BERT WENT ABOUT, PRETENDING HE WAS A PULLMAN WAITER.

The Bobbsey Twins Keeping House. Frontispiece ([Page 140])

The Bobbsey Twins
Keeping House

BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF “THE BOBBSEY TWIN SERIES.”

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

Copyright 1925, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP

The Bobbsey Twins Keeping House

Contents

CONTENTS

THE BOBBSEY TWINS KEEPING HOUSE

CHAPTER I

DOWN IN A PIPE

“Now it’s Freddie’s turn!” called Nan Bobbsey. “Get ready to catch the ball,” and she motioned, showing that she was going to toss it to her small brother.

“No, I want to have it once more!” cried Flossie, who was Freddie’s twin sister. “Come on, Nan! Please throw it to me!” and she jumped up and down, her light, fluffy hair tossing about her head. It was cold out in the yard where the children were playing, and that is one reason why Flossie jumped up and down. Another reason was that she was excited about the ball game Nan had gotten up for the smaller twins. “Come on, toss it to me!” begged Flossie.

“But it isn’t your turn, dear!” objected Nan. “It’s Freddie’s turn. He wants to catch, too,” and she held the big rubber ball, looking at Flossie meanwhile.

“Oh, just one more turn for me!” Flossie begged, jumping up and down faster than ever.

“Oh, all right! Let her have it!” agreed Freddie, good-naturedly. “I’ll wait.”

“That’s kind of you,” said Nan. “All right, Flossie, you may have this next toss! Get ready!”

“One more turn for me!” sang Flossie gaily. “One more turn for me! Hurry up, Nan, please!”

Flossie stopped her jumping-jack movements, and with outstretched hands and shining eyes awaited the ball, which Nan tossed across an old flower bed. In the past summer bright blossoms had made this part of the garden very gay. But now, with winter coming on, the flowers had been killed by Jack Frost and the stalks were sear and brown.

“I got it!” cried Flossie. But she spoke a moment too soon, for the ball just touched the tips of her fingers, bounced off, and rolled across the frozen ground of the flower garden right to Freddie’s feet. He picked it up.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Flossie. She had so much wanted to catch the ball this last time, but she had missed it.

“You muffed!” cried Freddie. He had heard his older brother Bert speak like that when, in a real ball game, some boy failed to hold the ball. “You muffed it, Flossie!”

Then, seeing that there were tears in his twin sister’s eyes, Freddie did a very manly and generous thing.

“You can have another turn,” he said. “Toss it to Flossie again, Nan. I don’t mind waiting.”

“That’s nice of you, Freddie,” said Nan.

“Thank you!” cried Flossie, quickly “squeezing back” her tears. “I’ll give you some of my candy, Freddie!”

“Will you?” he exclaimed. “What kind is it, Flossie?”

“It isn’t any kind yet, ’cause I haven’t got it,” the little golden-haired girl explained as Nan took the ball from her small brother and got ready to throw it again. “But I mean, when I do get some candy I’ll give you a piece.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Freddie, somewhat disappointed. “Well, anyhow, you can have another turn to catch the ball.”

“Maybe if Nan should take us down town now she would buy us some candy,” went on Flossie, getting ready for this next attempt to catch the rubber ball. “Then I could give you some, Freddie.”

“Ho! Ho!” laughed Nan. “That’s a gentle hint, I suppose, Flossie, for me to take you after candy. But I’m afraid I can’t to-day. Now get ready. If you miss the ball this time it won’t be fair to make Freddie wait any longer.”

“I’ll catch it this time!” cried Flossie, and she did. Right in her hands she caught the bouncing rubber, and then she threw it back to Nan while Freddie got ready for his turns.

Meanwhile, Flossie danced about, waiting until the ball would again come to her. Flossie was a lively little girl—always dancing, running, singing, or doing something. And Freddie was about the same. In fact, the Bobbsey twins were a lively set of youngsters.

Freddie had caught the ball four times and Nan was getting ready to toss it to him for the fifth when a whistle was heard around the corner of the house.

“Here comes Bert!” cried Flossie, and she darted off to meet her older brother. Bert was Nan’s twin and these two were a few years older than the smaller Bobbsey twins.

