It was a pleasant trip for Freddie and Bert to ride with their father in the automobile along the shady shores of the lake. The little twin, and the bigger one, sat back on the cushions, now and then bouncing up and down as the machine went over a rough place in the road.
Freddie, being lighter than Bert, bounced up and down oftener, but then he was so fat, almost “like a lump of butter,” as his mother used to say, that he did not much mind it.
“I wish we could take this machine to Meadow Brook Farm with us,” said Bert, as they neared the lumber yard of Mr. Mason, with whom Mr. Bobbsey had business that day.
“We can ride in one of Uncle Daniel’s carriages,” said Freddie. “Or maybe I can ride horse-back. That would be fun!” he cried, his bright eyes sparkling.
“It’s fun—if you don’t fall off,” Bert said.
As the automobile passed around a curve in the road, where the lake could be seen stretching out its sparkling waters in the bright sun, Bert suddenly uttered a cry, and pointed ahead.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “There are two little girls drifting out in that boat, and they don’t seem to know how to row to shore.”
Mr. Bobbsey steered the machine down to the edge of the lake, over the grass at one side of the road. As he did so he and the two boys heard voices faintly calling:
“Help!! Help! Oh, somebody please come and get us!”
“I’ll get them—I can row, and there’s another boat on shore,” said Bert, pointing to a craft drawn up on the sand.
“I guess I’d better go out—you stay with Freddie,” directed the lumber merchant, as he brought the automobile to a stop, and jumped out.
“I’m coming!” he called to the two little girls in the drifting boat. “Don’t be afraid, and sit still! Don’t stand up!”
He needed to caution them thus, for one of the girls, seeing that help was on the way, grew so excited that she stood up, and this is always dangerous to do in a rowboat on the water. Rowboats tip over very easily, and sometimes even good swimmers may be caught under them.
“I wish I could help get them,” sighed fat Freddie, as he saw his father run down to the shore of the lake, and shove the other boat into the water.
“It’s best to let papa do it,” said Bert, though he himself would have liked to have gone to the rescue.
“They’ll mind papa, and sit down and keep still, but they wouldn’t mind us,” went on Bert, explaining matters to his little brother.
“That’s right,” agreed Freddie. “Girls are awful ‘fraid in a boat, anyhow. I’m not afraid.”
“Well, not all girls are afraid, either,” said Bert with a smile. “Nan isn’t afraid.”
“Of course not—she’s our sister, and so is Flossie!” exclaimed Freddie, as if that made a difference!
Mr. Bobbsey was now rowing out to the two small girls in the drifting boat. They did not seem to have any oars, and Bert and Freddie heard their father call to them again to sit down, so they would not tip over.
Then the lumber man reached the drifting craft, and carefully fastened it by a rope to the boat he was in.
“Now sit quietly and I’ll pull you to shore,” he said to the girls. “You must not come out in a boat all alone. Where is your home?”
“Up there,” replied the older girl, pointing to a house back of the lake shore road. “We didn’t mean to come out,” she went on. “We just sat in the boat when it was tied fast to the dock, but the knot must have come loose, and we drifted out. We’re ever so much obliged to you for coming out to us.”
“Well, don’t get in boats again, unless some older person is with you,” cautioned Mr. Bobbsey. By this time he had towed the boat, with the girls in it, to shore. As he did so a woman came running from the house, calling out:
“Oh, what has happened? Oh, are they drowned?”
“Nothing at all has happened,” said Mr. Bobbsey, quietly. “Your children just drifted out, and I went and got them.”
“Oh, and I’ve told them never, never to get into a boat!” cried the mother. “Girls, girls! What am I going to do to you?” she went on. “You might have fallen overboard.”
“Yes, that is true, they might have,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “But I think this will be a lesson to them, and no harm has come to them this time. But it is best for children to keep out of boats.”
“Indeed it is,” agreed the lady. “Oh, I can’t thank you enough, sir!” she said to Mr. Bobbsey. “I have told Sallie and Jane never to go out on the lake unless Frank is with them, but he isn’t here now.”
