So he and his sister sat very quietly while his mother thought of all the things that might be possible for a little boy and girl and their baby brother to do when they had to stay in the house.

"I have it!" cried Mrs. Martin at last.

"Something for us to play?" asked Janet.

"Yes. How would you like to play steamboat and travel to different countries?"

"Not real?" cried Ted, with a look at the snow outside.

"Oh, no, not _real_, of course," said his mother, with a smile. "But you can go up in the attic, and take the old easy chair that isn't any good for sitting in any more. You can turn that over on the floor and make believe it's a steamboat. In that you and Jan and Baby William can pretend to travel to different countries. You can say the floor is the ocean and you can take some blocks of wood to make the islands, and if any one steps in the make-believe water he'll get his feet wet."

"Make-believe wet," laughed Teddy.

"That's it," his mother agreed with a laugh. "Now run along up and play, and then you won't think about the snow and the storm. And before you know it--why, it will be night and time to go to bed and in the morning the storm may be over and you can be out."

"Come on!" cried Jan to her brother.

"Wait a minute," he said, standing still in the middle of the room, while Trouble, who seemed to know that something was going on different from usual, jumped up and down, crying:

"We hab some fun! We hab some fun!"

"But you mustn't jump like that up in the attic," said his mother, shaking her finger at him. "If you do you'll rattle the boards and maybe make the plaster fall."

"Do you mean the plaster like the kind I had on when I was sick?" asked Jan.

"No, my dear, I mean the plaster on the ceiling," said her mother.

"Well, Teddy, why don't you go along and play the game I told you about?" she asked, as she saw the little boy still standing in the middle of the sitting-room. "Play the steamboat game with the old chair.

The chair will be the ship, and you can take the old spinning wheel to steer with, and maybe there's a piece of stovepipe up there that you can use for a smokestack. Only, for mercy's sake, don't get all black, and don't let Trouble get black."

"Come on, Ted!" cried his sister to him.

"I was just thinkin'," he said thoughtfully. "Say, Mother, don't folks get hungry when they're on a ship?"

"I guess so, Ted."

"And even on a make-believe one?"

"Well, yes, I suppose they do. But you can make believe eat if you get make-believe hungry."

"But what if we get _really_ hungry?" asked Teddy. "I'm that way now, almost. Couldn't we have something real to eat on the make-believe steamboat, Mother?"

Mrs. Martin laughed.

"Why, yes, I suppose you could," she answered. "You children go on up to the attic and get the old chair ready to play steamboat, and I'll see what I can find to bring up to you to eat."

"Now we can have some fun!" cried Ted, and he no longer looked out of the window at the snow, and wished he could be in it playing, even though that was not exactly good for him.

Up the stairs trooped the Curlytops, followed by Trouble, who grunted and puffed as he made his way, holding to the hem of Jan's dress.

"What's the matter, Trouble?" asked Jan, turning around.

"Maybe he's making believe he's climbing a mountain," said Ted. "You always have to breathe hard when you do that."

"Did you ever climb a mountain?"

"No, but I ran up a hill once," answered her brother, "and that made my breath come as fast as anything. I guess that's what Trouble is doing."

"No, I is _not_!" exclaimed the little boy, who heard what his sister and brother were saying about him. "I 'ist is swimmin', like I did at Cherry Farm," he said. "I play I is in the water."

"I guess he's ready to play steamboat, all right," laughed Jan. "Come along, little fat Trouble!" she called, and she helped him get up the last of the steps that led to the attic.

The children found an old easy chair. It was one Mr. Martin had made some years before, and was a folding one. It had a large frame, and could be made higher and lower by putting a cross bar of wood in some niches. The seat of the chair was made of a strip of carpet, but this had, long ago, worn to rags and the chair had been put in the attic until some one should find time to mend it. But this time never seemed to come.

Often, before, Ted, Jan and Trouble had played steamboat with it. They laid it down flat, and then raised up the front legs and the frame part that fitted into the back legs. These two parts they tied together and could move it back and forth, while they made believe the carpet part of the chair was the deck of the boat.

"All aboard!" called Janet, as Teddy laid the chair down on the floor.

"Wait a minute!" called her brother.

"What for?" Janet wanted to know.

"'Cause I haven't got the steerin' wheel fixed. I got to get that, else the boat will go the wrong way. Wait until I get the old spinning wheel for a steerer."

Up in the attic, among many other things, was an old spinning wheel, that used to belong to Mrs. Martin's mother's mother--that is the great-grandmother of the Curlytops. The spinning part of the wheel had been broken long before, but the wheel itself would go around and it would make something to steer with, just as on the real large steamers, Ted thought.

The spinning wheel was put in front of the chair steamboat, and then Jan got on "board," as it is called.

"Wait for me!" cried Trouble, who was hunting in a corner of the attic for something with which to have some fun.

"Oh, I won't forget you," laughed Jan, and then all three of the children were ready for the trip across the make-believe ocean.

They crowded together on the carpet deck of the chair boat while Ted twirled the wheel and Jan moved the legs back and forth as if they were the engine. Trouble cried "Toot! Toot!" he being the whistle, and they rode about--at least they pretended they did--and had lots of fun, stopping at wooden islands to pick cocoanuts and oranges from make-believe trees.

"Here comes mother with something real to eat!" cried Teddy, after a bit, and up to the attic did come Mrs. Martin with some mola.s.ses cookies. The children had lots of fun eating these and playing, and before they knew it, night had come, bringing supper and bedtime.

Toward evening of the second day it stopped snowing, and the next day was quite warm, so that when Ted and Jan went out to play a bit in the snow before going to school, Ted found that the white flakes would make fine s...o...b..a.l.l.s.

"Oh, it packs dandy!" he cried. "We can make the snow man this afternoon!" and he threw a s...o...b..ll at Nicknack's stable, hitting the side of it with a bang.

"Yes, this will make a good snow man," said Tom after school, when he and Ted tried rolling the large b.a.l.l.s. "We'll make a regular giant!"

And they started at it, first rolling a big ball which was to be the body of the snow man.

CHAPTER VII

A STRANGE BEDFELLOW