r's faces
and it was not long before Nan had her face washed too. The cold snow on
her cheek and ear did not feel very nice, but she took the fun in good
part and went to washing like the rest.

The boys were already snowballing each other, some on one side of the
street and some on the other. The snowballs were flying in all
directions and Bert was hit on the back and on the shoulder.

"I'll pay you back!" he cried, to Charley Mason, who had hit him in the
back, and he let fly a snowball which landed directly on Charley's neck.
Some of the snow went down Charley's back and made him shiver from the
cold.

"I wouldn't stand that, Charley," said Danny Rugg, who was close at
hand. "I'd pitch into him if I were you."

"You pitch into him," grumbled Charley. "You can throw awfully
straight."

Danny prided himself on his throwing, which, however, was no better than
the throwing of the other lads, and he quickly made two hard snowballs.
With these in hand he ran out into the street and waited until Bert's
hands were empty. Then he came up still closer and threw one of the
snowballs with all his might. It struck Bert in the back of the head and
sent him staggering.

"Hi! how do you like that?" roared Danny, in high glee. "Have another?"
And as Bert stood up and looked around he let drive again, this time
hitting Bert directly in the ear. The snowball was so hard it made Bert
cry out in pain.

"For shame, Danny Rugg, to hit Bert so hard as that!" cried Nan.

"Oh, you keep still, Nan Bobbsey!" retorted Danny. "This is our sport,
not yours."

"But you shouldn't have come so close before you threw the snowball."

"I know what I'm doing," growled the big boy, running off.

The whack in the ear made that member ache, and Bert did not feel near
so full of fun when he entered the schoolyard. Several of his friends
came up to him in sympathy.

"Did he hurt you very much, Bert?" asked one.

"He hurt me enough. It wasn't fair to come so close, or to make the
snowballs so hard."

"Let us duck Danny in the snow," suggested one of the boys.

This was considered a good plan, but nobody wanted to start in, for, as
I have said before, Danny was a good deal of a bully, and could get very
rough at times.

While the boys were talking the matter over, the school bell rang and
all had to go to their classrooms. In a little while Bert's ear stopped
aching, but he did not forget how Danny Rugg had treated him.

"I'll pay him bac