The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 14

  “Let’s pick beans,” Freddie suggested, liking the garden work.

  “Not beans fer breakfast,” laughed Dinah.

  “That stuff there, then,” the boy persisted, pointing to the soft green leaves of early lettuce.

  “Well, I dunno. Martha didn’t say so, but it sure does look pretty. Yes, I guess we kin pick some fo’ salad,” and so Dinah showed Freddie how to cut the lettuce heads off and leave the stalks to grow again.

  “Out early,” laughed Uncle Daniel, seeing the youngest member of the family coming down the garden path with the small basket of vegetables.

  “Is it?” Freddie asked, meaning early of course, in his funny way of saying things without words.

  “See! see!” called Nan and Flossie, running down the cross path back of the cornfield.

  “Such big ones!” Nan exclaimed, referring to the luscious red strawberries in the white dish she held.

  “Look at mine,” insisted Flossie. “Aren’t they bigger?”

  “Fine!” ejaculated Dinah.

  “But my redishes are-are—redder,” argued Freddie, who was not to be outdone by his sisters.

  “Ours are sweeter,” laughed Nan, trying to tease her little brother.

  “Ours are—ours are—”

  “Hotter,” put in Dinah, which ended the argument.

  Bert and Harry had also been out gathering for breakfast, and returned now with a basket of lovely fresh water-cress.

  “We can’t eat ’em all,” Martha told the boys, “But they’ll go good in the picnic lunch.”

  What a pretty breakfast table it was! Such berries, such lettuce, such water-cress, and the radishes!

  “Too bad papa had to go so early,” Bert remarked. “He just loves green stuff.”

  “So does Frisky,” put in Freddie, and he wondered why everyone laughed.

  After breakfast the lunch baskets were put up and while Bert and Harry, Nan and Aunt Sarah, went to invite the neighboring children, Flossie and Freddie were just busy jumping around the kitchen, where Dinah and Martha were making them laugh merrily with funny little stories.

  Snoop and Fluffy had become good friends, and now lay close together on the kitchen hearth. Dinah said they were just like two babies, only not so much trouble.

  “Put peaches in my basket, Dinah,” Freddie ordered.

  “And strawberries in mine,” added Flossie.

  “Now, you-uns jest wait!” Dinah told them; “and when you gets out in de woods if you hasn’t ’nough to eat you kin jest climb a tree an’ cut down—”

  “Wood!” put in Freddie innocently, while Martha said that was about all that could be found in the woods in July.

  The boys had come in from inviting the “other fellers,” when Uncle Daniel proposed a feature for the picnic.

  “How would you like to take two homer pigeons along?” he asked them. “You can send a note back to Martha to say what time you will be home.”

  “Jolly!” chorused the boys, all instantly making a run for the pigeon house.

  “Wait!” Harry told the visitors. “We must be careful not to scare them.” Then he went inside the wire cage with a handful of corn.

  “See—de—coon; see—de—coon!” called the boys softly, imitating the strange sounds made by the doves cooing.

  Harry tossed the corn inside the cage, and as the light and dark homers he wanted tasted the food Harry lowered the little door, and took the birds safely in his arms.

  “Now, Bert, you can get the quills,” he told his cousin. “Go into the chicken yard and look for two long goose feathers. Tom Mason, you can go in the kitchen and ask Dinah for a piece of tissue paper and a spool of silk thread.”

  Each boy started off to fulfill his commission, not knowing exactly what for until all came together in the barnyard again.

  “Now, Bert,” went on Harry, “write very carefully on the slip of paper the message for Martha. Have you a soft pencil?”

  Bert found that he had one, and so following his cousin’s dictation he wrote on one slip:

  “Have dinner ready at five.” And on the other he wrote: “John, come for us at four.”

  “Now,” continued Harry, “roll the slips up fine enough to go in the goose quills.”

  This was done with much difficulty, as the quills were very narrow, but the task was finally finished.

