THROUGH THE ICE
Mr. Martin said nothing for a few seconds after hearing what his clerk told him. Ted and Jan looked at each other. They did not know what to say.
"Are you sure the lame boy took the pocketbook and the money?" asked the Curlytops' father of his clerk.
"Pretty sure; yes, sir. The pocketbook—it was a sort of wallet I had some papers in besides money—was left on this bench right near where he was sitting while he was waiting for you. I went away and when I came back he was gone and so was the pocketbook. He must have taken it."
"Was there much money in it?"
"Only about fifteen dollars."
"That's too bad. I wonder what the boy wanted. Didn't he say?"
"Not to me, though to one of the other clerks who spoke to him as he sat near the bench he said he was in need of help."
"Then it couldn't have been Hal Chester," said Mr. Martin, "for his father is able to provide for him. Besides, Hal wouldn't go away without waiting to see Ted and Jan, for they had such good times together at Cherry Farm and on Star Island.
"Hal Chester," went on Mr. Martin to the clerk, who had never been to Cherry Farm, "was a lame boy who was almost cured at the Home for Crippled Children not far from my father's house. He left there to go to his own home about the time we broke up our camp. I don't see why he would come here to see me."
"Maybe his father lost all his money and Hal wanted to see if you'd give him more," suggested Jan.
"Or maybe he wanted to get work in your store," added Ted.
"I hardly think so," remarked his father. "It is queer, though, why the boy should go away without seeing me, whoever he was. I'm sorry about the missing pocketbook. I know Hal would never do such a thing as that. Well, it can't be helped."
"Shall I call the police?" asked the clerk.
"What for?" Mr. Martin queried.
"So they can look for this lame boy, whoever he was, and arrest him for taking that money."
"Maybe he didn't take it," said Mr. Martin.
"He must have," declared the clerk. "The pocketbook was right on the bench near him, and after he went away the pocketbook wasn't there any more. He took it all right!"
"Well, never mind about the police for a while," said the children's father. "Maybe the lame boy will come back and tell us what he wanted to see me about, and maybe he only took the pocketbook by mistake. Or some one else may have walked off with it. Don't call the police yet."
"I'm glad daddy didn't call the police," said Ted to Jan, as they went home a little later, carrying their fine, new, rubber boots.
"So'm I," agreed his sister. "Even if it was Hal I don't believe he took the money."
"No, course not! Hal wouldn't do that. Anyhow Hal wasn't hardly lame at all any more. The doctors at the Home cured him," said Ted.
"Unless maybe he got lame again in the snow," suggested Janet.
"Well, of course he might have slipped down and hurt his foot," admitted Ted. "But anyhow I guess it wasn't Hal."
Neither of the Curlytops liked to think that their former playmate would do such a thing as to take a pocketbook that did not belong to him. Mother Martin, when told what had happened at the store that day, said she was sure it could not be Hal.
"There's one way you can find out," she said to her husband. "Write to Hal's father and ask him if he has been away from home."
"I'll do it!" agreed Mr. Martin, while Ted and Jan were out in the snow, wading in the biggest drifts they could find with their high rubber boots on. Their feet did not get a bit wet.
In a few days Mr. Martin had an answer from the letter he had sent to Mr. Chester, Hal's father. The letter was written by a friend of Mr. Chester's who was in charge of his home and who opened all the mail. Mr. Chester, this man wrote, was traveling with his wife and Hal, and no one knew just where they were at present.
"Then it might have been Hal, after all, who called at your office," said Mrs. Martin to her husband. "He may have been near here, and wanted to stop to see the children, and, not knowing where we lived, he inquired for your store. But if it was Hal I'm perfectly sure he didn't take the pocketbook."
"So am I," said Mr. Martin. "And yet we haven't found it at the store, nor was there anyone else near it while the lame boy was sitting on the bench. It's too bad! I'd like to find out who he was and what he wanted of me."
But, for the present, there seemed no way to do this. Ted and Jan wondered, too, for they would have liked to see Hal again, and they did not, even for a moment, believe he had taken the money. Hal Chester was not that kind of boy.
The Curlytops had much fun in the snow. They went riding down hill whenever they could, and made more snow men and big snowballs. Ted and Tom Taylor talked of building a big snow house, much larger than the first one they had made.
