The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “Of course you can,” promptly answered Freddie. “I can row.”

  “I don’t know, we might upset!” Flossie said, hesitating.

  “But it isn’t deep. Why, Downy walks around out here,” went on the brother.

  This assurance gave the little girl courage, and slipping the rope off the peg that secured the boat to the shore, very carefully she put Freddie on one seat, while she sat herself on the other.

  The oars were so big she did not attempt to handle them, but just depended on the boat to do its own sailing.

  “Isn’t this lovely!” declared Freddie, as the boat drifted quietly along.

  “Yes, but how can we get back?” asked Flossie, beginning to realize their predicament.

  “Oh, easy!” replied Freddie, who suddenly seemed to have become a man, he was so brave. “The tide comes down pretty soon, and then our boat will go back to shore.”

  Freddie had heard so much about the tide he felt he understood it perfectly. Of course, there was no tide on the lake, although the waters ran lazily toward the ocean at times.

  “But we are not getting near my boat,” Freddie complained, for indeed the toy sailboat was drifting just opposite their way.

  “Well, I can’t help it, I’m sure,” cried Flossie. “And I just wish I could get back. I’m going to call somebody.”

  “Nobody can hear you,” said her brother. “They are all down by the ocean, and there’s so much noise there you can’t even hear thunder.”

  Where the deep woods joined the lake there was a little island. This was just around the turn, and entirely out of view of either the Minturn or the Bingham boat landing. Toward this little island the children’s boat was now drifting.

  “Oh, we’ll be real Robinson Crusoes!” exclaimed Freddie, delighted at the prospect of such an adventure.

  “I don’t want to be no Robinson Crusoe!” pouted his sister. “I just want to get back home,” and she began to cry.

  “We’re going to bunk,” announced Freddie, as at that minute the boat did really bump into the little island. “Come, Flossie, let us get ashore,” said the brother, in that superior way that had come to him in their distress.

  Flossie willingly obeyed.

  “Be careful!” she cautioned. “Don’t step out till I get hold of your hand. It is awfully easy to slip getting out of a boat.”

  Fortunately for the little ones they had been taught to be careful when around boats, so that they were able to take care of themselves pretty well, even in their present danger.

  Once on land, Flossie’s fears left her, and she immediately set about picking the pretty little water flowers, that grew plentifully among the ferns and flag lilies.

  “I’m going to build a hut,” said Freddie, putting pieces of dry sticks up against a willow tree. Soon the children became so interested they did not notice their boat drift away, and really leave them all alone on the island!

  In the meantime everybody at the house was looking for the twins. Their first fear, of course, was the ocean, and down to the beach Mrs. Bobbsey, Aunt Sarah, and the boys hurried, while Aunt Emily and the girls made their way to the Gypsy Camp, fearing the fortune tellers might have stolen the children in order to get money for bringing them back again.

  Dorothy walked boldly up to the tent. An old woman sat outside and looked very wicked, her face was so dark and her hair so black and tangled.

  “Have you seen a little boy and girl around here?” asked Dorothy, looking straight into the tent.

  “No, nobody round here. Tell your fortune, lady?” This to Aunt Emily, who waited for Dorothy.

  “Not today,” answered Aunt Emily. “We are looking for two children. Are you sure you have not seen them?”

  “No, lady. Gypsy tell lady’s fortune, then lady find them,” she suggested, with that trick her class always uses, trying to impose on persons in trouble with the suggestion of helping them out of it.

  “No, we have not time,” insisted Aunt Emily; really quite alarmed now that there was no trace of the little twins.

  “Let me look through your tent?” asked Dorothy, bravely.

  “What for?” demanded the old woman.

  “To make sure the children are not hiding,” and without waiting for a word from the old woman, Dorothy walked straight into that gypsy tent!

  Even Aunt Emily was frightened.

  Suppose somebody inside should keep Dorothy?

  “Come out of my house!” muttered the woman, starting after Dorothy.

  “Come out, Dorothy,” called her mother, but the girl was making her way through the old beds and things inside, to make sure there was no Freddie or Flossie to be found in the tent.

