, and when they looked they
saw him sitting on the floor near the chimney.

Then began the hunt for the bean bag. Aunt Jo and the two Curlytops
looked in all the places in which they thought Trouble might have hidden
it. They peered into boxes and old trunks, under boards, around the
ledges of rafters and beams and everywhere.

"I guess we can't find it!" said Aunt Jo at last. "You hid it too well,
Trouble. Tell us where you put it and then hide it in an easier place
next time. Where is the bean bag, dear?"

"I--I _sittin'_ on it!" laughed Trouble, and when he got up, there,
surely enough, was the bag under him on the attic floor.

How they both did laugh at him, and Trouble laughed, too, and they had
lots more fun, each one taking a turn to hide the bag.

Now and then the children would go to the window to look out, but they
could see little. All Cresco was snowed in. As far as the children could
see, no one was in the street.

Cresco, where the Curlytops lived, was a large town, and there was a
trolley line running through it, but not near the home of Janet and Ted.

"But I guess the trolley isn't running to-day," Teddy remarked, after a
game of bean-bag.

"I guess not," agreed Aunt Jo. "The cars would be snowed under."

Just then Mrs. Martin called Aunt Jo to help her with some work, and the
children were left to themselves. They ran to the window, hoping they
could see something, but the snow was either too high on the sill or the
glass was frosted with the frozen flakes so no one could look through.

"Let's open the window!" suddenly proposed Ted. "Then we can get a
little snow and make snowballs and play with 'em in here."

"Oh, let's!" cried Janet.

"Me want snowball, too!"

"We'll give you a little one," promised his sister.

By standing on a chair Teddy managed to shove back the catch of the
window, but to raise the sash was not so easy. It was frozen down, and
held fast by the drift of snow on the sill.

"I know how to raise it," said Jan.

"How?" asked her brother.

"Get daddy's cane and push it up. I saw Aunt Jo do it the other day."

Mr. Martin's cane was down in the hall, and Ted soon brought it
upstairs. He put one end of it under the upper edge of the lower window
sash and then he and Jan pushed with all their might. But the window did
not go up.

"Push harder!" cried Teddy.

"I am!" answered Janet.

They both shoved as hard as they could on the cane and then it suddenly
slippe