“Maybe Bert will want to play ball,” suggested Freddie, as he caught the rubber sphere for the fifth time, making a perfect score for him.

“We’ll see,” replied Nan.

But when Bert came whistling around the corner of the house, Flossie holding him by one hand, he seemed to have something else in mind than playing toss-ball with his smaller brother and sister.

“You can’t guess what I know!” he called, swinging Flossie around in a circle by her two hands, her feet flying off the ground.

“Have you got candy?” the little girl demanded, when Bert had set her down.

“Candy? No!” he laughed. “But there’s a new horse in our garage.”

“A horse in our garage!” cried Nan. “Do you mean a runaway?”

“No, he isn’t running away—he’s just standing there,” Bert answered, with a grin.

“How did a horse get in our garage?” asked Flossie.

“A man put it there,” Bert answered.

“Oh, I don’t believe you!” exclaimed Nan.

“A horse couldn’t get in our garage!” added Freddie.

“Why not?” Bert wanted to know. “It’s big enough—our garage is. And, anyhow, it used to be a stable with horses in it before daddy made it over for automobiles. Of course a horse could be in our garage.”

“Well, maybe it could,” admitted Nan. “But what’s the horse doing there?”

“Just standing still.”

“Is he eating?” Flossie wanted to know.

Bert thought this over for a moment before he answered:

“No, the horse isn’t eating.”

There was something in her brother’s voice that made Nan look at him sharply. Then she cried:

“Look here, Bert Bobbsey, there’s something queer about this! What kind of a horse is it?”

Before Bert could answer Freddie asked:

“Has the horse four legs?”

“Yes, indeed, it has four legs! I’m sure of that for I just counted them!” and Bert seemed so very positive on this point that Nan didn’t know what to think.

“Come on and I’ll show you the horse if you don’t believe me,” offered Bert, moving off toward the garage.

All thoughts of keeping on with the ball game were now forgotten by Flossie and Freddie. They were eager to see the strange horse in their father’s garage. Nan could not imagine how the animal could have been put there.

“But maybe one of the store wagons broke and they had to leave the horse in our garage until they get the wagon fixed,” she thought to herself.

Into the garage ran the Bobbsey twins, Flossie and Freddie merrily laughing, Bert with a queer look on his face, and Nan ready for almost anything.

“Where’s the horse?” demanded Freddie, entering first and looking around.

“I don’t see any horse,” added Flossie, who had closely followed her small brother.

“There it is!” exclaimed Bert.

He pointed to a carpenter’s sawhorse in one corner of the building.

For a moment the smaller children looked at it in surprise. Then Freddie burst out laughing.

“Oh, ho! A sawhorse! A sawhorse!” he exclaimed.

“But it has got four legs—one, two, three, four!” counted Flossie. “Oh, isn’t it funny! I thought you meant a real horse, Bert.”

“So did I!” said Freddie.

“And I did, too, for a little while,” admitted Nan. “But pretty soon I thought it must be a joke. And I don’t think it’s a very good joke, either, Bert Bobbsey, so there!”

“Well, let’s see you think of a better joke!” laughed Nan’s twin brother. “Ha! Ha! I had you all fooled! It’s a sawhorse, and you all thought it was a real horse! Oh, ho!”

“I can get on the back of this sawhorse,” announced Freddie. “Look at me!” He ran toward the wooden thing.

“Don’t fall!” cautioned Nan. But this Freddie almost did in climbing up on the sawhorse, which was rather a high one. Bert caught him just in time.

“How did it get here?” Freddie asked, when he was seated on the back of the “animal.”

“The carpenters have been working here, and they left it,” Bert explained. “When I saw it I thought it would be a good joke to make believe it was a real horse. And I fooled all of you!”

Nan was going to say again that she had not been fooled very much when Flossie, looking out of the window, cried:

“Oh, it’s snowing! It’s snowing!”

“Is it? Really?” Freddie wanted to know. “Are you fooling like Bert was with the sawhorse, Flossie?”

“No, it’s really snowing!” the little girl answered.