  “All ready now,” concluded Harry, “to put the letters in the box,” and very gently he tied with the silken thread one quill under the wing of each pigeon. Only one feather was used to tie the thread to, and the light quill, the thin paper, and the soft silk made a parcel so very small and light in weight that the pigeons were no way inconvenienced by the messages.

  “Now we’ll put them in this basket, and they’re ready for the picnic,” Harry announced to his much interested companions. Then all started for the house with Harry and the basket in the lead.

  John, the stableman, was at the door now with the big hay wagon, which had been chosen as the best thing to take the jolly party in.

  There was nice fresh hay in the bottom, and seats at the sides for the grown folks, while the little ones nestled in the sweet-smelling hay like live birds.

  “It’s like a kindergarten party,” laughed Nan, as the “birds’ nests” reminded her of one of the mother plays.

  “No, ’tain’t!” Freddie corrected, for he really was not fond of the kindergarten. “It’s just like a picnic,” he finished.

  Besides the Bobbseys there were Tom Mason, Jack Hopkins, and August Stout, friends of Harry. Then, there were Mildred Manners and Mabel Herold, who went as Nan’s guests; little Roy Mason was Freddie’s company, and Bessie Dimple went with Flossie. The little pigeons kept cooing every now and then, but made no attempt to escape from Harry’s basket.

  It was a beautiful day, and the long ride through the country was indeed a merry one. Along the way people called out pleasantly from farmhouses, for everybody in Meadow Brook knew the Bobbseys.

  “That’s their cousins from the city,” little boys and girls along the way would say.

  “Haven’t they pretty clothes!” the girls were sure to add.

  “Let’s stop for a drink at the spring,” suggested August Stout, who was stout by name and nature, and always loved a good drink of water.

  The children tumbled out of the wagon safely, and were soon waiting turns at the spring.

  There was a round basin built of stones and quite deep. Into this the clear sprinkling water dropped from a little cave in the hill above. On top of the cave a large flat stone was placed. This kept the little waterfall clean and free from the falling leaves.

  “Oh, what a cute little pond!” Freddie exclaimed, for he had never seen a real spring before.

  “That’s a spring,” Flossie informed him, although that was all she knew about it.

  The big boys were not long dipping their faces in and getting a drink of the cool, clear water, but the girls had to take their hats off, roll up their sleeves, and go through a “regular performance,” as Harry said, before they could make up their minds to dip into the water. Mabel brought up her supply with her hands, but when Nan tried it her hands leaked, and the result was her fresh white frock got wet. Flossie’s curls tumbled in both sides, and when she had finished she looked as if she had taken a plunge at the seashore.

  “Let me! Let me!” cried Freddie impatiently, and without further warning he thrust his yellow head in the spring clear up to his neck!

  “Oh, Freddie!” yelled Nan, grabbing him by the heels and thus saving a more serious accident.

  “Oh! oh! oh!” spluttered Freddie, nearly choked, “I’m drowned!” and the water really seemed to be running out of his eyes, noses and ears all at once.

  “Oh, Freddie!” was all Mrs. Bobbsey could say, as a shower of clean handkerchiefs was sent from the hay wagon to dry the “drowned” boy.

  “Just like the flour barrel!” laughed Bert, referring to the funny accident that befell Freddie the winter before,
as told in my other book “The Bobbsey Twins.”

  “Only that was a dry bath and this a wet one,” Nan remarked, as Freddie’s curls were shook out in the sun.

  “Did you get a drink?” asked August, whose invitation to drink had caused the mishap.

  “Yep!” answered Freddie bravely, “and I was a real fireman too, that time, ’cause they always get soaked; don’t they, Bert?”

  Being assured they did, the party once more started off for the woods. It was getting to be all woods now, only a driveway breaking through the pines, maples, and chestnut trees that abounded in that section.

  “Just turn in there, John!” Harry directed, as a particularly thick group of trees appeared. Here were chosen the picnic grounds and all the things taken from the wagon, and before John was out of sight on the return home the children had established their camp and were flying about the woods like little fairies.

  “Let’s build a furnace,” Jack Hopkins suggested.

