THANKSGIVING
"Look out, Teddy! Look out, or you'll fall in same as I did!"
This is what Janet Martin called to her brother as she saw him sliding toward her when she was in the pond where she had broken through the ice. She stopped crying and shivering from the icy water long enough to say that.
"Stop, Teddy! Stop!" she shouted.
"I'm tryin' to!" he answered. He pressed hard with his mittened hands on the smooth ice on which he had thrown himself. It was very slippery. He was sliding ahead feet first and he could lift up his head and look at his sister.
Luckily the water was not deep in the pond—hardly over Janet's knees—and when she had fallen through the ice she had managed to stand up. Her feet, with the skates still on them, were down in the soft mud and ooze of the pond, the bottom of which had not frozen.
"I can't stop!" yelled Teddy, and it did seem as though he would go into the water also. But he stopped just in time, far enough away from the hole to prevent his going through the ice, which had cracked in three or more places.
"Crawl back to shore!" yelled the big boy, named Ford Henderson, who had come to look after his own little brother, whom he found safe. "Crawl back to shore, Curlytop. Don't stand up, or you might fall down where the ice is thin and crack a hole in it. Crawl back to shore!"
"But I want to help Janet!" said Teddy, who was almost ready to cry himself, since he saw in what plight his sister Janet now was.
"I'll get her out!" called Ford.
Then, while Teddy slowly crawled back over the ice, which every now and then cracked a little, as if the whole frozen top of the pond were going to fall in, Ford, the big boy, not in the least minding his feet getting wet, ran to where Janet stood up in the hole. Ford broke through the ice also, but as he was quite tall the water did not even come to his knees.
"Don't cry. You'll be all right soon," said Ford in a kind voice to the little girl. "I'll take you home!"
Then, being strong, he lifted her up in his arms, skates and all, and, with the mud and water dripping from her feet while his own were soaking wet, the big boy ran toward the Martin home with Janet.
"You come along, too, Curlytop!" called Ford to Teddy. "If I bring in your sister, all wet from having fallen through the ice, your mother will be afraid you are drowned. Come along!"
So Teddy, quickly taking off his skates, Tom Taylor helping him, ran along beside Ford, who was carrying Janet. The other boys and girls who had run from the cracking ice in time to get off before they broke through, followed, so there was quite a procession coming toward the Martin house. Mrs. Martin, looking out of the window, saw it and, seeing Jan being carried by the big boy, guessed at once what had happened.
"Oh, my goodness!" she cried to Nora. "Jan has fallen through the ice. She'll be soaking wet and cold. Get some hot water ready, and I'll bring some blankets to warm. She must be given a hot bath and put to bed in warm clothes. Maybe Teddy is wet, too, or some of the others. Hurry, Nora!"
And Nora hurried as she never had before, so that by the time Ford had set Jan down in a chair by the stove in the kitchen and had helped Mrs. Martin take off her wet skates and shoes, the water was ready and Janet was given a hot foot bath.
"You must dry yourself, Ford," said Mrs. Martin. "I can't thank you enough for saving my little girl!"
"Oh, she was all right," answered Ford. "She stood up herself, because the water wasn't deep, and I just lifted her out of the mud. Ted did well, too, for he stopped himself from going into the hole."
"I was going to get Janet out," Teddy answered.
"I knew you would be a brave little boy when your sister was in danger," said Mrs. Martin. "Now here is some hot milk for you, Janet, and I guess you're old enough to have a little coffee, Ford. It will keep you from catching cold I hope."
"Couldn't he have some bread and jam with it, Mother?" asked Janet, as she sipped her warm drink. "Maybe he's hungry."
"Maybe he is!" laughed Mrs. Martin.
"Oh, don't bother!" exclaimed Ford.
But Mrs. Martin got it ready and Ford ate the bread and jam as though he liked it. So did Ted, and then Nora took some cookies out to the boys and girls from the pond who had gathered in front of the Martin home to talk about Janet's having gone through the ice and of how Ford had pulled her out of the mud.
Altogether there was a great deal of excitement, and many people in town talked about the Curlytops that night when the boys and girls went to their homes with the news.
"Some one ought to look after the ice on the little pond as well as on the lake when there is skating," said Mr. Martin, when he heard what had happened. "We want our little boys and girls to be safe as well as the larger ones. I'll see about it."
So he did, and after that, for the rest of the winter and each winter following, a man was sent to see how thick the ice on the little pond was, and if it would not hold up a big crowd of little boys and girls none was allowed on until it had frozen more thickly.
"But when are we going to build the big snow house?" asked Jan one night at supper, when she and Ted had played hard on the hill after school.
"You can't build it until there's more snow," said her mother. "You'll have to wait until another storm comes. I expect there'll be one soon, for Thanksgiving is next week, and we usually have a good snow then."
"Oh, is it Thanksgiving?" cried Ted. "What fun we'll have!"
"Is grandpa or grandma coming to see us this year?" asked Jan.