“Oh, hurray! I want to see it!” cried Freddie, and he was in such a hurry to descend from the back of the sawhorse that this time he fell in real earnest. However, as there was a pile of shavings on the floor, left there by the carpenters, Freddie fell into them and was not hurt at all. But he was covered with the shavings.

However, Nan picked him up and brushed him off, and then he ran to the window out of which the others were looking.

“It really is snowing!” said Nan.

“Looks as if it would last, too,” added Bert.

“Oh, can I have my sled out?” begged Flossie.

“I want mine, too!” chimed in Freddie. “Oh, I’m so glad it’s winter and we’re going to have ice and snow! Come on, let’s go sleigh-riding! Hurray!”

“Don’t be in such a rush,” advised Bert. “There’ll have to be more snow than this before you can use your sleds.”

“But quite a lot has fallen, and it’s still snowing hard,” said Nan. “It must have started soon after we came in here.”

The twins had been in the garage some little time, laughing and talking about Bert’s joke and playing on the carpenter’s sawhorse, and in that period the ground had been whitened with the flurry of flakes.

“I’m going out and see how deep it is,” announced Freddie.

Before either Nan or Bert could stop him, if they had wanted to, the little fellow went to a side door of the garage and, opening this, rushed out. But he did not go far.

Right at the door a new drain was being put in. A large sewer pipe was set upright in the ground. Work around it was not yet finished, and that was why the side door had been closed.

But Freddie opened it. Then he slipped on the newly fallen snow and a moment later disappeared down the drain pipe!

CHAPTER II

A BROKEN WINDOW

For a moment following Freddie’s accident there was silence. Even the little fellow himself was so frightened that he forgot to cry out. But a second or two later he found his voice and set up a series of yells.

“Oh! Oh! Get me out! Help me, Bert!” he begged.

“Oh, Freddie, you poor boy!” gasped Nan.

“Is he dead? Will we ever get him up?” Flossie wanted to know, and she burst into tears.

“Yes! Yes! I’ll get him out! He can’t fall any farther!” shouted Bert. “I’ll lift him out in a minute! You’re all right, Freddie,” he went on. “Don’t cry any more!”

“I am not all right!” wailed the little chap. “I’m down in a pipe! How can I—be all—all right—when I’m in a pipe?”

He was crying and Flossie was sobbing. Nan did not know what to do.

Bert, however, seemed to know what he was about. He hurried to the edge of the drain pipe, down which his small brother had slipped, and began to consider the best way to get Freddie out.

And while Bert is doing that I shall take just a moment to tell my new readers something about the four children. They were first introduced to you in the book called “The Bobbsey Twins,” and in that you read about Mr. Richard Bobbsey and his wife, Mary, who lived in the eastern city of Lakeport on Lake Metoka. Mr. Bobbsey owned a lumberyard there.

There were two sets of twins. Bert and Nan were the older. They had dark brown hair and brown eyes. Flossie and Freddie had light hair and blue eyes. Thus the Bobbsey twins were quite a contrast, and when the four walked down the street together more than one person turned to look at them.

The children had good times and many adventures. They went to the country, to the seashore, and of course attended school. Once they visited Snow Lodge and were storm-bound. They had traveled on the deep blue sea, gone out West, spent some time in Cedar Camp, and had gone through some exciting times at a county fair. They had also camped out.

The book just before this one is called “The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May,” and tells how they found a strange little baby and what happened to it.

Now winter was coming on again, and the children counted on having more fun. Bert had played his joke about the sawhorse, and then had followed Freddie’s fall down the drain pipe.

“Can you get him up?” asked Nan anxiously.

“Sure I can!” Bert answered. “You stand over there, Nan, on the other side of him. Reach down in the pipe and put your hand under Freddie’s left arm.”

Nan did this while Bert did the same thing on the other side. The drain pipe was about as large as Freddie’s body. He had slid into it feet first, and his hands were down at his sides. The pipe was not large enough for him to lift his hands over the edge, or he might have pushed himself out.

But with Bert and Nan to lift him, he was soon pulled from the drain, more vexed than hurt. Though it was found later that he had skinned one shin rather painfully.

“There you are!” cried Bert, as he and Nan set their little brother on his feet out on the snow-covered ground. “You are all right, Freddie. And don’t go jumping down any more pipes!”