“Is Frank their brother?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“Not exactly a brother. My husband is his guardian,” the lady went on. “I am Mrs. Mason.”
“Oh, I am glad to know you,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I am on my way to your husband’s office now, to see him on business. I am glad I could do you a favor.”
“Indeed it is more than a favor,” said Mrs. Mason. “I cannot thank you enough. When Frank was home I did not worry so much about the girls, as he looked after them. But my husband thinks he is now old enough to help in the lumber yard, and so he keeps him down at the office. You are going down there, you say?”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Bobbsey. “I am going along the river road.”
“I can show you a shorter route,” said Mrs. Mason, who now had tight hold of her daughters’ hands, as though she feared they would run down to the boats again. “My husband has cut a new road through the orchard, down to his office,” she went on. “You can come that way in your machine, and save nearly a mile.”
“I shall be glad to do that,” Mr. Bobbsey answered, “as I haven’t very much time today. We are getting ready to go away.”
Mrs. Mason showed Mr. Bobbsey where he could cross the main road, and take a short cut through an old orchard, to reach the lumber office, and soon, after waving good-bye to the frightened little girls, Mr. Bobbsey, Bert and Freddie were again on their way.
“Is—is the lake very deep where those girls were?” Freddie wanted to know.
“It doesn’t make much difference whether it is deep or not,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “they would probably have been drowned if they had fallen overboard. You must always be careful about boats,” he cautioned the little fellow.
“I will,” Freddie promised.
“That must be the lumber yard!” exclaimed Bert a little later, when they turned from the new orchard road into another highway.
“Yes, that is it,” Mr. Bobbsey agreed. “I never came this way before. It is a good road to know when you are in a hurry.”
Mr. Mason’s lumber yard, like that of Mr. Bobbsey, was partly on the edge of the lake, so the logs, boards and planks could be easily loaded and unloaded from boats. Part of the yard was on the other side of the road, back from the lake, and it was on this side that the office was built.
As Mr. Bobbsey and his two boys rode up in the automobile, they saw out in front of the office a strange and not very pleasant sight. A man stood there, roughly shaking a boy about Bert’s age. The boy seemed to be crying, and trying to get away, but the man held him tightly by one arm, and shook him again and again.
“I don’t like that,” said Mr. Bobbsey in a low voice, as he stopped the automobile.
“What makes him do it?” asked Freddie. “Is the boy bad?”
“I’ll teach you to make me lose money that way!” cried the man as he again roughly shook the boy. “You ought to have better sense than to be cheated that way! It wasn’t your money that you lost, it was mine, and money isn’t so easily made these days!”
“But I couldn’t help it!” the boy cried, trying to pull his arm away. He could not do this, for the man held it too tightly.
“Yes, you could help it too, if you’d had your eyes open!” the man said in harsh tones. “I left you in charge of the office, and you ought to have been sharp enough not to be fooled and cheated. I—I don’t know what to do to you!”
Again he shook the boy.
“Ouch!
You hurt, Mr. Mason!” cried the lad.
“Well, you deserve to be hurt, losing money that way,” was the answer. “I—I’ve a good notion to—”
But the sentence was not finished. Just then, by a sudden motion, the boy pulled away from the man who was shaking him, and ran down the road. For a moment it seemed as if the man would run after him, but he did not. The two stood looking at one another, while Mr. Bobbsey, having alighted from the automobile, walked up toward the lumber office.
“You’d better come back here, Frank,” called the man who had been shaking the boy. “You’d better come back.”
“I’ll never come back!” was the answer. “I—I’m going to run away! I’ll never live with you again! You treat me too mean! It wasn’t my fault about that bad money! I couldn’t help it. I’m going to run away, and I’m never coming back again. I can’t stand it here!”
Bursting into tears, the boy raced off down the road in a cloud of dust.
CHAPTER IV
Off for Meadow Brook
Little Freddie, who sat beside his older brother, Bert, in Mr. Bobbsey’s automobile, looked on with wonder in his childish eyes, as he saw the boy Mr. Mason had been shaking run down the road.
