“They ought not to have gone off so far,” said Mr. Tetlow, as he blew several times on the whistle. Soon Danny and the other boy, were seen coming from a distant part of the grove. One of the boys, Harry White, looked very pale, and not at all well.
“What is the matter?” asked Mr. Tetlow, and he looked curiously at Danny and the others, and sniffed the air as though he smelled something.
“I—I guess I ate too many—apples,” said Harry, in a faint voice. “We found an orchard, and—”
“I told you not to go into orchards, and take fruit,” said Mr. Tetlow, severely.
“The man said we could,” remarked Danny. “We asked him.”
“Then you should not have eaten so many,” said Mr. Tetlow. “I can’t see how ripe apples, which are the only kind there are this time of year—could make you ill unless you ate too many,” and he looked at Danny and Harry sharply. But they did not answer.
The march home was not as joyful as the one to the grove had been, for most of the children were tired. But they all had had a fine time, and there were many requests of the teachers to have another picnic the next week.
“Oh, we can’t have them every week, my dears,” said Miss Franklin, who had charge of Flossie, Freddie and some others in the kindergarten class. “Besides, it will soon be too cool to go out in the woods. In a little while we will have ice and snow, and Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
“That will be better than picnics,” said Freddie. “I’m going to have a new sled.”
“I’m going to get a new doll, that can walk,” declared Flossie, and then she and the others talked about the coming holidays.
At school several days in the following week little was talked of except the picnic, the snake scare from the old tree root, the catching of the fish, and the illness of Harry White, for that boy was quite sick by the time town was reached, and Mr. Tetlow called a carriage to send him home.
“And I can guess what made him sick too,” said Bert to Nan, privately.
“What?” she asked.
“Smoking cigarettes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when I and some of the other fellows were fishing we saw Danny and his crowd smoking in the woods. They offered us some, but we wouldn’t take any. Harry said he was sick then, but Danny only laughed at him.”
“That Danny Rugg is a bad boy,” said Nan, severely. But she was soon to see how much meaner Danny could be.
Workmen had recently finished putting some new water pipes, and a place for the children to drink, in the school yard, and one morning, speaking to the whole school, Mr. Tetlow made a little speech, warning the children not to play with the faucets, and spray the water about, as some had done, in fun.
“Whoever is caught playing with the faucets in the yard after this will be severely punished,” he said.
As it happened, Flossie and Freddie were not at school that day, Freddie having a slight sore throat. His mother kept him home, and Flossie would not go without him. So they did not hear the warning, and Bert and Nan did not think to tell the smaller children of it.
Two days later Freddie was well enough to go back to class, and Flossie accompanied him. It was at the morning recess when, as Freddie went to get a drink at one of the new faucets, Danny saw him. A gleam of mischief came into the eyes of the school bully.
“Want to see the water squirt, Freddie?” asked Danny. “That’s a new kind of faucet. It squirts awful far.”
“Does it?” asked Freddie, innocently. “How do you make it?” He had no idea it was forbidden fun.
“Just put your thumb over the hole, and turn the water on,” directed Danny. “You, too, Flossie. It won’t hurt you.”
Danny looked all around, thinking he was unobserved as he gave this bad advice. Naturally, Freddie and Flossie, being so young, suspected nothing. They covered the opening of the faucet with their thumbs, and turned on the water. It spurted in a fine spray, and they laughed in glee. That they wet each other did not matter.
Danny, seeing the success of his trick, walked off as he saw Mr. Tetlow coming. The Bobbsey twins were so intent on spurting the water that they did not observe the principal until he was close to them. Then they started as he called out sharply:
“Freddie! Flossie! Stop that! You know that it is forbidden! Go to my office at once and I will come and see you later. You will be punished for this!”
With tears in their eyes the little twins obeyed. They could not understand it.
CHAPTER XII
The Children’s Party
When Mr. Tetlow, a little later, entered his office he found Flossie and Freddie standing by one of the windows, looking out on the other children marching to their classrooms. They had cried a little, but had stopped now.
“I am very sorry to have to punish you two twins,” said the principal, “but I had given strict orders that no one was to play with that water. Why did you do it?”
“Because,” answered Flossie.
“Danny Rugg told us to,” added Freddie. “He said it was a new kind of faucet.”
“Now be careful,” warned Mr. Tetlow. Often before he had heard pupils say that someone else told them to break certain rules. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
“Yes! sir,” said Freddie, eagerly. “Danny told us to do it.”
“But didn’t you know it was forbidden?”
“No, sir,” answered Flossie.
“Why, I spoke of it in all the rooms.”
“We wasn’t here yesterday or the day before,” said Flossie. “Freddie was sick.”
Mr. Tetlow began to understand.
“I will look this up,” he said, “and if find—”
He was interrupted by a boy from one of the higher classes coming in with a note from his teacher. She wanted a new box of chalk.
“When you go back, George,” said the principal to the boy, as he gave him what the teacher had sent for, “go to Miss Hegan’s class, and have her send Danny Rugg to me. Flossie and Freddie say he told them to spray water with one of the new faucets.”
