going to the same place. Some paused to make a slide on the sidewalk, and others took turns running and then gliding along the slippery place.

"Oh, here's a dandy one!" called Tommie Wilson, who lived not far from Teddy Martin. The two boys saw a long smooth place on the sidewalk in front of them, where some early school children had made a slide.

"Come on!" cried Tommie, taking a run.

"Come on!" yelled Teddy.

One before the other they went down the sidewalk slide.

"Look out for me!" called Janet and she, too, took a running start.

But alas for the children. Near the end of the slide one of Tommie's feet slid the wrong way and after he had tried, by waving his arms, to keep upright, down he went in a heap.

"Get out the way!" cried Teddy. But Tommie had no time, and right into him slid Ted, falling down on top of his chum, while Jan, not able to stop, crashed into her brother and then sat down on the slide with a bump. All three were in a heap.

"Oh, Tommie Wilson!" cried Janet, looking at her books which had fallen out of her strap. "See what you did!"

"I couldn't help it!"

"You could so! You tripped on purpose to make me fall!"

"I did not, Janet Martin."

"No, it wasn't Tommie's fault," declared Teddy. "He couldn't help it. Are you hurt Jan?"

"No—not much—but look at my books."

"I'll pick 'em up for you," offered Tommie, and he did, brushing off the snow. Then he helped Janet to get up, and she began to laugh. After all it was only fun to fall on a slippery slide.

"There goes the bell!" cried Teddy, when he had helped brush the snow off his sister's skirt.

"One more slide!" exclaimed Tommie.

"I'm going to have one, too!" called Teddy.

"You'll be late for school, and be kept in!" warned Janet.

"We'll run," Tommie said, as he started at the top of the slippery place.

He and Ted had their one-more slide, and then, taking hold of Janet's hands, they hurried on to school.

Behind them and in front of them were other children, some hurrying to their classes, others waiting for a last slide, some falling down in the snow. Others were washing one another's faces and some were snowballing.

In school the teachers had hard work to keep the minds of their pupils on their lessons. Every now and then some boy or girl would look out of the window when his eyes ought to have been on spelling book or geography. All wanted to see the snow sifting down from the clouds.

The flakes, that had been large at first, were now smaller, and this, as most of the children had been told, meant that the storm would last. And they were glad, for to them snow meant grand winter fun with sleds and skates.

"We'll have some bobsled races all right," whispered Teddy Martin to Tommie Wilson, and the teacher, hearing what Teddy said, kept him after school for whispering. But she did not keep him very long, for she knew what it meant to have fun in the first snow of the season.

Teddy found Janet waiting for him when he came out, for it was now snowing hard and Teddy had taken the umbrella with him when he went to his room. He was a year older than his sister and one class ahead of her in school.

"Were you bad in class?" Janet asked.

"I only whispered a little. She didn't keep me in long. Come on now, we'll have some fun."

And fun the Curlytops and their playmates did have on their way home from school. They slid, they snowballed, they washed one another's faces and some of the boys even started to roll big snowballs, but the flakes were too dry to stick well, and they soon gave this up. It needs a wet snow to make a big ball.

When Teddy and Janet got home, their cheeks red, their eyes sparkling and their hair curlier than ever because some snow had gotten in it, they found their mother reading a letter which the postman had just left.

"Oh, what's it about?" asked Jan. "It's from Cherry Farm, isn't it, Mother? I can tell by the funny black mark on the stamp."

"Is it from grandpa?" asked Teddy.

"Yes," answered Mrs. Martin. "The letter is from grandpa."

"Is he coming here to spend Christmas, or are we going there just as you said we might?" asked Janet.

"I'm not sure about either one yet," replied her mother. "But grandpa sends his love, and he also sends a bit of news."

"What is it?" asked Ted.

"Grandpa Martin writes that an old hermit, who lives in a lonely log cabin in the woods back of Cherry Farm, says this is going to be the worst winter in many years. There will be big snowstorms, the hermit says, and Grandpa Martin adds that the hermit is a good weather prophet. That is, he seems to know what is going to happen."

"A big snowstorm! That will be fun!" cried Teddy.

"Maybe not, if it is too big," warned his mother. "Grandpa Martin says we ought to put away an abundance of coal and plenty of things to eat."

"Why?" asked Janet.

"Because we may be snowed in," answered her mother.

CHAPTER II

A RUNAWAY SLED

For a moment Ted and Janet looked at their mother. Sometimes she told them strange things, and she did it with such a serious face that they could not always tell whether or not she was in earnest.

"Do you mean that the snow will come up over the top of the house so we can't go out?" asked Teddy.

He remembered a picture his mother had once showed him of a lonely log cabin in the woods, almost hidden under a big white drift, and beneath the picture were the words: "Snowed in."

"If it comes up over the top of the house we can't ever get out till it melts," went on Jan. "Will it happen that way, Mother? What fun!"

"Dandy!" cried Ted.

"Oh, indeed! Being snowed in isn't such fun as you may think," said Mrs. Martin, and then the Curlytops knew their mother was now a little bit in earnest at least.

"Of course," she went on, "the snow will hardly cover our house, as it is much larger than the one in the picture I showed Teddy. But being snowed in means that so much snow falls that the roads are covered, and the piles, or drifts, of the white flakes may be high enough to come over the lower doors and windows.

"When so much snow falls it is hard to get out. Even automobiles and horses can not go along the roads, and it is then people are 'snowed in.' They can not get out to buy things to eat, and unless they have plenty in the house they may go hungry.

"That is what Grandpa Martin meant when he said we might be snowed in, and why he warned us to get in a quantity of food to eat."

"But shall we really be snowed in, Mother?" asked Ted.

"I don't know, I'm sure. Grandpa was only telling us what the hermit told him. Sometimes those old men who live in the woods and know much about nature's secrets that other persons do not know, can foretell the weather. And the snow has certainly come earlier this year than for a long time back. I am afraid we shall have a hard winter, though whether or not we shall be snowed in I cannot say."

"Well, if we're going to be snowed in let's go coasting now, Janet!" suggested Ted to his sister.

"May we, Mother?" asked the little girl.

"Yes. But don't go on the big hill."

"No. We'll stay on the small one."

Teddy ran out of the room to get the sled.

"Me want to go on sled!" cried Baby William.

"Oh, Trouble! We can't take you!" said Jan.