“What’s the matter with him, Bert?” Freddie asked. “Didn’t he like to be shook?”
“I should say not!” exclaimed Bert “And I wouldn’t myself. I don’t think that man did right to shake him so.”
“It was too bad,” added Freddie. “Say, Bert,” he went on eagerly, “maybe we could catch up to him in the automobile, and we could take him to Meadow Brook with us. Nobody would shake him there.”
“No, I guess they wouldn’t,” said Bert: slowly, thinking how kind his uncle and aunt were.
“Then let’s go after him!” begged Freddie.
“No, we couldn’t do that, Freddie,” Bert said with a smile at his little brother. “The boy maybe wouldn’t want to come with us, and besides, papa wouldn’t let me run the auto, though I know which handles to turn, for I’ve watched him,” Bert went on, with a firm belief that he could run the big car almost as well as could Mr. Bobbsey.
“Well, when papa comes back I’m going to ask him to go after that boy and bring him with us,” declared Freddie. “I don’t like to see boys shook.”
“I don’t, either,” murmured Bert.
By this time Mr. Bobbsey had come up to where Mr. Mason was standing.
“Oh, how do you do, Mr. Bobbsey,” spoke the other lumber man. “I didn’t expect to see you for some days.”
“I did come a little ahead of time,” went on the twins’ father. “But I am going to take my family off to the country, so I thought I would come and see you, and finish up our business before going away.”
“I’m always glad to talk business,” Mr. Mason said, “but I thought your folks were out somewhere on a houseboat.”
“We were, and just came back today. But the summer isn’t over, and we’re going to my brother’s place, at Meadow Brook Farm. But you seem to be having some trouble,” he went on, nodding down the road in the direction the sobbing boy had run. “Of course it isn’t any affair of mine, but—”
“Yes, trouble! Lots of it!” interrupted Mr. Mason bitterly. “I have had a lot of trouble with that boy.”
“That’s too bad,” spoke Mr. Bobbsey. “He seems a bright sort of chap. He isn’t your son, is he?”
“No, I’m his guardian. He’s my ward. His father was a friend of mine in business, and when he died he asked me to look after the boy. His name is Frank Kennedy.”
“Oh, yes, I heard about him,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Heard about him! I guess you didn’t hear any good then!” exclaimed the other lumber man, rather crossly. “What do you mean?”
“Why, we came past your house a little while ago,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “and your wife mentioned a Frank Kennedy who used to take your two daughters out rowing. If he had been there today the girls probably wouldn’t have gone out alone, and drifted away.”
“Drifted away! What do you mean?” cried Mr. Mason. “Has anything happened?”
“It’s all right, my papa went out in a boat and got ’em!” cried Freddie in his shrill, childish voice, for he heard what his father and Mr. Mason were saying.
“I—I don’t understand,” said the other lumber dealer, seriously. “Was there an accident?”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything,” Mr. Bobbsey said. “When I went past your house, near the river, I saw the two girls adrift in a boat, not far from shore. They had floated out while playing. I went after them and your wife, before she showed me this short cut to your place, spoke about an adopted boy, Frank Kennedy, who used to play with the children.”
“Oh, I’m much obliged to you,” said Mr. Mason, after a pause. “Yes, Frank did look after the girls some. That was he who just ran down the road. But he did better at home than he’s doing in my office.
“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, wondering why it was that Mr. Mason had so severely shaken the boy who had run away.
“Well, I mean that Frank just lost twenty dollars for me,” proceeded the lumber man.
“Twenty dollars! How was that?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“I left him in charge of my office, while I was out on some other business,” went on the lumber dealer, “and a strange man came in and bought two dollars worth of expensive boards. Frank gave them to him, and the man took them away with him, as they were not very large, or heavy to carry.”
“Two dollars—I thought you said twenty!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey.
“So I did. Wait until I tell you all. As I said, Frank sold this strange man two dollars worth of boards. The man gave Frank a twenty dollar bill, and Frank gave him back eighteen dollars in change.”
