CHAPTER XV
THANKSGIVING
For a moment Danny Rugg just stared at Bert. Then the bully swalloweda sort of lump that came in his throat, and said:
"That isn't my button."
"Isn't it?" asked Bert, politely. "Why, it just matches the otherson your coat, and it's got a few threads in the holes, and thereare some threads in your coat, just where the button was pulledoff. I guess it's your button, all right, Danny."
Danny did not say anything. He looked from the button to Bert, andthen at the space on his coat where a button should have been, butwhere one was missing.
"Well--well," he stammered. "Maybe it is off my coat, but--but howdid you get it, Bert Bobbsey?"
"I found it," was the answer. "Don't you want it back?"
He held it out to Danny, who took it slowly.
"Well," went on Bert, with a queer little smile at his enemy, "whydon't you ask me _where_ I found it, Danny?"
"Huh! I don't care where you found it. I s'pose you picked itup around the school yard, where I lost it, playing tag with thefellows."
"No, you didn't lose it there," went on Bert, still smiling. "Youhave another guess coming, Danny."
"Pooh! I don't care where you found it," and Danny was about toturn away.
"Wait a minute," said Bert. "Suppose I say that this button wasfound in our freezer of ice cream, that you and some other boys tookoff our stoop the night of Flossie's and Freddie's party, Danny?What about that?"
"It isn't--I didn't--you can't prove anything about me, Bert Bobbsey,and if you go around telling that I took your ice cream, I--I---"
But Danny did not know what else to say. He was confused and hisface was white and red by turns, for he realized that Bert had goodproof of what he said.
"Better go slow," advised Bert, calmly. "I don't intend to go aroundtelling what you did. I just want to let you know that I am sureyou took our ice cream."
"I--I---" began Danny. "You're only trying to fool me!" he exclaimed."That button wasn't in it at all!"
"Wasn't it?" asked Bert, quietly. "Well, you just ask Charley Mason,or any of the fellows who were at the party, what we found in thefreezer, and see what they say."
Danny had nothing to reply to this. Thrusting the button in hispocket he walked off. Bert was sure he had found the boy who hadtaken the ice cream.
Later, from a boy who had been friends with Danny for some time,but whose father, afterward, decided that his son was getting intobad company, and made him cease playing with the school bully,Bert learned that Danny had planned to take the ice cream freezeroff the porch.
He and several boys did this, carrying it to the old barn. Theyhad provided themselves with large spoons, and were having a goodtime, eating the cream, when they heard the approach of Bert andhis friends, and fled, leaving the cream behind.
It was during a dispute as to who should have the right to firstdip into the freezer that Danny and a boy named Jake Harkness hada struggle, and in this Danny lost a button which fell into the icecream without anyone knowing it. The coat Danny wore that night hedid not put on again for some time, but when he did Bert saw themissing button.
Danny knew that he had been found out, and for a time he had littleto say. But Bert was boy enough not to be able to keep altogetherquiet over his discovery. From time to time he would ask Danny:
"Lost any more buttons, lately?"
"You let me alone!" Danny would reply, surlily.
Of course this made talk, the boys wanting to know what it meant,and at last the story came out. This made Danny so angry that hepicked several quarrels with Bert. On his part Bert tried to avoidthem, but at last he could stand it no longer, and he and Dannycame to blows again, Danny striking first.
Bert had been brought up with the idea that fighting, unless itcould absolutely be avoided, was not gentlemanly, but in this casehe could not get out of it.
He and Danny went at each other with their fists clenched, a crowdof other boys looking on, and urging one or the other to do theirbest, for both Danny and Bert had friends, though Bert was the bestliked.
Danny struck Bert several times, and Bert hit back, once hittingDanny in the eye. Bert's lip was cut, and when the fight was overboth boys did not look very nice. But everyone said Bert had thebest of it.
"Oh, Bert!" exclaimed his mother, when he came home after thetrouble with Danny. "You've been fighting!"
"Yes, mother, I have," he admitted. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't helpit. Danny Rugg hit me first. I couldn't run away, could I?"
It was a hard question for a mother to answer. No mother likes tothink her son a coward, and that was what the boys would have calledBert had he not stood up to Danny.
"I--I just had to!" continued Bert. "And I beat him, anyhow,mother."
Mrs. Bobbsey cried a little, and then she made the best of it, andbathed Bert's cut lip and bruised forehead. She told his fatherabout it, too, and Mr. Bobbsey, after hearing the account, asked:
"Who won?"
"Well, Bert says he did?"
"Um. Well, I've no doubt but what he did. He's getting quitestrong."
"Oh, Richard!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, in dismay.
"Well, boys will--er--have their little troubles," said her husband."I'm sorry Bert had to fight, but I'm glad he wasn't a coward.But he mustn't fight any more."
Then Mr. Bobbsey sat down to read the evening paper.
The weather was getting cooler. Several nights there had been heavyfrosts, and for some time the papers had been saying that it wasgoing to snow, but the white flakes did not sift down from the sky.
Thanksgiving was approaching. It was the end of the Fall term ofschool, and there were to be examinations to see who would passinto the next higher classes for the Winter season.
Of course in the case of Freddie and Flossie, who were still in thekindergarten, the examinations were not very hard, but they weresoon to go into the regular primary class, where they would learnto read. And both the twins were very anxious for this. Bert andNan had somewhat harder lessons to do, and they had to answer moredifficult questions in the examinations.
But I am glad to say that all of the Bobbsey twins were promoted,and Freddie and Flossie came home very proud to tell that whenthey went back again, after the Thanksgiving holidays, they wouldbe in the primer reading book.
And such preparations as went on for Thanksgiving! Dinah was busyfrom morning until night, and when the little twins made inquiriesabout the turkey they were to have. Mr. Bobbsey said it would bethe biggest he could buy.
"An' I'se gwine t' stuff him wif chestnuts an' oysters," said Dinah."I tells you what, chilluns, yo' all am suttinly gwine to hab onegrand feed."
"I wish everybody was," said Flossie, a bit wistfully. "I hope ourcat Snoop, wherever he is, has plenty of milk, and some nice turkeybones."
"I guess he will have," said Mamma Bobbsey, gently.
"I hope all the poor children in our school have enough to eat,"said Freddie. "Mr. Tetlow said for us to bring what we could forthem."
"And you never told me!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Why didn't you?I would have sent something."
Neither Bert nor Nan had thought to mention at home that a collectionwould be taken it the school for the poor families in the town.But as soon as Mrs. Bobbsey heard what Freddie said she telephonedto her husband. Mr. Bobbsey went to see Mr. Tetlow, and from himlearned that there were a number of families who would not havea very happy Thanksgiving.
Then the lumber merchant gave certain orders to his grocer andbutcher, and if a number of poor people were not well supplied withfood that gladsome season, it was not the fault of Mr. Bobbsey.
But I am getting a little ahead of my story. A few days beforeThanksgiving Mrs. Bobbsey, with a letter in her hand, came towhere the four twins were in the sitting room, talking over whatthey wanted for Christmas.
"Guess who are coming to spend Thanksgiving with us!" cried MammaBobbsey, as she waved the letter in the air.
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"Uncle Bobbsey!" guessed Nan.
"Uncle Minturn," said Bert.
The little twins guessed other friends and relatives, and finallyMrs. Bobbsey said:
"Yes, your Uncle Bobbsey and Uncle Minturn are coming, and so areyour aunts, and Cousin Harry, Cousin Dorothy and also Hal Bingham,whom you met at the seashore."
"Oh, what a jolly Thanksgiving it will be!" cried the Bobbsey twins.