THE LAME BOY
"Oh, what is it? What is it?" cried Jan, backing into the farthest corner of her room. "What's in my bed?"
"It's a man!" cried Ted, who had run in from his room. "Oh, Daddy, there's a man in Jan's bed!" he shouted down the stairs.
"It can't be—it isn't large enough for a man!" said Mrs. Martin, who was going toward the gas jet to turn it higher.
Her husband dropped the paper he had been reading as the children were getting ready for bed, and came racing up the stairs. Into Jan's room he went, and, as he entered, Mrs. Martin turned the light on so that it shone more brightly.
Daddy Martin gave one look into Jan's bed and then began to laugh.
"Oh, Daddy! what is it?" cried the little girl. "Is it a man in my bed?"
"Yes," answered her father, still laughing. "But it's a very little man, and he couldn't hurt anybody."
"Not if he was a—a burglar?" asked Ted in a whisper.
"No; for he's only a snow man!" laughed Mr. Martin.
"A snow man!" exclaimed Mrs. Martin.
"A snow man in my bed!" gasped Jan. "How did he get there?"
By this time so much noise had been made that Trouble, in his mother's room, was awakened. He came toddling into Jan's room, rubbing his sleepy eyes and holding up his little nightdress so he would not stumble over it.
"Dis mornin'?" he asked, blinking at the bright lights.
"No, it isn't morning, Trouble," answered his mother with a laugh. "But I guess Jan will have to sleep in your bed and you'll have to come in with me. The snow man has melted, making a little puddle of water and her sheets are all wet. She can't sleep in that bed."
They all gathered around to look at the strange sight in Jan's bed. As her mother had said, the snow man, which was about two feet long, had melted. One of his legs was half gone, an ear had slid off and his nose was quite flat, while one of the pieces of coal that had pretended to be an eye had dropped out and was resting on his left shoulder.
"Dat my snow man!" announced Trouble, after a look. "Me put him s'eepin's in Jan's bed!"
"You did?" cried Mother Martin. "Well, it's a good thing you told us, for I was going to ask Ted if he had done it as a joke."
"No'm, Mother; I didn't do it!" declared Ted.
"And it is the little snow man we helped Trouble make," added Jan, as she took another look. "I couldn't see good at first 'cause it was so dark in my room. But it's Trouble's snow man."
"Did you really bring him in and put him to sleep in Jan's bed?" asked Baby William's father.
"Iss, I did," answered Trouble, still rubbing his eyes. "My snow man not want to stay out in dark cold all night alone. Big snow man might bite him. I bringed him in wif my two arms, I did, and I did put him in Jan's bed, I did. He go s'eepin's."
"Well, he's slept enough for to-night," said Mr. Martin, still laughing. "Out of the window you go!" he cried, and raising the sash near the head of Jan's bed he tossed the snow man—or what was left of him—out on the porch roof.
"Here, Nora!" called Mrs. Martin. "Please take the wet clothes off Jan's bed so they'll dry. The mattress is wet, too, so she can't sleep on it. Oh, you're a dear bunch of Trouble!" she cried as she caught Baby William up in her arms and kissed his sleepy eyes, "but you certainly made lots of work to-night. What made you put the snow man in Jan's bed?"
"So him have good s'eepin's. Him very twired an' s'eepy out in de yard. I bringed him in, I did!"
"Well, don't do it again," said Mr. Martin, and then they all went to bed, and the snow man—what was left of him—slept out on the roof, where he very likely felt better than in a warm room, for men made of snow do not like the heat.
"Well, Trouble, what are you going to do to-day?" asked his father. He was just finishing his breakfast and Baby William had just started his.
"Trouble goin' make nudder snow man," was the answer.
"Well, if you do, don't put it in my bed," begged Jan, with a laugh.
"Put him in wif Nicknack," went on Trouble.
"Yes, I guess our goat doesn't mind snow, the way he butted into our house," observed Ted.
"Oh, aren't we going to build another ever?" asked Jan. "It was lots of fun. Let's make another house, Ted."
"All right, maybe we will after school. It looks maybe as if it would snow again."
"We have had more snowstorms than we usually do at this time of the year," remarked Mrs. Martin. "I guess Grandpa Martin's old hermit told part of the truth, anyhow."
"Come on, Jan!" cried Ted to his sister, as they left the table to get ready for school. "We'll have a lot of fun in the snow to-day."
"Will we go coasting or skating?" Janet asked.
"There isn't any skating, unless we clean the snow off the pond," replied Ted. "And that's an awful lot of work," he added. "When we come home from school we'll build a great big snow house, if the snow is soft enough to pack."
