The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 4

  “So you won, did you?” said one of the boys to Bert. “Good enough.”

  “We are going to try it over again,” put in Charley. “Come on.”

  In the crowd was Danny Rugg, who had a brand-new sled.

  “I guess I can beat anybody!” cried Danny boastfully. “This new sled of mine is bang-up.”

  “What slang!” whispered Nan, to Bert. “If I were you I shouldn’t race with him.”

  “I’m going to race with Charley,” answered her twin brother, and took no notice of Danny’s challenge.

  Bert and Charley were soon ready for the test, and away they went amid a cheer from their friends.

  “I think Charley will win this time,” said Nellie.

  “And I think that Bert will win,” answered Nan.

  “Oh, you think your brother is wonderful,” sniffed Nellie, with a shrug of her shoulders.

  “He is just as good as any boy,” said Nan quickly.

  Down the hill swept the two sleds, keeping side by side as before. They were but a foot apart, for each owner wished to keep on the hardest part of the slide.

  “Keep on your side, Bert Bobbsey!” shouted Charley warningly.

  “And you keep on yours, Charley Mason!” returned Bert.

  All of the others on the hill had stopped coasting to witness the contest, but now with a whoop Danny Rugg swept forward with his new sled and came down the hill at top speed.

  The bottom of the hill was barely reached when Charley’s sled made an unexpected turn and crashed into Bert’s, throwing Bert over on his side in the snow.

  “What did you do that for?” demanded Bert angrily.

  “I—I—didn’t do it,” stammered Charley. “I guess you turned into me.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Bert arose and began to brush the snow from his clothes. As he did so he heard a rushing sound behind him and then came a crash as Danny Rugg ran into him. Down he went again and his sled had a runner completely broken off. Bert was hit in the ankle and badly bruised.

  “Why didn’t you get out of the way!” roared Danny Rugg roughly. “I yelled loud enough.”

  “Oh, my ankle!” groaned Bert. For the moment the wrecked sled was forgotten.

  “I didn’t touch your ankle,” went on the big boy.

  “You did so, Danny—at least, the point of your sled did,” answered Bert.

  “You ran into me in the first place,” came from Charley.

  “Oh, Charley, you know better than that.” Bert tried to stand, but had to sit down. “Oh, my ankle!”

  “It wasn’t my fault,” said Danny Rugg, and began to haul his sled away. Charley started to follow.

  “Don’t leave me, Charley,” called out Bert. “I—I guess I can’t walk.”

  Charley hesitated. Then, feeling in his heart that he was really responsible for running into Bert in the first place, he came back and helped Bert to his feet.

  “The sled is broken,” said Bert, surveying the wreck dismally.

  “That was Danny’s fault.”

  “Well, then, he ought to pay for having it fixed.”

  “He never pays for anything he breaks, Bert,—you know that.”

  Slowly and painfully Bert dragged himself and his broken sled to the top of the hill. Sharp, hot flashes of pain shooting through his bruised ankle. Nan ran to meet him.

  “Oh, Bert, what is the matter? Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Yes,—Danny ran into me, and broke the sled.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, I say!” blustered the big boy. “You had a right to get out of the way.”

  “It was your fault, Danny Rugg, and you will have to have my sled mended,” cried Bert.

  Throwing down the rope of his own sled, Danny advanced and doubled up his fists as if to fight.

  “Don’t you talk like that to me,” he said surlily. “I don’t like it.”

  Bert’s ankle hurt too much for him to continue the quarrel. He felt himself growing dizzy and he fell back.

  “Let us go home,” whispered Nan.

  “I’ll ride you home if you can’t walk,” put in Charley, who was growing alarmed.

  In the end Bert had to accept the offer, and home he went, with Charley and Nan pulling him and with the broken sled dragging on behind.

  It was all he could do to get into the house, and as a consequence Mrs. Bobbsey was much alarmed. She took off his shoe and stocking and found the ankle scratched and swollen, and bathed it and bound it up.

  “You must lie down on the sofa,” she said. “Never mind the broken sled. Perhaps your papa can fix it when he comes home.”