“I didn’t jump down!” declared the little fellow, with some indignation. “I slipped in!”

“You went in so quick,” observed Flossie, “it was as if the sawhorse kicked you in, wasn’t it, Freddie?”

“Yes, it was,” he said, and then he laughed. So did Bert and Nan. A moment later, however, a look of pain passed over Freddie’s face and he put one hand down on his left shin.

“What’s the matter?” Nan asked.

“My leg hurts!”

“Maybe it’s broken,” suggested Flossie.

“How could I walk if my leg was broken?” the little boy demanded, and he strutted about, though he limped a little.

“Let me look,” suggested Bert, and when he had pulled down Freddie’s stocking they all saw that the shin had been skinned and was bleeding slightly. It had been scraped on the edge of the drain pipe.

“Oh, look!” cried Flossie. “He’s got the nose bleed on his leg!”

Freddie had been going to cry at the sight of the blood. But when Flossie said this in such a funny way he laughed, and so did Bert and Nan.

“We’d better take him in the house and fix his leg,” said Bert to his twin.

“Yes,” Nan agreed.

“Can’t I go sleigh-riding?” Freddie wanted to know. “Look how nice it’s snowing!”

The white flakes were, indeed, swirling down faster than ever. For the first snow of the season, it was quite a storm, and the ground was now covered with the soft flakes.

“Oh, my dear, what has happened?” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw Freddie, covered with snow, limping toward the house, escorted by Nan, Bert and Flossie.

“I—I fell in a pipe!” Freddie answered.

“A pipe? What sort of game were you playing?” his mother wanted to know.

“It wasn’t a game,” said Bert, and then he explained.

Freddie’s leg felt better after his mother had bandaged it with some soothing salve, and then he was allowed to go out and play in the snow on his sled with Flossie.

Bert had thought the snow would not amount to much, but a little later he, too, got out his sled.

Nan did likewise, and the Bobbsey twins and some of their friends had a jolly time on a little coasting hill not far from the house.

“Winter’s come pretty early this year,” said Charlie Mason, one of Bert’s chums, as the two boys went down the hill together, bobsled fashion.

“Yes,” agreed Bert. “We’ll have a lot of fun at school to-morrow, making a snow fort. That is, if the snow doesn’t melt.”

But there was plenty of snow on the ground when the children awakened the next morning, though the storm had stopped and the sun was shining.

“I hope the sun doesn’t melt all the snow,” sighed Flossie, as she got ready to accompany her twin brother to school. They were in a lower class than Bert and Nan, but the smaller twins generally walked along with the older brother or sister.

It was when the Bobbsey twins were almost at school that John Marsh, a boy of about Bert’s age, came running around the corner of the street. John seemed rather out of breath and excited.

“What’s the matter?” asked Bert.

“Oh, that Danny Rugg and Sam Todd are pegging snowballs at me,” said John. “I wouldn’t mind soft ones, but they’re using hard balls. And they’re two to one—Sam and Danny both pegged at me.”

“That isn’t fair!” cried Bert. “They ought to fight square—even on both sides—and with soft balls. Come on, I’ll help you!”

Together the two lads went back and around the corner to the street where Danny and his rather mischievous crony were standing, leaving Nan to go with Flossie and Freddie on to school.

“Hi! There’s John again!” yelled Sam Todd, as he caught sight of the boy who had run away.

“Soak him!” shouted Danny Rugg.

But a moment later the two little bullies, for that is what they were, caught sight of Bert Bobbsey with John and the hands they had raised to throw the hard snowballs fell back at their sides.

“Hello, Danny!” called Bert, for they were on somewhat friendly terms.

“Hello,” said Danny, not very cheerfully.

“Do you want to snowball fight?” demanded Sam Todd.

“No, not now,” Bert answered. “But, anyhow, when you do fight you ought to use soft balls, and not two of you fellows go for one.”

“We didn’t use hard balls!” Danny declared.

“You did so!” cried John. “And you both pegged at me at once!”

“Aw, well, it was only in fun,” grumbled Danny. Now that Bert had joined John the odds were against the bullies, for Sam Todd was not a very large lad. “We’ll fight you after school if you like,” went on Danny. “Hard balls or soft balls, and the same number on each side.”