  “Let’s,” said all the boys, who immediately set out carrying stones and piling them up to build the stove. There was plenty of wood about, and when the fire was built, the raw potatoes that Harry had secretly brought along were roasted, finer than any oven could cook them.

  Mrs. Bobbsey and Aunt Sarah had spread the tablecloth on the grass, and were now busy opening the baskets and arranging the places. There were so many pretty little nooks to explore in the woods that Mrs. Bobbsey had to warn the children not to get too far away.

  “Are there giants?” Freddie asked.

  “No, but there are very dark lonely places the woods and little boys might find snakes.”

  “And bears!” put in Freddie, to which remark his mother said, “perhaps,” because there really might be bears in a woods so close to the mountains.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Fun in the Woods

  “Dinner served in the dining car!” called Bert through the woods, imitating the call of the porter on the Pullman car.

  “All ready!” echoed the other boys, banging on an old boiler like the Turks do, instead of ringing a bell.

  “Oh, how pretty!” the girls all exclaimed, as they beheld the “feast in the forest,” as Nan put it. And indeed it was pretty, for at each place was set a long plume of fern leaves with wood violets at the end, and what could be more beautiful than such a decoration?

  “Potatoes first!” Harry announced, “because they may get cold,” and at this order everybody broke the freshly roasted potatoes into the paper napkins and touched it up with the extra butter that had come along.

  “Simply fine!” declared Nan, with the air of one who knew. Now, my old readers will remember how Nan baked such good cake. So she ought to be an authority on baked potatoes, don’t you think?

  Next came the sandwiches, with the watercress Harry and Bert had gathered before breakfast, then (and this was a surprise) hot chocolate! This was brought out in Martha’s cider jug, and heated in a kettle over the boys’ stone furnace.

  “It must be fun to camp out,” Mabel Herold remarked.

  “Yes, just think of the dishes saved,” added Mildred Manners, who always had so many dishes to do at home.

  “And we really don’t need them,” Nan argued, passing her tin cup on to Flossie.

  “Think how the soldiers get along!” Bert put in.

  “And the firemen’” lisped Freddie, who never forgot the heroes of flame and water.

  Of course everybody was either sitting on the grass or on a “soft stump.” These latter conveniences had been brought by the boys for Aunt Sarah and Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “What’s that!” exclaimed little Flossie, as something was plainly moving under the tables cloth.

  “A snake, a snake!” called everybody at once, for indeed under the white linen was plainly to be seen the creeping form of a reptile.

  While the girls made a run for safety the boys carefully lifted the cloth and went for his snakeship.

  “There he is! There he is!” shouted Tom Mason, as the thing tried to crawl under the stump lately used as a seat by Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “Whack him!” called August Stout, who, armed with a good club, made straight for the stump.

  “Look out! He’s a big fellow!” Harry declared, as the snake attempted to get upright.

  The boys fell back a little now, and as the snake actually stood on the tip of his tail, as they do before striking, Harry sprang forward and dealt him a heavy blow right on the head that laid the intruder flat.

  “At him, boys! At him!” called Jack Hopkins, while the snake lay wriggling in the grass; and the boys, making good use of the stunning blow Harry had dealt, piled on as many more blows as their clubs could wield.

  All this time the girls and ladies were over on a knoll “high and dry,” as Nan said, and now, when assured that the snake was done for they could hardly be induced to come and look at him.

  “He’s a beauty!” Harry declared, as the boys actually stretched the creature out to measure him. Bert had a rule, and when the snake was measured up he was found to be five feet long!

  “He’s a black racer!” Jack Hopkins announced, and the others said they guessed he was.

  “Lucky we saw him first!” remarked Harry, “Racers are very poisonous!”

  “Let’s go home; there might be more!”, pleaded Flossie, but the boys said the snake hunt was the best fun at the picnic.

  “Goodness!” exclaimed Harry suddenly, “we forgot to let the pigeons loose!” and so saying he ran for the basket of birds that hung on the low limb of a pretty maple. First Harry made sure the messages were safe under each bird’s wing, then he called:

  “All ready!”