  Bert detested playing the part of an invalid, but he soon discovered that keeping the ankle quiet felt much better than trying to walk around upon it. That night Mr. Bobbsey carried him up to bed, and he remained home for three days, when the ankle became as well as ever. The broken sled was sent to a nearby cabinet maker, and came back practically as good as new.

  “You must not have anything to do with Danny Rugg,” said Mrs. Bobbsey to her son. “He is very rough and ungentlemanly.”

  “I’ll leave him alone, mamma, if he’ll leave me alone,” answered Bert.

  During those days spent at home, Nan did her best to amuse her brother. As soon as she was out of school she came straight home, and read to him and played games. Nan was also learning to play on the piano and she played a number of tunes that he liked to hear. They were so much attached to each other that it did not seem natural for Nan to go out unless her twin brother could go out too.

  The first snow storm had been followed by another, so that in the garden the snow lay deeper than ever. This was a great delight to Freddie and Flossie, who worked hard to build themselves a snow house. They enlisted the services of Sam, the stableman, who speedily piled up for them a heap of snow much higher than their heads.

  “Now, chillun, dar am de house,” said the colored man. “All yo’ hab got to do is to clear out de insides.” And then he went off to his work, after starting the hole for them.

  Flossie wanted to divide the house into three rooms, “dining room, kitchen, and bedroom,” as she said, but Freddie objected.

  “’Taint big enough,” said the little boy. “Make one big room and call it ev’rything.”

  “But we haven’t got an ev’rything,” said Flossie.

  “Well, then, call it the parlor,” said Freddie. “When it’s done we can put in a carpet and two chairs for us to sit on.”

  It was hard work for such little hands to dig out the inside of the heap of snow, but they kept at it, and at last the hole was big enough for Freddie to crawl into.

  “Oh, it’s jess beautiful!” he cried, “Try it, Flossie!” And Flossie did try, and said the house was going to be perfect.

  “Only we must have a bay window,” she added. “And a curtain, just like mamma.”

  They continued to shovel away, and soon Freddie said he could almost stand up in the house. He was inside, shoveling out the snow, while his twin sister packed what he threw out on the outside, as Sam had told them to do.

  “Where shall I put the bay window?” asked the little boy, presently.

  “On this side,” answered Flossie, pointing with the shovel she held.

  At once Freddie began to dig a hole through the side of the pile of snow.

  “Be careful, or the house will come down!” cried Flossie, all at once, and hardly had she spoken when down came the whole top of the snow pile and poor Freddie was buried completely out of sight!

  CHAPTER VII

  Freddie and Flossie’s Snow House

  “Freddie! Freddie!” shrieked Flossie, when she saw her twin brother disappear. “Do come out!”

  But Freddie could not come out, and when, after a few seconds he did not show himself, she ran toward the kitchen door, screaming at the top of her breath.

  “Oh, Dinah! Dinah! Freddie is buried! Freddie is buried!”

  “Wot’s dat yo’ say, Flossie?” demanded the cook,
coming to the door.

  “Freddie is buried. The ceiling of the snow house came down on him!”

  “Gracious sakes alive, chile!” burst out Dinah, and without waiting to put anything on her head she rushed forth into the garden. “Gib me dat shovel quick! He’ll be stuffocated fo’ yo’ know it.”

  She began to dig away at the pile of snow, and presently uncovered one of Freddie’s lower limbs. Then she dropped the shovel and tugged away at the limb and presently brought Freddie to view, just as Mrs. Bobbsey and Nan appeared on the scene.

  “What in the world is the matter?” questioned Mrs. Bobbsey, in alarm.

  “Dat chile dun gwine an’ buried himself alive,” responded the colored cook. “De roof of de snow house cabed in on him, pooh dear! He’s ’most stuffocated!”

  In the meantime Freddie was gasping for breath. Then he looked at the wreck of the snow house and set up a tremendous roar of dismay.

  “Oh, Flossie, it’s all spoilt! The bay window an’ all!”

