Excerpt
CHAPTER IA 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....