  It was a small place, of course, and it did not take Dorothy very long to search it.

  Presently she appeared again, much to the relief of her mother, Nan, and Nellie, who waited breathlessly outside.

  “They are not around here,” said Dorothy. “Now, mother, give the old woman some change to make up for my trespassing.”

  Aunt Emily took a coin from her chatelaine.

  “Thank the lady! Good lady,” exclaimed the old gypsy. “Lady find her babies; babies play—see!” (And she pretended to look into the future with some dirty cards.) “Babies play in woods. Natalie sees babies picking flowers.”

  Now, how could anybody ever guess that the old gypsy had just come down from picking dandelions by the lake, where she really had seen Freddie and Flossie on the island?

  And how could anybody know that she was too wicked to tell Aunt Emily this, but was waiting until night, to bring the children back home herself, and get a reward for doing so?

  She had seen the boat drift away and she knew the little ones were helpless to return home unless someone found them.

  Mrs. Bobbsey and the boys were now coming up from the beach.

  What, at first, seemed only a mishap, now looked like a very serious matter.

  “We must go to the woods,” insisted Dorothy. “Maybe that old woman knew they were in the woods.”

  But as such things always happen, the searchers went to the end of the woods, far away from the island. Of course they all called loudly, and the boys gave the familiar yodel, but the noise of the ocean made it impossible for the call to reach Freddie and Flossie.

  “Oh, I’m so afraid they are drowned!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, breaking down and crying.

  “No, mamma,” insisted Nan, “I am sure they are not. Flossie is so afraid of the water, and Freddie always minds Flossie. They must be playing somewhere. Maybe they are home by this time,” and so it was agreed to go back to the house and if the little ones were not there—then—

  “But they must be there,” insisted Nellie, starting on a run over the swampy grounds toward the Cliffs.

  And all this time Freddie and Flossie were quite unconcerned playing on the island.

  “Oh, there’s a man!” shouted Freddie, seeing someone in the woods. “Maybe it’s Friday. Say there, Mister!” he shouted. “Say, will you help us get to land?”

  The man heard the child’s voice and hurried to the edge of the lake.

  “Wall, I declare!” he exclaimed, “if them babies ain’t lost out there. And here comes their boat. Well, I’ll just fetch them in before they try to swim out,” he told himself, swinging into the drifting boat, and with the stout stick he had in his hand, pushing off for the little island.

  The island was quite near to shore on that side, and it was only a few minutes’ work for the man to reach the children.

  “What’s your name?” he demanded, as soon as he touched land.

  “Freddie Bobbsey,” spoke up the little fellow, bravely, “and we live at the Cliffs.”

  “You do, eh? Then it was your brothers who brought my cow home, so I can pay them back by taking you home now. I can’t row to the far shore with this stick, so we’ll have to tramp it through the woods. Come along.” and carefully he lifted the little ones into the boat, pushing to the woods, and st
arted off to walk the round-about way, through the woods, to the bridge, then along the road back to the Cliffs, where a whole household was in great distress because of the twins’ absence.

  CHAPTER XVI

  Dorothy’s Doings

  “Here they come!” called Nellie, who was searching around the barn, and saw the farmer with the two children crossing the hill.

  “I’m Robinson Crusoe!” insisted Freddie, “and this is my man, Friday,” he added, pointing to the farmer.

  Of course it did not take long to clear up the mystery of the little ones’ disappearance. But since his return Freddie acted like a hero, and certainly felt like one, and Flossie brought home with her a dainty bouquet of pink sebatia, that rare little flower so like a tiny wild rose. The farmer refused to take anything for his time and trouble, being glad to do our friends a favor.

  Aunt Sarah and Harry were to leave for Meadow Brook that afternoon, but the worry over the children being lost made Aunt Sarah feel quite unequal to the journey, so Aunt Emily prevailed upon her to wait another day.

  “There are so many dangers around here,” remarked Aunt Sarah, when all the “scare” was over. “It is different in the country. We never worry about lost children out in Meadow Brook.”