  “Never mind, Freddie dear,” said his mother, taking him. “Be thankful that you were not suffocated, as Dinah says.”

  “Yes, but Flossie and me were makin’ an ev’rything house, with a parlor, an’ a bay window, an’ ev’rything. I didn’t want it to fall down.” Freddie was still gasping, but now he struggled to the ground. “Want to build it up again,” he added.

  “I am afraid you’ll get into trouble again, Freddie.”

  “No, I won’t, mamma. Do let us build it up again,” pleaded the little fellow.

  “I kin watch dem from de doah,” suggested Dinah.

  “Let me help them, mamma,” put in Nan. “Bert is reading a book, so he won’t want me for a while.”

  “Very well, Nan, you may stay with them. But all of you be careful,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

  After that the building of the snow house was started all over again. The pile of snow was packed down as hard as possible, and Nan made Flossie and Freddie do the outside work while she crept inside, and cut around the ceiling and the bay window just as the others wanted. It was great sport, and when the snow house was finished it was large enough and strong enough for all of them to enter with safety.

  “Tonight I’ll poah some water ober dat house,” said Sam. “Dat will make de snow as hard as ice.” This was done, and the house remained in the garden until spring came. Later on Bert built an addition to it, which he called the library, and in this he put a bench and a shelf on which he placed some old magazines and story papers. In the main part of the snow house Freddie and Flossie at first placed an old rug and two blocks of wood for chairs, and a small bench for a table. Then, when Flossie grew tired of the house, Freddie turned it into a stable, in which he placed his rocking-horse. Then he brought out his iron fire engine, and used the place for a fire-house, tying an old dinner bell on a stick, stuck over the doorway. Dong! Dong! would go the bell, and out he would rush with his little engine and up the garden path, looking for a fire.

  “Let us play you are a reg’lar fireman,” said Flossie, on seeing this. “You must live in the fire-house, and I must be your wife and come to see you with the baby.” And she dressed up in a long skirt and paid him a visit, with her best doll on her arm. Freddie pretended to be very glad to see her, and embraced the baby. But a moment later he made the bell ring, and throwing the baby to her rushed off again with his engine.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” pouted Flossie. “Dorothy might have fallen in the snow.”

  “Can’t help it,” answered Freddie. “A fireman can’t stop for anything.”

  “But—but—he doesn’t have to throw his baby away, does he?” questioned Flossie, with wide open eyes.

  “Yes, he does,—ev’rything.”

  “But—but supposing he is—is eating his dinner?”

  “He has to throw it away, Flossie. Oh, it’s awful hard to be a real fireman.”

  “Would he have to throw his jam away, and his pie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I wouldn’t be a fireman, not for a—a house full of gold!” said Flossie, and marched back into the house with her doll.

  Flossie’s dolls were five in number. Dorothy was her pride, and had light hair and blue eyes, and three dresses, one of real lace. The next was Gertrude, a short doll with black eyes and hair and a traveling dress that was very cute. Then came Lucy, who had lost one arm, and Polly, who had lost both an arm and a leg. The fifth doll was Jujube, a colored boy, dressed in a fiery suit of red, with a blue cap and real rubber boots. This doll had come from Sam and Dinah and had been much admired at first, but was now taken out only when all the others went too.

  “He doesn’t really belong to the family, you know,” Flossie would explain to her friends. “But I have to keep him, for mamma says there is no colored orphan asylum for dolls. Besides, I don’t think Sam and Dinah would like to see their doll child in an asylum.” The dolls were all kept in a row in a big bureau drawer at the top of the house, but Flossie always took pains to separate Jujube from the rest by placing the cover of a pasteboard box between them.

  With so much snow on the ground it was decided by the boys of that neighborhood to build a snow fort, and this work was undertaken early on the following Saturday morning. Luckily, Bert was by that time well enough to go out and he did his fair share of the labor, although being careful not to injure the sore ankle.

  The fort was built at the top of a small hill in a large open lot. It was made about twenty feet square and the wall was as high as the boys’ heads and over a foot thick. In the middle was gathered a big pile of snow, and into this was stuck a flag-pole from which floated a nice flag loaned by a boy named Ralph Blake.

