Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays Part 35

"Hey! Hey!" roared the fat man. "Help us out of this. Never mind that driver. He ought to have seen that thing coming and got out of the way.

Hey! Help us out, I say."

n.o.body seemed to be paying much attention to the fat and angry citizen; nor would Nan have heeded him had it not been for the appeal of those two blue-stockinged legs in the iron braces.

The fat man was all tangled up in the robes and in the broken fittings of the cab. He could do nothing for himself, let alone a.s.sist in the rescue of the owner of the crippled little limbs. The dog, darting about, barked wildly.

As Nan stooped to lift the broken cab door off the apparently injured boy, the dog--he was only a puppy--ran yapping at her in a fever of apprehension. But his barking suddenly changed to yelps of joy as he leaped on Nan and licked her hands.

"Why, Buster!" gasped the girl, recognizing the little spaniel that she and Bess Harley had befriended in the snow-bound train.

She knew instantly, then, whose was the fat and apoplectic face; but she did not understand about the legs in the cruel looking iron braces until she had drawn a small and sharp-featured lad of seven or eight years of age from under the debris of the taxi-cab.

"Jingo! Look at Pop!" exclaimed the crippled boy, who seemed not to have been hurt at all in the accident.

Mr. Ravell Bulson was trying to struggle out from under the cab. And to his credit he was not thinking of himself at this time.

"How's Junior?" he gasped. "Are you hurt, Junior?"

"No, Pop, I ain't hurt," said the boy with the braces. "But, Jingo! you do look funny."

"I don't feel so funny," snarled his parent, finally extricating himself unaided from the tangle. "Sure you're not hurt, Junior?"

"No, I'm not hurt," repeated the boy. "Nor Buster ain't hurt. And see this girl, Pop. Buster knows her."

Mr. Ravell Bulson just then obtained a clear view of Nan Sherwood, against whom the little dog was crazily leaping. The man scowled and in his usual harsh manner exclaimed:

"Call the dog away, Junior. If you're not hurt we'll get another cab and go on."

"Why, Pop!" cried the lame boy, quite excitedly. "That pup likes her a whole lot. See him? Say, girl, did you used to own that puppy?"

"No, indeed, dear," said Nan, laughing. "But he remembers me."

"From where?" demanded the curious Ravell Bulson, Jr.

"Why, since the time we were snow-bound in a train together."

"Oh! when was that?" burst out the boy. "Tell me about it snow-bound in a steam-car train? That must have been jolly."

"Come away, Junior!" exclaimed his father. "You don't care anything about that, I'm sure."

"Oh, yes I do, Pop. I want to hear about it. Fancy being snow-bound in a steam-car train!"

"Come away, I tell you," said the fat man, again scowling crossly at Nan.

"You don't want to hear anything that girl can tell you. Come away, now,"

he added, for a crowd was gathering.

"Do wait a minute, Pop," said Junior. The lame boy evidently was used to being indulged, and he saw no reason for leaving Nan abruptly. "See the dog. See Buster, will you? Why, he's just in love with this girl."

"I tell you to come on!" complained Mr. Bulson, Senior. He was really a slave to the crippled boy's whims; but he disliked being near Nan Sherwood, or seeing Junior so friendly with her. "You can't know that girl, if the dog does," he snarled.

"Why, yes I can, Pop," said the lame boy, with cheerful insistence. "And I want to hear about her being snowed up in a train with Buster."

"Your father can tell you all about it," Nan said, kindly, not wishing to make Mr. Bulson any angrier. "He was there in the snowed-up train, too.

That's how I came to be acquainted with your little dog. He was with your father on the train."

"Why, Pop!" cried the eager boy. "You never told me a word about it. And you must know this girl."

Mr. Ravell Bulson only grunted and scowled.

"What's your name, girl?" cried the boy, curiously.

"I am Nan Sherwood," the girl said, kissing him and then giving him a gentle push toward his father's outstretched and impatient hand. "If I don't see you again I shall often think of you. Be good to Buster."

"You must tell me about being snowed up, Pop," urged little Junior, as Nan turned away. "And I like that girl."

"That isn't much to tell--and _I_ don't like her--nor any of her name,"

snapped Mr. Bulson.

"But you'll tell me about the snowed-up train?"

"Yes, yes!" cried his father, impatiently, anxious to get his lame son away from Nan's vicinity. "I'll tell you all about it."

Nan was quite sure that the fat man would be ashamed to give his little son the full particulars of his own experience on the stalled train. The little chap, despite his affliction, was an attractive child and seemed to have inherited none of his father's unhappy disposition.

"Good bye, Nan Sherwood!" he cried after the girl. "Come, Buster! Come, Buster! My, Pop! Buster likes that girl!"

"Well, I don't," declared the fat man, still scowling at Nan.

"Don't you?" cried Junior. "That's funny. I like her, and Buster likes her, and you don't, Pop. I hope I'll see you again, Nan Sherwood."

His father almost dragged him away, the spaniel, on a leash, cavorting about the lame boy. Nan was amazed by the difference in the behavior of Mr. Bulson and his afflicted son.

"And won't he be surprised when he learns that it wasn't Papa Sherwood, after all, but that wicked negro porter, who stole his wallet and watch?"

Nan mused. "I hope they find the man and punish him. But--it really does seem as though Mr. Bulson ought to be punished, too, for making my father so much trouble."

Later "Nosey" Thompson _was_ captured; but he had spent all Mr. Bulson's money in a drunken spree, and while intoxicated had been robbed of the watch. So, in the end, the quarrelsome fat man, who had so maligned Mr.

Sherwood and caused him so much trouble, recovered nothing--not even his lost temper.

"Which must be a good thing," was Bess Harley's comment. "For if I had a temper like his, I'd want to lose it--and for good and all!"

"But there must be some good in that fat man," Nan said, reflectively.

"Humph! Now find some excuse for _him_, Nan Sherwood!" said her chum.

"No. Not an excuse. He maligned Papa Sherwood and I can't forgive him.

But his little boy thinks the world of him, I can see; and Mr. Bulson is very fond of the little boy--'Junior,' as he calls him."

"Well," quoth Bess, "so does a tiger-cat love its kittens. He's a gouty, grumpy old fellow, with an in-growing grouch. I couldn't see a mite of good in him with a spygla.s.s."