"And we'll pour water over the walls, and make them freeze into ice," said Ted. "Then Nicknack can't butt 'em down with his horns."
But there was not quite enough snow around the Martin yard to make the large house the boys wanted, so they decided to wait until more of the white flakes fell.
"There'll be plenty of snow," said Ted to his chum. "My father had another letter from my grandfather, and he says the hermit said a terribly big storm was coming in about two weeks."
"Whew!" whistled Tom Taylor. "I guess I'd better go home and tell my mother to get in plenty of bread and butter and jam. I like that; don't you?"
"I guess I do!" cried Ted. "I'm going in now and ask Nora if she'll give us some. I'm awful hungry!"
Nora took pity on Ted and the other boy who was playing in the yard with him, and they were soon sitting on the back steps eating bread and jam.
They had each taken about three bites from the nice, big slices Nora had given them, when around the back walk came a man who was limping on one leg, the other being of wood. Though the man's clothes were ragged, and he seemed to be what would be called a "tramp," he had a kind face, though as Ted said afterward, it had on it more whiskers than ever his father's had. Still the man seemed to be different from the ordinary tramps.
"Ah, that's what I like to see!" he exclaimed as he watched the boys eating the bread and jam. "Nothing like that for the appetite—I mean to take away an appetite—when you've got more than you need."
"Have you got an appetite?" asked Tom Taylor.
"Indeed I have," answered the man. "I've got more appetite than I know what to do with. I was just going to ask if you thought I could get something to eat here. Having an appetite means you're hungry, you know," he added with a smile, so Ted and Tom would understand. The man looked hungrily at the bread and jam the boys were eating.
"Would you—would you like some of this?" asked Teddy, holding out his slice, which had three bites and a half taken from it. The half bite was the one Ted took just as he saw the man. He was so surprised that he took only a half bite instead of a whole one.
"Would I like that? Only just wouldn't I, though!" cried the man, smacking his lips. "But please don't ask me," he went on. "It isn't good for the appetite to see things and not eat 'em."
"You can eat this," said Teddy, as he held out his slice of bread and jam. "I've taken only a few bites out of it. And I cleaned my teeth this morning," he added as if that would make it all right that he had eaten part of the slice.
"Oh, that part doesn't worry me!" laughed the tramp. "But I don't want, hungry as I am, to take your bread and butter, to say nothing of the jam."
He turned aside and then swung back.
"There is butter on the bread, under that jam, isn't there?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Tom. "It's good butter, too."
"So I should guess," went on the man. "I can most always tell when there's butter on the bread under the jam. There's always one sure way to tell," he said.
"How?" asked Ted, thinking it might be some trick.
"Just take a bite!" laughed the man, and the two boys on the back steps laughed, too.
"Are you sure you don't want this?" the tramp went on, as he took the partly eaten slice Ted held out to him. "I wouldn't for the world, hungry as I am, take your slice——"
"Oh, Nora'll give me more," said Ted eagerly. He really wanted to see the man bite into the slice. Ted said afterward that he wanted to know how big a bite the man could take.
"Well, then, if you can get more I will take this," said the man, as he eagerly and, so it seemed to the boys, very hungrily bit into the slice—or what was left of it after Ted had taken out his three and a half nibbles. What Ted took were really nibbles alongside the bites the man took.
"Were you in a war?" asked Tom, as he watched the tramp take the last of Ted's bread.
"No. Why did you think I was—because I have a wooden leg?"
The boy nodded.
"My leg was cut off on the railroad," went on the tramp. "But I get along pretty well on this wooden peg. It's a good thing in a way, too," he added.
"How's that?" asked Tom.
"Well, you see havin' only one leg there isn't so much of me to get hungry. It's just like having only one mouth instead of two. If you boys had two mouths you'd have to have two slices of bread and jam instead of one," went on the tramp, laughing. "It's the same way when you only have one leg instead of two—you don't get so hungry."
"Are you hungry yet?" asked Tom, as he saw the tramp licking off with his tongue some drops of jam that got on his fingers.
"I am," the man answered. "My one leg isn't quite full yet—I mean my one good leg," he added. "You can't put anything—not even bread and jam into this wooden peg," and he tapped it with his cane.