“And we’ll lick you, too!” boasted Sam.

“We’ll see about that!” laughed Bert. “I don’t know if I want a snowball fight or not. But I’m not going to throw any now, I know that. It’s too near the school,” for the boys had been walking along as they talked.

“We aren’t within a block yet,” declared Danny. “It’s only against the rule to throw snowballs within a block of the school,” and he rounded in his hands a ball he had been making.

“I’m not scared to throw one now,” declared Sam, and he tossed a ball at a signboard, hitting it a resounding whack.

“Neither am I!” exclaimed Danny, and he also threw. As he did so Bert and John saw something on Danny’s finger gleaming golden in the sun. The flash seemed to remind Danny of an important matter, for he held up his right hand and cried: “Look at that! Isn’t that a peach? It’s a new gold ring I got for my birthday.”

“You’re lucky,” remarked Bert, as Danny held the ring out to be admired.

“I guess I am,” boasted Danny. “No fellow in our school has a valuable gold ring like that! My father gave it to me.”

“I should think you wouldn’t like to wear it for fear you might lose it,” remarked John.

“Naw, I won’t lose it,” drawled Danny. “Go on, Bert!” he cried. “I dare you to throw a snowball at the signboard. You can’t throw as straight as I did!”

“Yes, I can!” said Bert, who did not like this said of him.

“Go on! Let’s see you!” cried Sam Todd.

As the lads were still more than a block away from the school, they could, without breaking the rule, throw snowballs.

Accordingly, Bert and John tossed a few, and Bert made much better shots than did either Danny or Sam, though John did not do so well.

“That’s because I ran and got out of breath when you two were pegging hard balls at me,” he said to the two bullies.

“Aw, we were only in fun,” Danny said.

“Two to one isn’t fair, though,” cried Bert.

“Well, you’re two now—do you want to fight?” asked Sam, who seemed eager for a battle in the snow.

Before Bert or John could answer the clanging of a bell sounded on the clear, frosty air, and Nan Bobbsey, who came through a side street with Flossie and Freddie, cried:

“That’s the next to the last bell! You’d better hurry if you don’t want to be late, Bert!”

“All right, I’m hurrying,” he said.

Even Danny Rugg, bold as he sometimes was, did not seem inclined to break the school rule and throw balls within the block limit set by Mr. Tarton, the principal. However, he still held one of the white missiles in his hand. This he tossed up and down, catching it before it had time to reach the ground. Danny’s new, gold birthday ring sparkled in the sun.

“Let me wear that ring of yours sometime, will you, Danny?” asked Sam, as he walked on beside his crony.

“Maybe,” was the answer.

“And if Bert and his crowd want to have a snowball fight after school,” went on Sam in a low voice, “I know where I can find a lot of horse-chestnuts.”

“What good’ll horse-chestnuts be in a snowball fight?” Danny wanted to know.

Sam looked around to make sure no one would hear him, then he said:

“We can put a horse-chestnut inside a soft snowball and make it sting like anything when it hits! I can get a lot of ’em. Shall I?”

“Maybe,” agreed Danny. He was a bully, but not quite as mischievous as was Sam.

On toward the school hurried the boys and girls. The echoes of the next to the last bell were ringing in their ears.

“Better get rid of our snowballs, I guess,” said Bert to John, as they crossed the street which would put them within one block of the school. “Mr. Tarton might see us.”

“That’s right,” agreed John. “Chuck your balls away, fellows!” he called. “We’re within a block.” He got rid of his own sphere of snow and Bert tossed his to one side. Several of the other boys who were near did likewise.

Then, suddenly, there was a crash of glass and the pupils looking up in startled amazement, saw that a snowball had gone through one of the beautiful stained-glass windows in a church near the school. A large piece was broken out from the window picture.

“Oh! Oh!” yelled many voices.

“Who broke the window?” cried the girls and boys.

Then, as the last bell began to ring, they all began to run so they would not be late.

CHAPTER III

THE LOST RING

Into the lower halls and corridors of the school poured the children. The last bell was still clanging, and they would not be marked late if they reached their classrooms before the last peal. The bell would ring for several minutes yet.