"On your way home from school," said Mrs. Martin to Ted and Jan, "I want you to stop at your father's store. He'll take you to get new rubber boots. Your old ones are nearly worn out, and if we are to have much snow this winter you'll need bigger ones to keep your feet dry. So stop at daddy's store. He'll be looking for you."
"New rubber boots!" cried Ted. "That's dandy!"
"Oh, may I have a high pair?" asked Jan. "I want to wade in drifts as high as Ted does, and I can't if you get me low boots."
"Your father will get you the right kind," said Mrs. Martin. "The boot store is near his, and he'll go in to buy them with you."
Jan and Ted were very glad they were going to have new rubber boots, and Ted was thinking so much about his that when his teacher in school asked him how to spell foot he spelled "b-o-o-t!"
The other boys and girls laughed, and at first Ted did not know why. But, after a bit, when he saw the teacher smiling also, he remembered what he had done. Then he spelled foot correctly.
"Theodore was thinking more of what to put on his foot, than about the word I asked him to spell," said the teacher.
Mr. Martin's store was not far from the school, and Ted and Jan hurried there when their lessons were over.
"Where you goin'?" asked Tom Taylor, as he came running out of the school yard. "Come on, Curlytop, and let's make another snow man."
"I will after I get my new rubber boots," promised Ted. "You can start making it in our yard if you want to. But don't let Trouble make any more little snow men. He put one in my sister's bed last night."
"He did?" laughed Tom. "Say, he's queer all right!"
"Well, Curlytops, did you come to buy out the store?" asked Mr. Martin with a laugh as he saw his two children come in and walk back toward the end, where he had his office.
"We want rubber boots," said Ted.
"And I want big high ones, just like those he's going to have," begged Jan, pointing to her brother.
"We'll get them just alike and then you won't have any trouble," laughed her father. "Only, of course, Ted's will have to be a little larger in the feet than yours, Jan."
"Oh, yes, Daddy! That's all right," and she smiled. "But I want mine high up on my legs."
Telling one of his clerks to stay in the office until he came back, Mr. Martin took Ted and Jan to the shoestore a few doors down the street. There were many other boys and girls, and men and women, too, getting boots or rubbers.
"Well, Mr. Martin," said the clerk who had come to wait on the Curlytops, "I see you're getting ready for a hard winter. If you get snowed in out at your house, these youngsters can wade out and buy a loaf of bread."
"We're going to have a lot to eat in our house," put in Ted, "'cause a hermit my grandpa knows said we might get snowed in."
"Indeed!" exclaimed the clerk. "Well, it looks as though we would have plenty of snow. We've had more so far this year than we did in twice as long a time last season. Now about your rubber boots," and he took the measure of the feet of Ted and Jan, and soon fitted them with high boots, lined with red flannel.
"Do they suit you, Jan?" asked her father.
"Yes, they're just right," she answered. "I like 'em!"
"They're fine!" cried Ted, stretching out his legs as he sat on the bench in the shoestore. "Now I can wade in deep drifts," for the boots could be strapped around his legs at the top, as could Jan's, and no snow could get down inside.
"Well, run along home and have fun in the snow!" said their father. "Oh, I forgot something! Come on back to the store a minute. I bought a new kind of chocolate candy to-day and I thought maybe you might like to try it."
"Oh, Daddy! We would!" cried Jan, clapping her hands.
"Mind you! I'm not sure you'll like it," her father said, trying not to smile, "but if you don't, just save it for Nicknack. He isn't particular about candy."
"Oh, we'll like it all right!" laughed Ted. "Hurry, Jan. I'm hungry for candy now!"
The chocolate was very good, and Ted and Jan each had as large a piece as was good for them, and some to take home to their mother, with a little bite for Trouble. As the Curlytops were getting ready to leave their father's store the clerk came from the office and said:
"While you were gone, Mr. Martin, a lame boy came in here to see you."
"A lame boy?" Mr. Martin was much surprised.
"Yes. He said he had been in a Home up near Cherry Farm, where you were last summer," went on the clerk.
"What did he want?" asked Mr. Martin.
"I don't know. He didn't say, but stated that he would wait until you came back. So I gave him a chair just outside the office. He seemed to know about you and Ted and Jan."
"A lame boy! Oh, maybe it was Hal Chester!" cried Jan.
"But Hal isn't lame any more," Mr. Martin reminded her. "At least he is only a little lame. Did this boy limp much?" he asked the clerk.
"Well, not so very much. He seemed anxious to see you, though."
"Where is he?" asked Mr. Martin. "I'll be glad to see him. Where is he now?"
"That's what I don't know. I had to leave the office a minute, and when I came back he was gone."
"Gone?"
"Yes, he wasn't here at all. And, what is more, something went with him."
"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Martin.
"I mean the lame boy took with him a pocketbook and some money when he went out," answered the clerk.