  Snap! went something that sounded like a shot (but it wasn’t), and then away flew the pretty birds to take the messages home to John and Martha. The shot was only a dry stick that Tom Mason snapped to imitate a gun, as they do at bicycle races, but the effect was quite startling and made the girls jump.

  “It won’t take long for them to get home!” said Bert, watching the birds fly away.

  “They’ll get lost!” cried Freddie.

  “No, they won’t. They know which way we came,” Nan explained.

  “But they was shut up in the basket,” argued Freddie.

  “Yet they could see,” Nan told him.

  “Can pigeons see when they’re asleep?” inquired the little fellow.

  “Maybe,” Nan answered.

  “Then I’d like to have pigeon eyes,” he finished, thinking to himself how fine it would be to see everything going on around and be fast asleep too.

  “Oh, mamma, come quick!” called Flossie, running along a path at the edge of the wood. “There’s a tree over there pouring water, and it isn’t raining a drop!”

  Everybody set out now to look at the wonderful tree, which was soon discovered where Flossie had found it.

  “There it is!” she exclaimed. “See the water dropping down!”

  “A maple tree,” Harry informed them, “and that sap is what they make maple sugar out of.”

  “Oh, catch it!” called Freddie, promptly holding his cap under the drops.

  “It would take a good deal to make a sugar cake,” Harry said, “but maybe we can get enough of it to make a little cake for Freddie.”

  At this the country boys began looking around for young maples, and as small limbs of the trees were broken the girls caught the drops in their tin cups. It took quite a while to get a little, but by putting it all together a cupful was finally gathered.

  “Now we will put it in a clean milk bottle,” Mrs. Bobbsey said, “and maybe we can make maple syrup cake to-morrow.”

  “Let’s have a game of hide-and-seek,” Nan suggested.

  In a twinkling every boy and girl was hidden behind a tree, and Nan found herself “It.” Of course it took a big tree to hide the girls’ dresses, and Nan had no trouble in spying Mildred first. Soon the game was going along merrily, and the boys and girls were out of breath trying to get “home fre
e.”

  “Where’s Roy?” exclaimed Tom Mason, the little boy’s brother.

  “Hiding somewhere,” Bessie ventured, for it only seemed a minute before when the little fat boy who was Freddie’s companion had been with the others.

  “But where is he?” they all soon exclaimed in alarm, as call after call brought no answer.

  “Over at the maple tree!” Harry thought.

  “Down at the spring,” Nan said.

  “Looking for flowers,” Flossie guessed.

  But all these spots were searched, and the little boy was not found.

  “Oh, maybe the giants have stoled him!” Freddie cried.

  “Or maybe the children’s hawk has took him away,” Flossie sobbed.

  Meanwhile everybody searched and searched, but no Roy could they find.

  “The boat!” suddenly exclaimed Tom, making a dash for the pond that ran along at the foot of a steep hill.

  “There he is! There he is!” the brother yelled, as getting over the edge of the hill Tom was now in full view of the pond.

  “And in the boat,” called Harry, close at Tom’s heels.

  “He’s drifting away!” screamed Bert. “Oh, quick, save him!”

  Just as the boys said, the little fellow was in the boat and drifting.

  He did not seem to realize his danger, for as he floated along he ran his little fat hand through the water as happily as if he had been in a steam launch, talking to the captain.

  “Can you swim?” the boys asked Bert, who of course had learned that useful art long ago.

  “She’s quite a long way out,” Tom said,

  “But we must be careful not to frighten him. See, he has left the oars here. Bert and I can carry one out and swim with one hand. Harry and Jack, can you manage the other?”

  The boys said they could, and quickly as the heaviest clothes could be thrown off they were striking out in the little lake toward the baby in the boat. He was only Freddie’s age, you know, and perhaps more of a baby than the good-natured Bobbsey boy.

  “Sit still, Roy,” called the anxious girl from the shore, fearing Roy would upset the boat as the boys neared him. It was hard work to swim and carry oars, but our brave boys managed to do it in time to save Roy. For not a great way down the stream were an old water wheel and a dam. Should the boat drift there what would become of little Roy?