On all sides, as the boys and girls hurried in, could be heard talks and gasps of astonishment, not unmixed with fear, about the breaking of the church window.

“Oh, did you see it?”

“Did you hear it?”

“Didn’t it make a big crash!”

“What’ll the church people say?”

“I guess that window must ’a’ cost a thousand dollars!”

“Who did it?”

This last question was the one most often asked.

But no one seemed to know, or, if any one did, he or she was not telling about it. Nan hurried with Flossie and Freddie to their classroom, and then she hastened back toward her own. Bert was in Nan’s room, and, seeing her brother just before she entered the door, Nan whispered:

“Bert, did you break the church window?”

“No,” he answered, “I didn’t. Of course I didn’t do it!”

“Do you know who did it?”

Bert did not answer for a second or two. For the moment he and Nan were by themselves, just outside their classroom door. Then Bert looked down the corridor and saw Danny Rugg and Sam Todd coming along.

“Do you know who did it?” repeated Nan.

“Maybe I do,” Bert answered slowly. “And maybe I don’t,” he added, as Nan gave a gasp of surprise. “Anyhow, I’m not going to tell.”

That was all there was time to say. The last bell was giving its final strokes, and Bert and his sister hurried to their seats. Danny and Sam, with other boys and girls, also hastened in to their room; and then came silence, for they were not, of course, allowed to whisper in class.

The pupils had been sitting quietly a minute or two when an electric bell in the room rang. This was the signal for the children to march to the big assembly hall where the morning exercises were held.

“Attention!” called Miss Skell, who taught Bert and Nan. “Rise! Turn! March!”

There was the tramping of a hundred feet and the children were on their way to the auditorium.

It was at the close of the exercises, after the Bible reading and the singing of patriotic songs, that the principal, Mr. James Tarton, stepped to the edge of the platform and said:

“Boys and girls, I have an unpleasant announcement to make. I am very sorry to have to speak of it. But an accident happened this morning. Perhaps some of you may know what it was.”

By the gasps and murmurs that ran through the room it was easy to tell that a number of the pupils knew about what the principal was going to speak.

“Some one—a boy I think it must have been, for I doubt if a girl could throw so hard and straight. Some boy broke the rule about snowballing within a block of the school,” went on Mr. Tarton, “and threw a ball, or a chunk of ice, against one of the stained-glass windows of the church. The window was broken, and of course must be paid for. It is only right that the boy who broke it should pay for it. Now I am going to ask the boy who threw the snowball against the church window to be man enough to stand up and admit it. He will not be punished if he frankly confesses, but of course he or his father will have to pay for the broken glass.”

Mr. Tarton stopped speaking and waited. It grew very still and quiet in the room. If any one had dropped a pin it could have been heard in the farthest corner. But no one dropped a pin. Nor did any one speak. Nor did any boy stand up to say he had broken the window.

The silence continued. The teachers, sitting in a row back of Mr. Tarton on the platform, looked at the faces of the boys and girls in front of them.

“Well,” said the principal in a low voice, “I am waiting.”

Still no one got up. Some of the boys and girls began to shift uneasily in their seats and shuffled their feet. They were getting what an older person would call “nervous.”

“It does not seem,” went on Mr. Tarton, “that the boy who broke the window is going to be man enough to own up to it. I dislike to do this, but I must ask if any one here knows anything about it. I mean did any of you see any one throw a snowball at the church window?”

There was a further silence, but only for a few seconds. Then up went the hand of Sam Todd. Some of the girls gasped loudly, seeming to guess what was coming next.

“Well, Sammie,” said Mr. Tarton kindly, “what do you know about breaking the church window? Did you do it?”

“No, sir!”

“Do you know who did?”

“Yes, sir!”

More gasps of surprise.

“Who broke the window?” asked the principal.

“Bert Bobbsey!” said Sam in a firm voice, and Nan was so excited that she cried out:

“Oh!”

Nor did the principal or any of the teachers scold her. But Bert was not one to sit quietly and be falsely accused. In an instant he was on his feet, raising his hand that he might get permission to speak.

“Well, Bert,” said Mr. Tarton quietly.