  “But I often got lost out there,” insisted Freddie. “Don’t you remember?”

  Aunt Sarah had some recollection of the little fellow’s adventures in that line, and laughed over them, now that they were recalled.

  Late that afternoon Dorothy, Nan, and Nellie had a conference: that is, they talked with their heads so close together not even Flossie could get an idea of what they were planning. But it was certainly mischief, for Dorothy had most to say, and she would rather have a good joke than a good dinner any day, so Susan said.

  Harry, Hal, and Bert had been chasing through the woods after a odd-looking bird. It was large, and had brilliant feathers, and when it rested for a moment on a tree it would pick at the bark as if it were trying to play a tune with its beak. Each time it struck the bark its head bobbed up and down in a strange way for a bird. But the boys could not get it. They set Hal’s trap, and even used an air rifle in hopes of bringing it down without killing it, but the bird puttered from place to place, not in a very great hurry, but just fast enough to keep the boys busy chasing it.

  That evening, at dinner, the strange bird was much talked about.

  “Dat’s a ban-shee!” declared Dinah, jokingly. “Dat bird came to bring a message from somebody. You boys will hear dat tonight, see if you doesn’t,” and she gave a very mysterious wink at Dorothy, who just then nearly choked with her dessert.

  A few hours later the house was all quiet. The happenings of the day brought a welcome night, and tired little heads comfortably hugged their pillows.

  It must have been about midnight, Bert was positive he had just heard the clock strike a lot of rings, surely a dozen or so, when at his window came a odd sound, like something pecking. At first Bert got it mixed up with his dreams, but as it continued longer and louder, he called to Harry, who slept in the alcove in Bert’s room, and together the boys listened, attentively.

  “That’s the strange bird,” declared Harry. “Sure enough it is bringing us a message, as Dinah said,” and while the boys took the girl’s words in a joke, they really seemed to be coming true.

  “Don’t light the gas,” cautioned Bert, “or that will surely frighten it off. We can get our air guns, and I’ll go crawl out on the veranda roof back of it, so as to get it if possible.”

  All this time the “peck-peck-peck” kept at the window, but just as soon as Bert went out in the hall to make his way through the storeroom window to the veranda roof, the pecking ceased. Harry hurried after Bert to tell him the bird was gone, and then together the boys put their heads out of their own window.

  But there was not a sound, not even the distant flutter of a bird’s wing to tell the boys the messenger had gone.

  “Back to bed for us,” said Harry, laughing. “I guess that bird is a joker and wants to keep us busy,” and both boys being healthy were quite ready to fall off to sleep as soon as they felt it was of no use to stay awake longer looking for their feathered visitor.

  “There it is again,” called Bert, when Harry had just begun to dream of hazelnuts in Meadow Brook. “I’ll get him this time!” and without waiting to go through the storeroom, Bert raised the window and bolted out on the roof.

  “What’s de matter down dere?” called Dinah from the window above. “’Pears like as if you boys had de nightmare. Can’t you let nobody get a wink ob sleep? Ebbery time I puts my head down, bang! comes a noise and up pops my head. Now, what’s a-ailin’ ob you, Bert?” and the colored girl showed by her tone of voice she was not a bit angry, but “chock-full of laugh,” as Bert whispered to Harry.

  But the boys had not caught the bird, had not even seen it, for that matter.

  Both Bert and Harry were now on the roof in their pajamas.

  “What’s—the—matter—there?” called Dorothy, in a very drowsy voice, from her window at the other end of the roof.

  “What are you boys after?” called Uncle William, from a middle window.

  “Anything the matter?” asked Aunt Sarah, anxiously, from the spare room.

  “Got a burgulor?” shrieked Freddie, from the nursery.

  “Do you want any help?” offered Susan, her head out of the top-floor window.

  All these questions came so thick and fast on the heads of Bert and Harry that the boys had no idea of answering them. Certainly the bird was nowhere to be seen, and they did not feel like advertising their “April-fool game” to the whole house, so they decided to crawl into bed again and let others do the same.

