A LETTER FROM GRANDPA
"Ted! Teddy! Look, it's snowing!"
"Oh, is it? Let me see, Mother!"
Theodore Martin, who was seldom called anything but Teddy or Ted, hurried away from the side of his mother, who was straightening his tie in readiness for school. He ran to the window through which his sister Janet, or Jan as she liked to be called, was looking.
"Oh, it really is snowing!" cried Ted in delight. "Now we can have some fun!"
"And look at the big flakes!" went on Jan. "They're just like feathers sifting down. It'll be a great big snowstorm, and we can go sleigh-riding."
"And skating, too!" added Ted, his nose pressed flat against the window pane.
"You can't skate when there's snow on the pond," objected Jan. "Anyhow it hasn't frozen ice yet. Has it, Mother?"
"No, I think it hasn't been quite cold enough for that," answered Mrs. Martin.
"But it'll be a big snowstorm, won't it?" asked Jan. "There'll be a lot of big drifts, and we can wear our rubber boots and make snowballs! Oh, what fun, Ted!" and she danced up and down.
"And we can make a snow man, too," went on Teddy. "And a big snowball!"
"An' I frow snowballs at snow man!" exclaimed the voice of a smaller boy, who was eating a rather late breakfast at the dining-room table.
"Oh, Trouble, we'll make you a little snow house!" cried Jan, as she ran over to his high chair to give him a hug and a kiss. "We'll make you a snow house and you can play in it."
"Maybe it'll fall down on him and we'll have to dig him out, like the lollypop-man dug Nicknack, our goat, out of the sand hole when we were camping with grandpa," added Ted with a laugh. "Say, but it's going to be a big storm! Guess I'd better wear my rubber boots; hadn't I, Mother?"
"I hardly think so, Teddy," said Mrs. Martin. "I don't believe the snow will get very deep."
"Oh, Mother, won't it?" begged Jan, as if her mother could make it deep or not, just as she liked.
"Why won't it be a big storm, Mother?" asked Teddy. "See what big flakes are coming down," and he looked up at the sky, pressing his face hard against the window. "Why won't it?"
"Because it seldom snows long when the flakes are so big. The big flakes show that the weather is hardly cold enough to freeze the water from the clouds, which would be rain only it is hardly warm enough for that. It is just cold enough now to make a little snow, with very large flakes, and I think it will soon turn to rain. So you had better wear your rubbers to school and take an umbrella. And, Teddy, be sure to wait for Janet on coming home. Remember you're a year older than she is, and you must look after her."
"I will," promised Teddy. "If I have to stay in, Jan, you wait for me out in front."
"Will you have to stay in, Teddy?"
"I don't know. Maybe not. But our teacher is a crank about things sometimes."
"Oh, The-o-dore Mar-tin!" exclaimed his mother, speaking his name very slowly, as she always did when she was displeased or was quite serious, "you must not say such things about your teacher."
"Well, the other boys say she's cranky."
"Never mind what the other boys say, you must not call her that. Teachers have it hard enough, trying to see that you children know your lessons, without being called cranks. Don't do it again!"
"I won't," promised Teddy, just a bit ashamed of himself.
"And get ready to go to school," went on his mother. "Did you clean your teeth—each of you—and comb your hair?"
"I did," said Janet.
"I cleaned my teeth," announced Ted, "but my hair doesn't need combing. I combed it last night."
For most boys this would hardly have been of any use, but with Teddy Martin it was different. Teddy's hair was so curly that it was hard work to pull a comb through it, even though he went slowly, and when he had finished it was curlier than before, only more fluffed up. Janet's was the same, except that hers was now getting longer than her brother's.
No wonder then that the two children were called "Curlytops;" for their hair was a mass of tangled and twisted ringlets which clung tightly to their heads. Everyone called them Curlytops, or just Curlytop, of course, if one happened to meet Teddy or Janet alone.
"I think you'd better give your hair a little brushing this morning, anyhow, Teddy," his mother said. "You can get a few of the wrinkles out."
"Well, if I do they won't stay," he answered. "Oh, but look at it snow!" he cried. "The flakes are getting smaller; don't you think so, Jan?"
"I think so—a little."
"Then it'll last and be a big storm, won't it, Mother?" he asked anxiously.
"Well, maybe so. But you don't want too big a storm, do you?"
"I want one big enough for us to go coasting on the hill and have sleigh-rides. And we can skate, too, if the pond freezes and we scrape off the snow. Oh, we'll have fun, won't we, Jan?"
Without waiting for an answer Ted ran upstairs to take a few of the "wrinkles" out of his curly locks, while Nora Jones, who helped Mrs. Martin with the housework, looked for the children's umbrella and rubbers.
It was the first snowstorm of the season, and, as it always did, it caused much delight, not only to the Curlytops but to the other children of Cresco where the Martin family lived. Janet watched eagerly the falling flakes as she put on her rubbers and waited for Teddy to come down from the bathroom, where he had gone to comb his hair, though he could not see much use in doing that.
"It'll only be all curly again," he said. But still he minded his mother.
"The flakes are getting lots smaller," said Janet, as she and Teddy started for school. "We'll have big heaps of snow, Ted, and we can have fun."
"Yes, I think it will be more of a storm than I thought it would amount to at first," said Mrs. Martin. "I'm glad we have plenty of coal in the cellar, and an abundance of dry wood. Winter has started in early this year."
"And pretty soon it'll be Thanksgiving and Christmas!" cried Ted. "Then what fun we'll have!" exclaimed the excited boy.
"Now don't get any snow down inside your collars," called Mrs. Martin to her children, as they went down the street.
"We won't!" they promised, and then they forgot all about it, and began snowballing one another with what little snow they could scrape up from the ground, which was now white with the newly-fallen crystals.