“I didn’t break that window!” cried the Bobbsey lad. “I didn’t even throw a snowball toward it. I didn’t do it at all!” His face was very red.

“Sammie, did you actually see Bert Bobbsey throw a snowball at the stained-glass window and break it?” asked Mr. Tarton, and his voice was stern.

“No, sir, I didn’t really see him break the window,” Sam replied. “But I saw a snowball in his hand. I saw him raise his hand to throw the snowball, and right after that I heard the glass crack. Bert Bobbsey did it!”

“I did not!” exclaimed Bert.

“Quiet! That will do!” the principal called, raising his hand for silence. “We will not go further into the matter here. Bert, come to my office after school, and you also, Sam. We will talk about the broken window then. The classes will now go to their own rooms.”

The teacher at the piano began to play a lively march, but there was not much spring in the steps of Bert and Nan Bobbsey as they filed back to Miss Skell’s room. Bert was hurt and indignant that Sam should accuse him of breaking the window. Nan, too, felt sure that her brother had not done it.

“Don’t let him scare you, Bert!” whispered Charlie Mason, one of Bert’s best chums, to the Bobbsey lad in the corridor. “We know you didn’t do it.”

Of course it was against the rule for Charlie to whisper thus in the hall, but he was not caught at it. Bert was glad his chum had spoken to him.

“Now, children,” said Miss Skell, when her pupils were again in their seats, “we are going to forget all about the broken church window. Mr. Tarton will attend to that. And please forget that Bert has been mentioned as doing it.

“I, for one,” and Miss Skell smiled down at the blushing Bobbsey boy, “don’t believe Bert would do such a thing. I think Sammie must be mistaken. Now we shall go on with our lessons.”

Neither Danny nor Sam were in the room with Bert and Nan, and for this the two Bobbseys were glad. Sam and his crony were in the same grade with Bert and Nan, but, because of its size, the class recited in two different rooms under separate teachers.

It took a little time for the class to quiet down after the unusual excitement, but at length the recitations were proceeded with.

It was when Bert and Nan were hurrying home at the noon recess with Flossie and Freddie that Nan said to her brother:

“Who broke that window, Bert? If you know you ought to tell, especially since they say you did it.”

“Nobody says I did it except that sneak, Sam Todd, and he isn’t telling the truth!” exclaimed her twin.

“Do you know who did it?” persisted Nan. Flossie and Freddie had run on a little way ahead to play with children from their own class, and did not hear what the two older Bobbseys were saying.

“I’m not sure,” answered Bert, looking about to make certain no one was near enough to catch what he said, “I didn’t actually see him throw the snowball, but I believe Danny Rugg broke that window.”

“Oh, Bert, do you, really?” gasped Nan.

“I sure do! I can’t prove it, for I didn’t see him. But he had a snowball in his hand and he chucked it away when he was near the church. And right after that the window broke. But I’m not going to tell.”

“Oh, Bert, maybe you ought to! Do you remember the time Mr. Ringley’s shoe store window was broken?”

“Yes,” answered Bert, “I remember that time.”

“They said you did that,” went on Nan. “But afterward old Mr. Roscoe said he saw Danny Rugg throw the chunk of ice that broke the window. And when Danny found out Mr. Roscoe had seen him, then Danny owned up that he did it. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes, he broke Mr. Ringley’s window,” admitted Bert, speaking of something that happened in the first book of this series, “The Bobbsey Twins.” In that volume you meet Danny Rugg as a bad boy, who was very unfriendly toward Nan and Bert. Then, after a fight, Danny seemed to have reformed, and he became a better boy.

“He’s as bad as ever—breaking windows and things like that!” went on Nan.

“We don’t know for sure that he did it,” cautioned Bert.

“It would be just like him to do it!” declared Nan. “Are you going to tell mother?”

“Sure!”

And when Mrs. Bobbsey heard what had happened she advised Bert to speak nothing but the truth and not to accuse Danny unless he was sure that lad had broken the window.

“That’s the trouble,” sighed Bert. “I can’t be sure, but I feel pretty certain that Danny did it.”

