"Now we can build the big snow house!" cried Ted.

Just then the doorbell rang loudly.

CHAPTER XI

THE SNOW BUNGALOW

"Who's that?" asked Mrs. Martin, without thinking, for, of course, there was no way of telling who was at the door until it was opened.

"I'll go to see," offered Daddy Martin.

"Oh, maybe it's that queer lame boy," suggested Ted.

"Don't let him get away until you talk to him," cautioned Mother Martin.

"I'd like to know who he is."

"Whoever is there doesn't seem to be going to run away," remarked the Curlytops' father. "They're stamping the snow off their feet as if they intended to come in."

"Oh, I wonder if it could be _them_?" said Mrs. Martin questioningly.

"Who, Mother? Who do you think it is?" asked Jan, but her mother did not answer. She stood in the hall while her husband went to the door.

Outside could be heard the voices of people talking.

Then the door was opened by Mr. Martin, letting in a cloud of snowflakes and a blast of cold air that made the Curlytops shiver in the warm house.

"Well, here we are!" cried a jolly voice.

"Sort of a surprise!" some one else added; a woman's voice Jan decided.

The other was a man's.

"Well, how in the world did you get here at this time of night?" asked Daddy Martin in surprise. "Come right in out of the storm. We're glad to see you! Come in and get warm. It's quite a storm, isn't it?"

"Yes. And it's going to be worse," the man's voice said. "It's going to be a regular blizzard, I imagine."

"Oh, goodie!" murmured Ted.

"But who is it--who's come to see us so late at night?" asked Janet.

"Pooh! 'Tisn't late," said her brother. "Only a little after eight o'clock. Oh, it's Aunt Jo!" he cried a moment later as he caught sight of the lady's face when she took off her veil and shook from it the snowflakes.

"Yes, it's Aunt Jo, Curlytop!" cried the lady. "I'd hug you, only I'm wet. But I'll get dry in a minute and then I will. Where's my little Curlytop girl, and where's that dear bunch of Trouble?"

"Here I is!" cried Baby William, who had been awakened when the bell rang. He had been put on the couch by his mother, but now came toddling out into the hall. "Who is it?" he asked, rubbing his sleepy eyes.

"It's Aunt Jo!" cried Ted. "Aunt Jo's come to visit us for Thanksgiving.

Oh, I'm so glad!" and Teddy danced wildly about the room.

"And it's Uncle Frank, too!" cried Mother Martin. "You children don't know him as well as you do Aunt Jo, for you haven't seen him so often.

But here he is!"

"Is it Uncle Frank from out West where the cowboys and Indians live?"

asked Ted, stopping his dance to think of this new interest.

"That's who I am, young man!" answered the hearty voice of the man who had come through the storm with Aunt Jo. "As soon as I shake off this fur coat, which has as much snow on it as a grizzly bear gets on him when he plays tag in a blizzard, I'll have a look at you. There! It's off. Now where are the children with such curly hair? I want to see 'em!"

"Here they are," answered Daddy Martin. "They were just going to bed to get up good appet.i.tes for the Thanksgiving dinner to-morrow. But I guess we can let them stay up a little longer. We didn't expect you two until to-morrow."

"We both managed to get earlier trains than we expected," explained Aunt Jo.

"And we met each other at the Junction, without expecting to, and came on together," added Uncle Frank. "Thought we'd give you a surprise."

"Glad you did," returned Mr. Martin. "I was beginning to get afraid, if the storm kept up, that you wouldn't get here for Thanksgiving."

"Wouldn't have missed it for two dozen cow ponies and a wire fence thrown in!" laughed Uncle Frank, in his deep voice. "Now where's that curly hair?"

Jan and Ted, just a little bashful in the presence of their Western uncle, who did not often leave his ranch to come East, went forward.

Uncle Frank looked at them, ran his fingers through Ted's tightly curled hair and then cried:

"Oh, I'm caught!"

"What's the matter?" asked Aunt Jo with a laugh.

"My fingers are tangled in Ted's hair and I can't get them loose!" said Uncle Frank, pretending that his hand was held fast. "Say, I heard your hair was curly," he went on, after he had finally gotten his fingers loose, having made believe it was very hard work, "but I never thought it was like this. And Jan's, too! Why, if anything, hers is tighter than Ted's."

"Yes; we call them our Curlytops," said Mother Martin.

"And here's another. His hair isn't curly, though," went on Uncle Frank.

"What did you call him?"

"His name is William Anthony Martin," said Aunt Jo. "I know, for I picked out the name."

"But we call him Trouble," said Ted, who was looking eagerly at his big uncle from the West, hoping, perhaps, that he might bring out a gun or a bow and some arrows from the pockets of his fur overcoat. But Uncle Frank did nothing like that.

"Come out in the dining-room and have something to eat," invited Mr.

Martin.

"No, thank you. Miss Miller and I had supper before we came here,"

answered Uncle Frank. "We knew we'd be a little late. But we'll sit and talk a while."

"Mother, may Ted and I stay up and listen--a little bit?" begged Janet.

"Oh, yes, let them, do!" urged Aunt Jo. "It isn't so very late, and they don't have to go to school to-morrow. Besides if this storm keeps up all they can do is to stay in the house."

"We got big rubber boots, and we can go in deep drifts," explained Jan.