  The window in the boys’ room was a bay, and each time the pecking disturbed them they thought the sound came from a different part of the window. Bert said it was the one at the left, so where the “bird” called from was left a mystery.

  But neither boy had time to close his eyes before the noise started up again!

  “Well, if that isn’t a ghost it certainly is a ban-shee, as Dinah said,” whispered Bert. “I’m going out to Uncle William’s room and tell him. Maybe he will have better luck than we had,” and so saying, Bert crept out into the hall and down two doors to his uncle’s room.

  Uncle William had also heard the sound.

  “Don’t make a particle of noise,” cautioned the uncle, “and we can go up in the cupola and slide down a post so quietly the bird will not hear us,” and as he said this, he, in his bath robe, went cautiously up the attic stairs, out of a small window, and slid down the post before Bert had time to draw his own breath.

  But there was no bird to be seen anywhere!

  “I heard it this very minute!” declared Harry, from the window.

  “It might be bats!” suggested Uncle William. “But listen! I thought I heard the girls laughing,” and at that moment an audible titter was making its way out of Nan’s room!

  “That’s Dorothy’s doings!” declared Uncle William, getting ready to laugh himself. “She’s always playing tricks,” and he began to feel about the outside ledge of the bay window.

  But there was nothing there to solve the mystery.

  “A tick-tack!” declared Harry, “I’ll bet, from the girls’ room!” and without waiting for another word he jumped out of his window, ran along the roof to Nan’s room, and then grabbed something.

  “Here it is!” he called, confiscating the offending property. “You just wait, girls!” he shouted in the window. “If we don’t give you a good ducking in the ocean for this to-morrow!”

  The laugh of the three girls in Nan’s room made the joke on the boys more complete, and as Uncle William went back to his room he declared to Mrs. Bobbsey and Aunt Emily that his girl, Dorothy, was more fun than a dozen boys, and he would match her against that number for the best piece of good-natured fun ever played.

  “A bird!” sneered Bert, making fun of himself for being
so easily fooled.

  “A girls’ game of tick-tack!” laughed Harry, making up his mind that if he did not “get back at Dorothy,” he would certainly have to haul in his colors as captain of the Boys’ Brigade of Meadow Brook; “for she certainly did fool me,” he admitted, turning over to sleep at last.

  CHAPTER XVII

  Old Friends

  “Now, Aunt Sarah,” pleaded Nan the next morning, “you might just as well wait and go home on the excursion train. All Meadow Brook will be down, and it will be so much pleasanter for you. The train will be here by noon and leave at three o’clock.”

  “But think of the hour that would bring us to Meadow Brook!” objected Aunt Sarah.

  “Well, you will have lots of company, and if Uncle Daniel shouldn’t meet you, you can ride up with the Hopkinses or anybody along your road.”

  Mrs. Bobbsey and Aunt Emily added their entreaties to Nan’s, and Aunt Sarah finally agreed to wait.

  “If I keep on,” she said, “I’ll be here all summer. And think of the fruit that’s waiting to be preserved!”

  “Hurrah!” shouted Bert, giving his aunt a good hug. “Then Harry and I can have a fine time with the Meadow Brook boys,” and Bert dashed out to take the good news to Harry and Hal Bingham, who were out at the donkey house.

  “Come on, fellows!” he called. “Down to the beach! We can have a swim before the crowd gets there.” And with renewed interest the trio started off for the breakers.

  “I would like to live at the beach all summer,” remarked Harry. “Even in winter it must be fine here.”

  “It is,” said Hal. “But the winds blow everything away regularly, and they all have to be carted back again each spring. This shore, with all its trimmings now, will look like a bald head by the first of December.”

  All three boys were fine swimmers, and they promptly struck off for the water that was “straightened out,” as Bert said, beyond the tearing of the breakers at the edge. There were few people in the surf and the boys made their way around as if they owned the ocean.

  Suddenly Hal thought he heard a call!

  Then a man’s arm appeared above the water’s surface, a few yards away.