“Well, wasn’t that right?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, with a smile. “Two dollars from twenty leave eighteen—or it used to when I went to school.”
“That part is all right,” Mr. Mason said, bitterly, “but the fact is that the twenty dollar bill Frank took from the strange man is no good. It is bad money, and no one but a child would take it. It’s a bill that was gotten out by the Confederate states during the Civil War, and of course their money isn’t any better than waste-paper now. I don’t see how Frank was fooled that way. I wouldn’t have been if I had been in the office.”
“Perhaps the boy never saw a Confederate bill before,” suggested Mr. Bobbsey.
“No matter, he should have known that it wasn’t good United States’ money!” declared Mr. Mason. “By his carelessness today he lost me twenty dollars; the eighteen dollars in my good money that he gave the man in change, and the two dollars worth of boards. And all I have to show for it is that worthless piece of paper!” and Mr. Mason took from his pocket a crumpled bill.
Mr. Bobbsey looked at it carefully.
“Yes, that’s one of the old Confederate States’ bills all right,” he said, “and it isn’t worth anything, except as a curiosity.”
“It cost me twenty dollars, all right,” said Mr. Mason, with a sour look on his face. “I can’t see how Frank was so foolish as to be taken in by it.”
“Well, the poor boy knew no better, and probably he is sorry enough now,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“I guess he’s sorry enough!” exclaimed Mr. Mason, bitterly. “I gave him a good shaking, as he is too big to whip. I shook him and scolded him.”
“Well, almost anyone, not very familiar with money, might have made that mistake,” spoke Mr. Bobbsey. “This Confederate bill looks very much like some of ours, and a person in a hurry might have been fooled by it.”
“Oh, nonsense!” broke in Mr. Mason. “There was no excuse for Frank being fooled as he was. I won’t listen to any such talk! He lost me twenty dollars and he’ll have to make it up to me, somehow.”
“But how can he, when he has run away?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, and he felt very sorry for Frank, who was not much older than Bert. Mr. Bobbsey knew how grieved he would be if something like that ha
ppened to his son.
“Yes, he pretended to run away,” said Mr. Mason, “but he’ll soon run back again.”
“How do you know?” Mr. Bobbsey wanted to know. “Did he ever run away before?”
“No, he never did,” admitted Mr. Mason, “but he’ll have to run back because he has nowhere to run to. He can’t get anything to eat, he has no money, and he can’t find a place to sleep. Of course he’ll come back!
“And when he does come back,” Mr. Mason went on, “I’ll make him work doubly hard to pay back that twenty dollars. I can’t afford to lose that much money.”
“But it was an accident; a mistake that anyone might have made,” said Mr. Bobbsey again.
“Nonsense!” cried the other lumber man. “I’ll make Frank Kennedy pay for his mistake!”
“Perhaps the strange man did not mean to give him the Confederate bill,” went on Bert’s father. “Some persons carry those old Southern bills as souvenirs, or pocket-pieces, and this man might have paid his out by mistake. I know that once happened to me with a piece of money. He may come back and give you a good twenty dollar bill.”
“I am not so foolish as to hope anything like that will happen,” said Mr. Mason. “No, I’m out twenty good hard-earned dollars. That’s all there is to it. But I’ll get it out of Frank Kennedy, somehow.”
“If he ever comes back,” said Mr. Bobbsey, in a low voice.
“Oh, he’ll come back—never fear!” responded the other lumber dealer. Mr. Bobbsey gently shook his head. He was not so sure of that. Frank, as he ran down the road, crying, seemed to feel very badly indeed, and when he said he would never come back it sounded as though he meant it.
“Poor little chap!” thought Mr. Bobbsey to himself. “I am very sorry for him. I wonder where he will sleep tonight?” And he could not help thinking how badly he would feel if he knew his own two dear boys had to be without a place to sleep, or somewhere to get a meal.
Mr. Mason did not appear to worry about the plight of his ward, for whom he was guardian.
The lumber dealers finished their business and Mr. Mason again thanked Mr. Bobbsey for what he had done for the two girls in the boat.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 71