“Yes, sir, he did!” exclaimed George. “I heard him, but I didn’t think they would do it. He did tell them.”
At this unexpected information Mr. Tetlow was much surprised.
“If that is the case, Danny is the one to be punished,” he said. “I am sorry, Flossie and Freddie, that I suspected you. You may go back to your class, and I will write your teacher a note, saying you may go out half an hour ahead of the others to make up for coming to my office. But, after this, no matter whether anyone tells you or not, don’t spray the water.”
“No, sir, we won’t!” exclaimed the Bobbsey twins, now happy again.
Danny Rugg was punished by being kept in after school for several days, and Mr. Tetlow sent home a note to his father, explaining what a mean trick the bully had played.
“I wish I had heard Danny telling you that—just to get you in trouble,” said Bert, when he was told of what had happened. “I’d have fixed him.”
“Oh, don’t get into any more fights,” begged Nan.
Bert did not come to blows with Danny over this latest trouble, but he did tell the bully, very plainly, what he thought of him, and said if Danny ever did a thing like that again that he would not get off so easily.
“Oh, I’m not afraid of you,” sneered Danny.
Lessons and fun made up many school days for the Bobbsey twins. And, as the Fall went on, lessons grew a little harder. Even Freddie and Flossie, young as they were, had little tasks to do that kept them busy. But they liked their school and the teacher, and many were the strange stories they brought home of the happenings in the classroom.
It was now toward the end of October, and the weather was getting cooler, though during the day it was still very warm at times. The twins, as did their friends, looked forward to the coming of Winter and the Christmas holidays.
Thanksgiving, too, would be a time of rejoicing and of good things to eat, and this
occasion was to be made more of than usual this time, for some boys and girls the Bobbseys had met in the country and at the seashore were to be invited to spend a few days in Lakeport.
But before this there was another event down on the program. This was to be a party for Flossie and Freddie, the occasion being their joint birthdays.
“And we’re going to have candy!” cried Freddie, when the arrangements were talked over.
“And ice cream”—added Flossie—“a whole freezer full; aren’t we, mamma?”
“Well, I guess a small freezer full won’t be any too much,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, smiling. “But I hope none of you eat enough to make yourselves ill.”
“We won’t,” promised Freddie and Flossie.
There were busy times in the home of the twins the next few days, for though Nan and Bert’s birthdays were not to be observed, still they were to have their part in the jolly celebration.
Invitations were sent out, on little sheets of note paper, adorned with flowers, and in cute little envelopes. Flossie and Freddie took them to the post-office themselves.
“My! what a lot of mail!” exclaimed the clerk at the stamp window, as he saw the children dropping the invitations into the slot. “Uncle Sam will have to get some extra men to carry that around, I guess. What’s it all about?”
“We’re going to have a party,” said Flossie, proudly.
Just then Danny Rugg came into the post-office.
“A party; eh?” he sneered. “I’m coming to it, I am; and I’m going to have two plates of ice cream.”
“You are not!” cried Freddie. “My mamma wouldn’t let a boy like you come to our party.”
“’Specially not after what you did—telling us to play in the water,” added Freddie. “You can’t come!”
“Yes, I can,” insisted Danny, just to tease the children.
For a moment Flossie and Freddie almost believed him, he seemed so much in earnest about it.
“You can’t come you haven’t any invitation,” said Flossie, suddenly.
“I’ll take one of those you put in the box,” went on the mean boy.
“He won’t dare—will he?” and Freddie appealed to the mail clerk.
“I should say not!” said the man at the stamp window. “If he does Uncle Sam will be after him.”
“Well, I’m coming to that party all the same!” insisted Danny, with a grin on his freckled face.
Flossie and Freddie were so worried about him that they told their mother, but she assured them that Danny would not come to spoil their fun.
Finally the afternoon and evening of the party arrived, for the little folks were to come just before supper, play some games, eat, and then stay until about nine o’clock.
Flossie and Freddie had been dressed in their prettiest clothes, and Nan and Bert also attired for the affair. The ice cream had come from the store, all packed in ice and salt, and Dinah had set it out on the back stoop, where it would be cooler.
Dinah was very busy that day. She hurried about here and there, helping Mrs. Bobbsey. Sam, her husband, also had plenty to do.
“I ‘clar t’ gracious goodness!” Dinah exclaimed, “I suah will get thin ef dish yeah keeps up! I ain’t set down a minute dis blessed day. My feet’ll drop off soon I ‘specs.”
“Will they, really, Dinah?” asked Freddie. “And can we watch ’em fall?”
“Bress yo’ hearts, honeys!” exclaimed the colored cook, “I didn’t mean it jest dat way. But suffin’s suah gwine t’ happen—I feels it in mah bones!”
And something was to happen, though not exactly what Dinah expected.
Finally all was in readiness for the guests. The good things to eat were in the kitchen, all but the ice cream, which, as I have said, was out on the back porch. Flossie and Freddie had gone to the front door nearly a dozen times to see if any of the guests were in sight. Snap, as a special favor, had been allowed to stay in the house that afternoon, for the twins were going to make him do tricks for their friends.
There came a ring at the door bell.