  “Let us divide into two parties of soldiers,” said Ralph. “One can defend the fort and the others can attack it.”

  “Hurrah! just the thing!” cried Bert. “When shall the battle begin?”

  The boys talked it over, and it was decided to have the battle come off after lunch.

  The boys went home full of enthusiasm, and soon the news spread that a real soldiers’ battle was to take place at the lot.

  “Oh, Bert, can’t I go and look on?” asked Nan.

  “I want to go, too,” put in Flossie.

  “Can’t I be a soldier?” asked Freddie. “I can make snowballs, and throw ’em, too.”

  “No, Freddie, you are too little to be a soldier,” answered Bert. “But you can all come and look on, if you wish.”

  After lunch the boys began to gather quickly, until over twenty were present. Many girls and a few grown folks were also there, who took places out of harm’s way.

  “Now, remember,” said a gentleman who was placed in charge. “No icy snowballs and no stones.”

  “We’ll remember, Mr. Potter,” cried the young soldiers.

  The boys were speedily divided into two parties, one to attack and one to defend the fort. It fell to Bert’s lot to be one of the attacking party. Without loss of time each party began to make all the snowballs it could. The boys who remained in the fort kept out of sight behind the walls, while the attacking party moved to the back of the barn at the corner of the big lot.

  “Are you all ready?” shouted Mr. Potter presently.

  A yell of assent came from nearly all of the young soldiers.

  “Very well, then; the battle may begin.”

  Some of the boys had brought horns along, and now a rousing blast came from behind the barn and then from the snow fort.

  “Come on and capture the fort!” cried Bert, and led the way, with his arms full of snowballs.

  There was a grand cheer and up the hill rushed the young soldiers, ready to capture the snow fort no matter what the cost.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Fun on the Ice

  “Oh, the fight is going to start!” cried Nan, in high excitement. “See them coming up the hill!”

  “Will they shoot?” asked Flossie, just a bit nervously.

  “Course they won’t shoot,” answered Freddi
e. “Can’t shoot snowballs. Ain’t got no powder in.”

  The attacking party was still a good distance from the fort when those inside let fly a volley of snowballs. But the snowballs did not reach their mark, and still the others came up the hill.

  “Now then, give it to them!” cried Bert, and let fly his first snowball, which landed on the top of the fort’s wall. Soon the air was full of snowballs, flying one way and another. Many failed to do any damage, but some went true, and soon Bert received a snowball full in the breast and another in the shoulder. Then he slipped and fell and his own snowballs were lost.

  The attacking party got to within fifty feet of the fort, but then the ammunition gave out and they were forced to retreat, which they did in quick order.

  “Hurrah! they can’t take the fort!” cried those inside of the stronghold, and blew their horns more wildly than ever. But their own ammunition was low and they made other snowballs as quickly as they could, using the pile of snow in the middle of the fort for that purpose.

  Back of the barn the attacking party held a consultation.

  “I’ve got a plan,” said a boy named Ned Brown. “Let us divide into two parties and one move on the fort from the front and the other from the back. Then, if they attack one party, the other party can sneak in and climb over the fort wall and capture the flag.”

  “All right, let us do that,” said Bert.

  Waiting until each boy had a dozen or more snowballs, half of the attacking force moved away along a fence until the rear of the fort was gained. Then, with another cheer, all set out for the fort.

  It was a grand rush and soon the air was once more filled with snowballs, much to the delight of the spectators, who began to cheer both sides.

  “Oh, I hope they get into the fort this time,” said Nan.

  “I hope they don’t,” answered another girl, who had a brother in the fort.

  Inside the fort the boys were having rather a hard time of it. They were close together, and a snowball coming over the walls was almost certain to hit one or another. More than this, the pile of snow around the flag was growing small, so that the flag was in great danger of toppling over.

  Up the two sides of the hill came the invaders, Bert leading the detachment that was to attack the rear. He was hit again, but did not falter, and a moment later found himself at the very wall.