"No, they have to stay on Cherry Farm. I asked them to come, but grandpa says if there is going to be a blizzard, and any danger of his getting snowed in, he wants to be at home where he can feed the cows and horses."
"Aren't we going to have any company over Thanksgiving?" asked Ted.
"Well, maybe," and his mother smiled.
"Oh, somebody is coming!" cried Jan joyfully. "It's going to be a surprise, Ted! I can tell by the way mother laughs with her eyes!"
"Is it going to be a surprise?" Ted asked.
"Well, maybe," and Mrs. Martin laughed.
The weather grew colder as Thanksgiving came nearer. There were two or three flurries of snow, but no big storm, though Jan and Ted looked anxiously for one, as they wanted a big pile of the white flakes in the yard so they could make a snow house.
"We'll make the biggest one ever!" declared Ted. "And maybe we'll turn it into a fort and have an Indian fight!"
"I don't like Indian fights," said Janet.
"They'll only be make-believe," Ted went on. "Me an' Tom Taylor an' some of the fellows'll be the Indians."
But the big snow held off, though each morning, as soon as they arose from their beds, Jan and Ted would run to the window to look out to see if it had come in the night. There was just a little covering of white on the ground, and in some places, along the streets and the sidewalks, it had been shoveled away.
"Do you think it will snow for Thanksgiving?" asked the Curlytops again and again.
"Yes, I think so," their mother would answer.
Such busy times as there were at the Martin house! Mrs. Martin and Nora were in the kitchen most of each day, baking, boiling, frying, stewing and cooking in other ways. There was to be a pumpkin pie, of course—in fact two or three of them, as well as pies of mincemeat and of apple.
"There must be a lot of company coming," said Ted to Janet; "'cause they're bakin' an awful lot."
"Well, everybody eats a lot at Thanksgiving," said the little girl. "Only I hope we have snow and lots of company."
"Did you hear anything more about the lame boy and the missing pocketbook and money?" asked Mrs. Martin of her husband two or three days before Thanksgiving.
"No, not a thing," he answered. "He did not come back to the store, and we haven't found the lost money. I am hoping we shall, though, for, though I can't guess who the lame boy was, if he wasn't Hal, I wouldn't want to think any little chap would take what did not belong to him."
"Nor would I," said the Curlytops' mother.
The next afternoon something queer happened. Teddy and Janet had not yet come home from school, and Mrs. Martin and Nora were in the kitchen baking the last of the things for Thanksgiving and getting things ready to roast the big turkey which would come the next day.
The front doorbell rang and Mrs. Martin said:
"You'd better answer, Nora. My hands are covered with flour."
"And so is my nose," answered the maid with a laugh. "You look better to go to the front door than I do."
"Well, I guess I do," agreed Mrs. Martin with a smile. She paused to wipe her hands on a towel and then went through the hall. But when she opened the door no one was on the steps.
"That's queer," she said to herself, looking up and down the street. "I wonder if that could have been Teddy or Jan playing a joke." Then she looked at the clock and noticed that it was not yet time for the children to come home from school.
A man passing in the street saw Mrs. Martin gazing up and down the sidewalk.
"Are you looking for someone?" he asked.
"Well, someone just rang my bell," answered Mrs. Martin. "But I don't see anyone."
"I saw a lame boy go up on your veranda a few minutes ago," went on the man. "He stood there, maybe four or five seconds and then rang the bell. All at once he seemed frightened, and down he hurried off the steps and ran around the corner, limping."
"He did?" cried Mrs. Martin. "Why, how strange! Did he say anything to you?"
"No, I wasn't near enough, but I thought it queer."
"It is queer," agreed Mrs. Martin. "I wonder who he was, and if he is in sight now?"
She ran down the steps and hurried around the corner to look down the next street. But no boy, lame or not, was in sight.
"Maybe he was just playing a trick," said the man. "Though he didn't look like that kind of boy."
"No, I think it was no trick," answered the mother of the Curlytops, as she went back into the house.
"What was it?" asked Nora.
"A lame boy, but he ran away after ringing," answered Mrs. Martin. "I wonder if it could have been the boy who was at Mr. Martin's store, and who might know something about the stolen pocketbook, even if he did not take it. Perhaps he came to tell us something about it and, at the last minute, he was too frightened and ran away."
She told this to Mr. Martin when he came home, and he said it might be so.
"If it is," he went on, "that lame boy must be in town somewhere. I'd like to find him. I'll speak to the police. The poor boy may be in trouble."
The police promised to look for the lame boy and help him if he needed it. And then all else was forgotten, for a time, in the joys of the coming Thanksgiving.
The night before the great day, when the Curlytops were in the sitting-room after supper talking of the fun they would have, and when Trouble was going to sleep in his mother's lap, Daddy Martin went to the window to look out.
"It's snowing hard," he said.
"Oh, goodie!" laughed Jan.
"Now we can build the big snow house!" cried Ted.
Just then the doorbell rang loudly.