ect, gave a cry
of surprise.

"Why, it's a button--a coat button!" he exclaimed.

"A button? How in the world could that get in there?" asked his
mother. "Unless you boys dropped it in when you were carrying the
cream."

Bert and the other boys quickly looked at their coats. There were no
buttons missing.

"An' it suah wasn't in when de cream come heah," said Dinah. "I knows,
fo I took off de kiver an' looked in t' see how hard it were froze.
Dat button got in since!"

"Yes, and I think I know how, too!" exclaimed Bert.

"How?" asked Freddie.

"It was dropped in by whoever took the freezer. They must have been
eating the cream right out of the can, and maybe they dropped the
button in. I'll save it."

"What for?" asked Nan, wonderingly.

"I may be able to find out by it, who took the freezer," went on Bert.
"I'm going to look at the coats of all the fellows in school next week,
and if I find one with the button like this missing, I'll know what to
think."

"Be careful not to accuse anyone wrongly," cautioned his mother.

Bert put the button carefully away, and the party guests were soon
eating their ice cream, and discussing the disappearance of the freezer
and the finding of it by the boys. Then with the playing of more
games, and the singing of songs, the affair came to a close, and
goodnights were said.

"We've had a lovely time!" said the boys and girls to Flossie and
Freddie, as they left. "Glad you did--come again," invited the small
Bobbsey twins.

Even Snap seemed to have enjoyed himself.

And when the house was settling down to quietness for the night, and
when Dinah and Mrs. Bobbsey were picking up the dishes, the circus dog
marched around like a soldier, with a stick for a gun, and one of the
fancy caps, that came in the "surprise" packets, on his head.

When Bert went to bed that night he laid the button found in the ice
cream where he would be sure to see it in the morning.

"I'm going to find out whose coat that came off of," he said to himself.

The little Bobbsey twins slept late the next morning, and so did Nan,
but Bert was up early.

"I'm going over to the barn, and see if I can tell by looking around
it, how many were at our freezer," he said.

But there was nothing there to help him in his search. Some old boxes,
placed in a sort of circle, showed where the ones who had taken the ice
cream, had rested to eat it.

"They must have had spoons with them," said Bert to