute,"

pleaded Teddy.

They all looked out of the window again. Once in a while they had a glimpse of their father or his uncle tossing the snow to one side. The two men were trying to dig a path from the house to the barn, and they were down in a deep trench, with white walls on either side.

"This is a terrible storm!" said Aunt Jo as she went up to the playroom with the Curlytops and Trouble. "I hope no little boys or girls are out in it."

"I hope not, either," echoed Jan with a little s.h.i.+ver, as she heard the wind howl around the corner of the house and dash the hard flakes of snow up against the windows.

"If any boys or girls were out in it they could stay in our bungalow,"

said Ted. "There's some blankets in there and a little to eat."

"And they could drink snow for water," said Jan. "I ate some snow once and it tickled my throat."

"Snow isn't good to eat," said Aunt Jo. "Up near the North Pole, the Eskimos and travelers never eat snow. It would make them ill. They melt it and drink the water when they are thirsty. But I hope no little boy or girl has to leave his or her warm house and live in your bungalow, nice as it may be. I'm afraid they'd be pretty cold in it even with a blanket and a piece of carpet."

"If daddy and Uncle Frank would dig a path we could go out to our bungalow and see," observed Jan.

"Maybe there's a tramp in it, like we thought there was on Star Island,"

went on Ted.

And, though neither Ted nor Jan knew it, there was someone in their snow bungalow.

Up in the playroom the Curlytops and Trouble had fun with Aunt Jo. She told them stories and made up little games for them, while outside the storm raged and the snow came down faster than ever.

"Come on!" cried Teddy after waiting a bit, "let's play that guessing game some more."

"Oh, let's!" agreed Jan. "It's lots of fun!"

This was a game in which one of them would think of something in the attic--the old spinning wheel, the steamboat chair or maybe a string of sleigh bells. Then the one who had the turn of thinking would tell the others the first letter of the name of the thing thought of, and perhaps something about it. The others had to guess what it was, and whoever guessed first was next in turn to think of something.

Teddy, Jan and Aunt Jo played this game for a while, but it was not much fun for Trouble. He was too little to know how to spell the things he thought of, though he could name almost everything in the attic, even if he called some by nicknames he made up himself.

"Let's play something that will be fun for Trouble," said Aunt Jo after a while.

"What?" asked Teddy.