"This is a fine house!" exclaimed Teddy. "I'm glad you helped us build it," he said to Tom.

"Only it wants some gla.s.s in the windows," said Ted, looking at the holes in the snow walls of the house.

"We don't need gla.s.s," immediately put in Tom.

"Why not?" asked Jan. "If we put wooden windows in we can't see through 'em."

"We can use sheets of ice!" cried Tom. "My father said that that's the way the Eskimos do up at the north pole. They use ice for gla.s.s."

"You can see through ice all right," said Ted. "But where could we get any thin enough for windows for our snow house?"

"All the ice on the pond and lake is covered with snow," added Lola.

"We can put some water out in pans," went on Tom. "If it's cold to-night it will freeze in a thin sheet of ice, and then to-morrow we can make windows of it for our snow house."

"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried Ted.

"It will be almost like a real house!" added Jan.

Mrs. Martin said, when the Curlytops asked her, that Tom's plan might work if the night turned cold enough to freeze. And as after dark it did get colder she put some water out in large shallow pans. In the morning the water was frozen into thin sheets of ice, clear as crystal, and Ted and Jan could see right through them as well as they could see through gla.s.s.

"They're great!" cried Tom when he saw them, and that afternoon when school was out, the ice windows were set in the holes in the walls of the snow house.

"'Dis nice place!" Trouble said, when he was taken out to it. "I 'ikes it here! I stay all night!"

"No, I guess you won't stay all night," laughed Tom. "You might freeze fast to the snow bench."

"How plain we can see out of the windows," said Lola. "Oh, see, Ted, here comes your goat! I guess he's looking for you."

"He must 've got loose and 've run out of his stable," said Teddy. "I'll go to fasten him up. Here, Nicknack!" he called as he walked out of the snow house toward his pet.

Nicknack kept on coming toward the white house. He walked up to one of the windows. The sun was shining on it and as Ted looked he cried:

"Oh, I can see Nicknack in the gla.s.s window just as if it was a looking gla.s.s. And Nicknack can see himself!"

This was true. The goat came to a sudden stop and looked at his own reflection in the shiny ice window. Nicknack seemed much surprised. He stamped in the snow with his black hoofs, and then he raised himself up in the air on his hind feet. At the same time he went:

"Baa-a-a-a! Baa-a-a-a-a!"

"Oh, Nicknack's going to buck!" cried Ted.

"Who's he going to buck?" asked Tom, sticking his head out of the blanket door of the snow house.

"I guess he thinks he sees another goat in the shiny ice window," went on Ted, "and he's going for that. Oh, look out! Come back, Nicknack!

Come back!" Teddy yelled.

But with another bleat and a shake of his head Nicknack, having seen himself reflected in the ice window, and thinking it another goat, started on a run for the snow house, inside of which were Jan, Tom, Lola and Trouble.

CHAPTER VI

THE SNOW MAN

Sounding his funny, bleating cry, like a sheep, Nicknack gave a jump straight for the ice window in which he had seen himself as in a looking gla.s.s.

"Crash!" went the ice window.

"Oh, my!" screamed Lola, inside the snow house.

"What is it?" asked Jan, for Lola stood in front of her.

Trouble looked up from where he was sitting beside Tom on the snow bench, and just then the goat went right through the soft, snow side of the house and scrambled down inside.

"Dat's our goat!" exclaimed Trouble, as if that was the way Nicknack always came in. "Dat's our goat!"

For a moment Jan and Lola had been so frightened that they did not know what it was. Luckily they were not in Nicknack's way when he jumped through, so he did not land on them.

But the snow house was so small that there was hardly room for a big goat inside it, besides the four children, even with Ted outside, and Nicknack almost landed in the laps of Tom and Trouble when he jumped through. In fact, his chin-whiskers were in Trouble's face, and Baby William laughed and began pulling them as he very often did.

"Baa-a-a-a!" bleated the goat and then he quickly turned around to see, I suppose, what had become of the other goat against which he had leaped, intending to b.u.t.t him out of the way.

"Oh, Nicknack!" cried Jan. "What made you jump in on us like that?"

"Oh, my, I'm so scared!" gasped Lola. "Will he bite us?"

"Nicknack never bites," answered Janet reprovingly. "But what made him jump into the snow house and break the ice window?"

"'Cause he saw himself in it," answered Ted, coming in just then. "I knew what he was goin' to do but I couldn't stop him. Say, Tom, he made an awful big jump!"

"I should say he did!" exclaimed Tom. "I thought the whole place was coming down! You'd better call your goat out, Curlytop, or he may knock our snow house all to pieces."

"All right, I will," agreed Ted. "Here, Nicknack!" he called. "Come on outside!"

Nicknack turned at the sound of his little master's voice, and just then he saw another ice window. The sun was shining on that, too, and once more Nicknack noticed the reflection of himself in the bright ice, which was like gla.s.s.

"Baa-a-a-a-a!" he bleated again. "Baa-a-a-a!"

"Look out! He's going to jump!" cried Tom.

He made a grab for the goat, but only managed to get hold of his short, stubby tail. To this Tom held as tightly as he could, but Nicknack was not going to be stopped for a little thing like that.

Forward he jumped, but he did not quite reach the ice window. Instead his horns and head b.u.t.ted against the side wall of the snow house, and in it he made a great hole, near the window.

This made the wall so weak that the snow house began to cave in, for the other wall had almost all been knocked down when the goat jumped through that.