“It will all come out right,” his mother told him. “And of course you must not say that you broke the window if you didn’t. Mr. Tarton is too fair a man to let you be accused without good proof.”

And it was not very good proof that Sam Todd could give when later in the day he and Bert went to the principal’s office. Sam told his story over again.

“Yes,” Bert admitted, “I did have some snowballs in my hand. Danny Rugg and Sam had been throwing at John Marsh, and he ran to where I was. I was going to help John fight, but there wasn’t any need. And I tossed away my snowballs before I got within a block of the school.”

“So did I,” said Sam. “And I think I saw you throw yours at the church window, Bert. Maybe you didn’t mean to break it, but you did.”

“No, I didn’t!” insisted Bert stoutly.

“I think we had better have Danny Rugg in here to see what he knows about it,” suggested Mr. Tarton. “It would not be fair to punish Bert on just your say-so, Sammie. You might be honestly mistaken. Go out and see if you can find Danny and bring him in here.”

But there was no need to go after Danny Rugg. Just as Sam was leaving the principal’s office Danny came hurrying in, much excited.

“Oh, oh, Mr. Tarton!” he exclaimed.

“What is it?” asked the head of the school. And Bert found himself wondering whether Danny was going to confess having broken the stained-glass window of the church.

“Oh, Mr. Tarton!” gasped Danny. “I’ve lost my gold ring! My birthday ring is gone!” and he held up his hand. No longer did the gold band glitter on it.

CHAPTER IV

BAD NEWS

Mr. Tarton had not been principal of the Lakeport school a number of years without knowing how to deal with the boys and girls.

He was used to all kinds of excitement, having girls fall downstairs and stopping boys from fighting. And often the pupils lost things in school. So the news that Danny had lost his ring did not startle Mr. Tarton very much.

“Well, that’s too bad, Danny,” said the principal. “I’m sorry about your ring. I’ll announce before the school to-morrow that you have lost it, and perhaps some one has found it. What kind of ring was it?”

“A birthday ring.”

“Yes, I know. But was it gold or silver and did it have a stone in it?”

“It was gold, and all carved. It didn’t have any stone in it, but on top it had the letters of my name—D. R. For Danny Rugg, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” returned the principal, while Bert looked at Danny and Sam rather soberly. For Bert did not like being accused of having broken the window when he had not even thrown at it, and he thought Danny should be man enough to own up that he did it.

“I was just going to send for you, Danny, to ask you about the broken church window,” the principal went on. “But finish telling me about your ring, so I will know what to say when school starts to-morrow.”

“Well, I had my ring on when I came to school this morning,” Danny said. “And just now, when I was going home—I was waiting outside for Sam,” he explained. “Just now I saw it wasn’t on my finger. I went back in my classroom to look for it, but it wasn’t there.”

“Very likely you dropped it somewhere around the school,” said Mr. Tarton. “I will inquire about it. But now as to this broken window. Sam says he thinks Bert did it.”

“But I didn’t!” burst out Bert Bobbsey.

“Just a moment, please, Bert,” said Mr. Tarton, in a low voice. “Did you see Bert break the window, Danny?”

“No, sir, I—now—I didn’t exactly see him break it,” answered Danny slowly. “But I saw him have a snowball in his hand.”

“You had one yourself!” cried Bert. “And so did Sam!”

“I didn’t throw it at the church, though!” Sam cried.

“Neither did I!” declared Bert.

Danny said nothing, but he did not look at Bert.

The principal questioned the boys for a long time, but he could learn nothing more. Sam stuck to it that Bert had broken the window, and though Danny did not actually say so, it was easy to see that he wanted Sam’s story to be believed. And of course Bert said he did not break the stained glass.

“Well, Bert, do you know who broke the window?” asked Mr. Tarton, at last.

For a moment the Bobbsey boy was silent. Then in a low voice he said:

“Yes, sir, I think I know who did it. But I’m not going to tell.”

Danny Rugg’s face grew rather red at this, and he seemed very much interested in looking at something outside the window.

“Well,” said Mr. Tarton, at length, “I can’t make you tell, Bert, and I don’t know that I want to. I hope that the boy who broke the window will be man enough to confess and pay for it. Meanwhile, we shall let the matter rest. You boys may go.”