“Here they come! Here they come!” cried Flossie.
“Let me answer, too,” cried Freddie, and they both hurried through the front hall to greet the first guest at their party.
CHAPTER XIII
An Unpleasant Surprise
Quickly, after the first guests had arrived came the others. Nellie Parks, Grace Lavine friends of Nan, and Willie Porter and his sister Sadie, came first, and Freddie and Flossie let them in, the Porter children being some of their bestliked playmates.
All the children wore their best clothes, and for a time they were a bit stiff and unnatural, standing shyly about in corners, against the walls, or sitting on chairs.
The boys seemed to all crowd together in one part of the room, and the girls in another. Flossie and Freddie, Nan and Bert, were so busy answering the door that they did not notice this at first.
But Aunt Sarah, their mother’s sister, who had come over to help Mrs. Bobbsey, looking in the parlor and library, saw what the trouble was.
“My!” she cried, with a goodnatured laugh, as she noticed how “stiff” the children were. “This will never do. You’re not that way at school, I don’t believe. Come, be lively. Mix up—play games. Pretend this is recess at school, and make as much noise as you like.”
For a moment the boys and girls did not know what to think of this invitation. But just then Snap, the circus dog, came in the room, and, with a bark of welcome, he turned a somersault, and then marched around on his hind legs, carrying a broomstick like a gun—pretending he was a soldier. Bert had given it to him.
Then how the children laughed and clapped their hands! And Snap barked so loudly—for he liked applause that there was noise enough for even jolly Aunt Sarah. After that there was no trouble. The boys and girls talked together and soon they were playing games, and having the best kind of fun.
For some of the games simple prizes had been offered and it was quite exciting toward the end to see who would win. Flossie and Freddie thought they had never had such a good time in all their lives. Nan and Bert were enjoying themselves, too, with their friends, who were slightly older than those who had been asked for the younger Bobbsey twins.
“Going to Jerusalem,” was one game that created lots of enjoyment. A number of chairs were placed in the centre of the room, and the boys and girls marched around them while Mrs. Bobbsey played the piano. But there was one less chair than there were players, so that when the music would suddenly stop, which was a signal for each one who could, to sit down, someone was sure to be left. Then this one had to stay out of the game.
Then a chair would be taken away, so as always to have one less than the number of players, and the game went on. It was great fun, scrambling to see who would get a seat, and not be left without one, and finally there was but one chair left, while Grace Lavine and John Blake marched about. Mrs. Bobbsey kept playing quite some time, as the two went around and around that one chair. Everyone was laughing, wondering who would get a seat and so win the game, when, all at once, Mrs. Bobbsey stopped the music. She had her back turned so it would be perfectly fair.
Grace and John made a rush for the one chair, but Grace got to it first, and so she won.
“Well, I’m glad you did, anyhow,” said John, politely.
Other games were “peanut races” and “potato scrambles.” In the first each player had a certain number of peanuts and they had to start at one end of the room, and lay the nuts at equal distances apart across to the other side, coming back each time to their pile of peanuts to get one.
Sometimes a boy would slip, he was in such a hurry, or a girl would drop her peanuts, and this made fun and confusion.
Nan won this race easily.
In the potato scramble several rows of potatoes were made across the room. Each player was given a large spoon, and whoever first took up all his or her potatoes in the spoons one at a time, and piled them up at the far end of the room, won the
game. In this Charley Mason was successful, and won the prize—a pretty little pin for his tie.
The afternoon wore on, and, almost before the children realized it the hour for supper had arrived. They were not sorry, either, for they all had good appetites.
“Come into the dining room, children,” invited Mrs. Bobbsey.
And Oh! such gasps of pleased surprise as were heard when the children saw what had been prepared for them! For Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, while not going to any great expense, and not making the children’s party too fanciful, had made it beautiful and simple.
The long table was set with dishes and pretty glasses. There were flowers in the centre, and at each end, and also blooms in vases about the room. Then, from the centre chandelier to the four corners of the table, were strings of green smilax in which had been entwined carnations of various colors.
The lights were softly glowing on the pretty scene, and there were prettily shaded candles to add to the effect. But what caught the eyes of all the children more than anything else were two large cakes—one at either end of the table.
On each cake burned five candles, and on one cake was the name “Flossie,” while the other was marked “Freddie.” The names were in pink icing on top of the white frosting that covered the birthday cakes.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” could be heard all about the room. “Isn’t that too sweet for anything!”
“I guess they are sweet!” piped up Freddie in his shrill little voice, “’cause Dinah put lots of sugar in ’em; didn’t you, Dinah?” and he looked at Dinah, who had thrust her laughing, black, goodnatured face into the dining room door.
“Dat’s what I did, honey! Dat’s what I did!” she exclaimed. “If anybody’s got a toofache he’d better not eat any ob dem cakes, ’cause dey suah am sweet.”
How the children laughed at that!
“All ready, now, children, sit down,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Your names are at your plates.”
There was a little confusion getting them all seated, as those on one side of the table found that their name cards were on the other side. But Flossie and Freddie, and Nan and Bert, helped the guests to find their proper places and soon everyone was in his or her chair.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 41