"I'm going to wash your face!" suddenly cried Ted to his sister.
"You are not!" she cried, and away she ran.
Meanwhile, Trouble Martin, which was the pet name for Baby William, the youngest of the family, sat in the dining-room window and laughed at the falling flakes and at his brother and sister going to school, romping on their way.
"There, I did wash your face!" cried Ted, as he finally managed to rub a little snow on his sister's cheek, making it all the redder. "I washed your face first this year!"
"I don't care. You got some down inside my collar and my neck's wet and I'm going to tell mother on you!"
"Oh, don't!" begged Ted. "I won't do it again, and I'll wipe your neck with my handkerchief."
"Well, maybe I won't tell if you don't do it again," promised Janet, while her brother got out his pocket handkerchief.
"Ouch! Oh!" cried Janet, as Teddy started to dry her neck. "Your handkerchief's all wet! It's got a lot of snow on it! Let me alone!" and she pushed him away.
"Wet? My handkerchief wet?" asked Ted. "So it is!" he exclaimed. "I guess some snow must have got in my pocket. I'll use yours, Jan."
"No, I don't want you to. I'll wipe my own neck. You let me alone!"
Jan was laughing; she did not really care that Ted had washed her face, and she soon had her neck quite dry. Then the two Curlytops hurried on to school.
The street was filled with children now, all going to the same place. Some paused to make a slide on the sidewalk, and others took turns running and then gliding along the slippery place.
"Oh, here's a dandy one!" called Tommie Wilson, who lived not far from Teddy Martin. The two boys saw a long smooth place on the sidewalk in front of them, where some early school children had made a slide.
"Come on!" cried Tommie, taking a run.
"Come on!" yelled Teddy.
One before the other they went down the sidewalk slide.
"Look out for me!" called Janet and she, too, took a running start.
But alas for the children. Near the end of the slide one of Tommie's feet slid the wrong way and after he had tried, by waving his arms, to keep upright, down he went in a heap.
"Get out the way!" cried Teddy. But Tommie had no time, and right into him slid Ted, falling down on top of his chum, while Jan, not able to stop, crashed into her brother and then sat down on the slide with a bump. All three were in a heap.
"Oh, Tommie Wilson!" cried Janet, looking at her books which had fallen out of her strap. "See what you did!"
"I couldn't help it!"
"You could so! You tripped on purpose to make me fall!"
"I did not, Janet Martin."
"No, it wasn't Tommie's fault," declared Teddy. "He couldn't help it. Are you hurt Jan?"
"No—not much—but look at my books."
"I'll pick 'em up for you," offered Tommie, and he did, brushing off the snow. Then he helped Janet to get up, and she began to laugh. After all it was only fun to fall on a slippery slide.
"There goes the bell!" cried Teddy, when he had helped brush the snow off his sister's skirt.
"One more slide!" exclaimed Tommie.
"I'm going to have one, too!" called Teddy.
"You'll be late for school, and be kept in!" warned Janet.
"We'll run," Tommie said, as he started at the top of the slippery place.
He and Ted had their one-more slide, and then, taking hold of Janet's hands, they hurried on to school.
Behind them and in front of them were other children, some hurrying to their classes, others waiting for a last slide, some falling down in the snow. Others were washing one another's faces and some were snowballing.
In school the teachers had hard work to keep the minds of their pupils on their lessons. Every now and then some boy or girl would look out of the window when his eyes ought to have been on spelling book or geography. All wanted to see the snow sifting down from the clouds.
The flakes, that had been large at first, were now smaller, and this, as most of the children had been told, meant that the storm would last. And they were glad, for to them snow meant grand winter fun with sleds and skates.
"We'll have some bobsled races all right," whispered Teddy Martin to Tommie Wilson, and the teacher, hearing what Teddy said, kept him after school for whispering. But she did not keep him very long, for she knew what it meant to have fun in the first snow of the season.
Teddy found Janet waiting for him when he came out, for it was now snowing hard and Teddy had taken the umbrella with him when he went to his room. He was a year older than his sister and one class ahead of her in school.
"Were you bad in class?" Janet asked.
"I only whispered a little. She didn't keep me in long. Come on now, we'll have some fun."
And fun the Curlytops and their playmates did have on their way home from school. They slid, they snowballed, they washed one another's faces and some of the boys even started to roll big snowballs, but the flakes were too dry to stick well, and they soon gave this up. It needs a wet snow to make a big ball.
When Teddy and Janet got home, their cheeks red, their eyes sparkling and their hair curlier than ever because some snow had gotten in it, they found their mother reading a letter which the postman had just left.
"Oh, what's it about?" asked Jan. "It's from Cherry Farm, isn't it, Mother? I can tell by the funny black mark on the stamp."
"Is it from grandpa?" asked Teddy.
"Yes," answered Mrs. Martin. "The letter is from grandpa."
"Is he coming here to spend Christmas, or are we going there just as you said we might?" asked Janet.
"I'm not sure about either one yet," replied her mother. "But grandpa sends his love, and he also sends a bit of news."
"What is it?" asked Ted.
"Grandpa Martin writes that an old hermit, who lives in a lonely log cabin in the woods back of Cherry Farm, says this is going to be the worst winter in many years. There will be big snowstorms, the hermit says, and Grandpa Martin adds that the hermit is a good weather prophet. That is, he seems to know what is going to happen."
"A big snowstorm! That will be fun!" cried Teddy.
"Maybe not, if it is too big," warned his mother. "Grandpa Martin says we ought to put away an abundance of coal and plenty of things to eat."
"Why?" asked Janet.
"Because we may be snowed in," answered her mother.