looking up and down the street. "I
wonder if that could have been Teddy or Jan playing a joke." Then she
looked at the clock and noticed that it was not yet time for the
children to come home from school.

A man passing in the street saw Mrs. Martin gazing up and down the
sidewalk.

"Are you looking for someone?" he asked.

"Well, someone just rang my bell," answered Mrs. Martin. "But I don't
see anyone."

"I saw a lame boy go up on your veranda a few minutes ago," went on the
man. "He stood there, maybe four or five seconds and then rang the bell.
All at once he seemed frightened, and down he hurried off the steps and
ran around the corner, limping."

"He did?" cried Mrs. Martin. "Why, how strange! Did he say anything to
you?"

"No, I wasn't near enough, but I thought it queer."

"It is queer," agreed Mrs. Martin. "I wonder who he was, and if he is in
sight now?"

She ran down the steps and hurried around the corner to look down the
next street. But no boy, lame or not, was in sight.

"Maybe he was just playing a trick," said the man. "Though he didn't
look like that kind of boy."

"No, I think it was no trick," answered the mother of the Curlytops, as
she went back into the house.

"What was it?" asked Nora.

"A lame boy, but he ran away after ringing," answered Mrs. Martin. "I
wonder if it could have been the boy who was at Mr. Martin's store, and
who might know something about the stolen pocketbook, even if he did
not take it. Perhaps he came to tell us something about it and, at the
last minute, he was too frightened and ran away."

She told this to Mr. Martin when he came home, and he said it might be
so.

"If it is," he went on, "that lame boy must be in town somewhere. I'd
like to find him. I'll speak to the police. The poor boy may be in
trouble."

The police promised to look for the lame boy and help him if he needed
it. And then all else was forgotten, for a time, in the joys of the
coming Thanksgiving.

The night before the great day, when the Curlytops were in the
sitting-room after supper talking of the fun they would have, and when
Trouble was going to sleep in his mother's lap, Daddy Martin went to the
window to look out.

"It's snowing hard," he said.

"Oh, goodie!" laughed Jan.

"Now we can build the big snow house!" cried Ted.

Just then the doorbell rang loudly.

CHAPTER XI

THE SNOW BUNGALOW

"Who's that?" asked Mrs. Martin, without thinking, for, of course,