"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 pa.s.sing 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.