"How would hide the bean bag be?" asked Aunt Jo.

"We haven't any bean bag," replied Teddy. "We had one, but Trouble threw it in the hedge and we can't find it."

"Well, I can easily make one," said Aunt Jo, and this she quickly did, getting beans from the kitchen, and sewing a bag from a piece of cloth from the rag-bag.

"Now we'll let Trouble hide the bag first," said Aunt Jo, "as he hasn't had much fun this last hour. You take the bag of beans, Trouble dear, and hide it anywhere you like. Only you must remember where you put it, so when we give up, if we can't find it, you can get it to hide again."

"All right!" laughed the little fellow, and then they told him all over again so he would be sure and not forget.

"Maybe you look where I put it," said Trouble, when he was about to take the bag and hide it.

"No, well blind our eyes so we can't see," promised Jan.

"And we won't look until you tell us you're ready," added Ted.

"And I promise I won't peep!" laughed Aunt Jo.

"Aw wight!" said Trouble, with a wise look on his chubby little face.

Then the others closed their eyes, and turned their backs, so they would be sure to see nothing, and Trouble, with the bag of beans in his hand, went wandering about the attic looking for a place to hide what he hoped Aunt Jo and the others would have to look a long time for.

"Are you ready, Trouble?" asked Jan, after a bit.

"Have you hid it yet?" inquired Ted.

"Yes, I put it hid," answered Baby William, and when they looked they saw him sitting on the floor near the chimney.

Then began the hunt for the bean bag. Aunt Jo and the two Curlytops looked in all the places in which they thought Trouble might have hidden it. They peered into boxes and old trunks, under boards, around the ledges of rafters and beams and everywhere.

"I guess we can't find it!" said Aunt Jo at last. "You hid it too well, Trouble. Tell us where you put it and then hide it in an easier place next time. Where is the bean bag, dear?"

"I--I _sittin'_ on it!" laughed Trouble, and when he got up, there, surely enough, was the bag under him on the attic floor.

How they both did laugh at him, and Trouble laughed, too, and they had lots more fun, each one taking a turn to hide the bag.

Now and then the children would go to the window to look out, but they could see little. All Cresco was snowed in. As far as the children could see, no one was in the street.

Cresco, where the Curlytops lived, was a large town, and there was a trolley line running through it, but not near the home of Janet and Ted.

"But I guess the trolley isn't running to-day," Teddy remarked, after a game of bean-bag.

"I guess not," agreed Aunt Jo. "The cars would be snowed under."

Just then Mrs. Martin called Aunt Jo to help her with some work, and the children were left to themselves. They ran to the window, hoping they could see something, but the snow was either too high on the sill or the gla.s.s was frosted with the frozen flakes so no one could look through.

"Let's open the window!" suddenly proposed Ted. "Then we can get a little snow and make s...o...b..a.l.l.s and play with 'em in here."

"Oh, let's!" cried Janet.

"Me want s...o...b..ll, too!"

"We'll give you a little one," promised his sister.

By standing on a chair Teddy managed to shove back the catch of the window, but to raise the sash was not so easy. It was frozen down, and held fast by the drift of snow on the sill.

"I know how to raise it," said Jan.

"How?" asked her brother.

"Get daddy's cane and push it up. I saw Aunt Jo do it the other day."

Mr. Martin's cane was down in the hall, and Ted soon brought it upstairs. He put one end of it under the upper edge of the lower window sash and then he and Jan pushed with all their might. But the window did not go up.

"Push harder!" cried Teddy.

"I am!" answered Janet.

They both shoved as hard as they could on the cane and then it suddenly slipped. There was a crash and a tinkle of gla.s.s, and the children toppled over on the floor while the room was filled with a swirl of snowflakes blown in through the broken window.

"Oh, it's busted!" cried Teddy. "You did it, Janet Martin!"

"Oh, The-o-dore Baradale Martin! I did not! You pushed it yourself!"

"I didn't!"

"You did so!"

"Well, who got the cane, anyhow?"

"Well, who told me to get it?"

"I got some snow! I got some snow!" cried Trouble, and he tossed handfuls at his brother and sister, who had risen to their feet and were looking at the broken gla.s.s. The end of the cane had gone through it and the wind and snow were blowing into the room. On the carpet was a white drift that had fallen from the window sill.

"Oh, children! what _are_ you doing?" cried Mrs. Martin, when she saw what had happened.

"The window broke," said Teddy slowly.

"Yes, I see it did," answered his mother. "Who did it?"

Then Teddy proved himself a little hero, for he said:

"I--I guess I did. I got the cane and it slipped."

"I--I helped," bravely confessed Janet. "I told him to get the cane and I pushed on it, too."

"Well, I guess you didn't mean to," said Mrs. Martin kindly. "But it's too bad. We can't get the window fixed in this storm, and daddy will have to nail a board or something over the hole. Trouble, come away from that snow!"

Trouble was having fun with the snow that came in through the hole, and did not want to stop. But his mother caught him up in her arms and took him out of the room, sending in Nora to sweep up the pile of white flakes on the carpet.