"Take my slice of bread," said Tom kindly. "I guess I can get some more when I get home."
"Nora'll give you some same as she will me," said Teddy. "Go on and eat—I like to watch you," he added to the tramp.
"Well, you don't like to watch me any more than I like to do it," laughed the ragged man, as he began on the second slice of bread and jam.
JAN WENT THROUGH THE ICE INTO THE BLACK WATER.
He ate that all up, and then, when Teddy and Tom went in and told Nora what had happened, the good-natured girl insisted on getting some hot coffee and bread and meat for the hungry man.
"Jam and such like isn't anything near enough," she said, "even if he has but one leg. I'll feed him proper."
Which she did, and the tramp with the "wooden peg," as he called it, was very thankful. Before he left he cut some wood for Nora, and also whittled out two little wooden swords for Ted and Tom.
"I'm glad we gave him our bread and jam; aren't you?" asked Ted of his chum.
"Yep," was the answer. "I liked him, and it was fun to see him take big bites."
A snowstorm came a few days later, and, for a time, the Curlytops thought it might be the big one Grandpa Martin's hermit had spoken of. But the snow soon changed to rain and then came a thaw, so that there was not a bit of snow left on the ground, all being washed away.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Jan, as she looked out of the window. "This isn't like winter at all! We can't have any fun!"
"Wait till it freezes," said Ted. "Then we'll have lots of fun skating on the pond."
Two nights later there came a cold spell, and the ice formed on the pond. But, though the Curlytops did not know it, the ice was not as thick as it ought to have been to make it safe.
On the big lake, where the larger boys and girls went skating, a man, sent by the chief of police, always tested the ice after a freeze, to make sure it was thick enough to hold up the crowds of skaters. But on the pond, where the water was not more than knee-deep, no one ever looked at the ice. The little boys and girls went there just as they pleased.
"Come on skating!" cried Ted, after school the first day of this cold weather. "Well have a race on the ice, Jan."
"All right," she answered. "I can skate faster than you if I am a girl!"
"No, you can't!" exclaimed Ted.
"I want to come!" cried Trouble, as he saw his brother and sister starting out with their skates on straps over their shoulders.
"Oh, no! You're too little!" said his mother. "You must stay with me."
But Trouble did not wish to do that, and cried until Nora came in and said he might help her bake a cake. This pleased the little fellow, who, if he were given a piece of dough, not too sticky, to play with, had a fine time imagining he was making pies or a cake.
So Ted and Janet hurried off to the pond and were soon skating away with other boys and girls of their own age and size.
"Come on, now, let's race!" cried Ted, after a bit. "I'll get to the other side of the pond 'fore you do, Jan!"
"No, you won't!" she exclaimed, and the Curlytops started off on their race, the others watching.
For a while Ted was ahead, and then, whether it was because she was a better skater or because her skates were sharper, Jan passed her brother. He tried to catch up to her but could not.
And then, when Jan was about twenty feet ahead of Teddy and in the middle of the pond, the ice suddenly began to crack.
"Look out! Come on back! You'll go through!" cried Tom Taylor.
"Oh, she's in now!" screamed Lola.
And, as Lola spoke, Jan went through the ice into the black water beneath.
"Skate to shore! Skate to shore!" called Tom to the others. "Get off the ice or you'll go in, too!"
The other children did as he said, and it was well that they did, for the ice was now cracking in all directions from the big hole in the middle, through which Janet had gone down.
Teddy, who was skating as hard as he could, could not stop himself at once, but went on, straight for the hole through which his sister had slipped.
"Stop! Stop!" yelled Tom, waving his hands at Ted. "Stop!"
Ted tried to, digging the back point of his skate into the ice as he had seen other skaters do when they wanted to stop quickly. But he was going too fast to come to a halt soon enough, and it looked as though he, also, would go into the water.
"Fall down and slide! Fall down!" cried a bigger boy who had come over to see if his own little brother was all right on the pond.
Ted understood what this boy meant. By falling down on the ice and sliding, he would not go as fast, and he might stop before he got to the hole where the black water looked so cold and wet.
Flinging his feet from under him Ted dropped full length on the frozen pond, but still he felt himself sliding toward the hole. He could see Janet now. She was trying to stand up and she was crying and sobbing.