“I’m hungry,” announced Freddie. “Can’t we play an eating game?”
“I think so,” said Bert. “Dinah and Martha were starting to bake cookies before we came out to the barn, and they ought to be done now. Let’s go in.”
Into the house, through the rain, tramped the children, and soon, eating cookies, they were telling about Freddie going to sleep in the hay, and Tom trying to make an omelet of himself in the hen’s nest.
“Well, this certainly was a nice day, even if it did rain,” said Nan, as they were ready to go to bed that night. “I wonder what we can do to-morrow?”
“I know,” answered Bert. “Harry and I have a fine plan.”
“Oh, tell me what it is,” begged his sister.
“It’s a secret,” he laughed as he went upstairs.
After breakfast next morning Nan, who did not get up very early, looked for Harry and her brother.
“Where are the boys?” she asked her mother.
“Out in the barn,” was the answer. “They took some big sheets of paper with them.”
“They must be going to make kites,” Nan said.
But when she saw what Bert and Harry were doing, she knew it was not a kite game they were planning. For in letters, made with a black stick on the sheets of paper, Nan read the words:
Five-Pin Show Come One Come All
“Oh, what is it?” she cried. “Please tell me, Bert!”
“We’re going to have a show,” said Harry, “and we’re going to charge five pins to come in.”
“Oh, may I be in it?” asked Nan. “I’ll do anything you want me to. Mayn’t I be in it?”
“Shall we let her?” asked Bert of his country cousin.
“Sure,” said Harry kindly. “We boys won’t be enough. We’ll have to have the girls.”
“Where’s it going to be?” asked Nan.
“Here in the barn,” her brother said. “We’re going to make a cage for Snap—he’s going to be the lion.”
“Can Snoop be one of the animals, too?” she inquired.
“Yes, Snoop will be the black tiger,” decided Harry. “I only hope he keeps awake, and growls now and then. That will make it seem real.”
“Snoop sometimes growls when he gets a piece of meat,” suggested Nan.
“Then we’ll give him meat in the show,” decided Bert.
He and Harry finished making the show bills, and then began to get ready for the performance. With some old sheets they made a curtain across one corner of the barn, in front of the haymow. Nan helped with this, as she could use a needle, thread and thimble better than could the boys.
Then Tom Mason, Mabel Herold and some other of the country boys and girls came over, and they were allowed to be in the show. Bert was to be a clown, and he put on an old suit, turned inside out, and whitened his face with starch, which he begged from Martha.
Harry was to be the wild animal trainer, and show off the black tiger, which was Snoop, and the fierce lion in a cage, which lion was only Snap, the dog.
The show was not to take place until the next day, as Bert said the performers needed time for practice. But some of the “show bills” were fastened up about the village streets, and many boys and girls said they would come if they could get the five pins.
Finally all was ready for the little play. Flossie was made door-keeper and took up the admission pins. Freddie wanted to be a fireman in the show, so they let him do this. His mother made a little red coat for him, and he had his toy fire engine that pumped real water.
“But you mustn’t squirt it on anyone in the audience,” cautioned Bert.
“No, I’ll just squirt it on the wild animals if they get bad,” said the little fellow.
Nan was to be a bare-back rider, and Harry had made her a wooden steed from a saw-horse, with rope for reins. Nan perched herself up on the saw-horse, and pretended she was galloping about the ring.
A number of boys and girls came to the show, each one bringing the five pins, so that Flossie had many of them to stick on the cushion which was her cash-box.
Bert was very funny as a clown, and he turned somersaults in the hay. Once he landed on a hard place on the barn floor, and cried:
“Ouch!”
Everyone laughed at that, and they laughed harder when Bert made a funny face as he rubbed his sore elbow.
Harry exhibited Snoop and Snap as the wild animals, but Snoop rather spoiled the performance by not growling as a black tiger should.
“This tiger used to be very wild, ladies and gentlemen,” said Harry, “and no keeper dared go in the cage with him. But he is a good tiger now, and loves his keeper,” and Harry put his hand in, and stroked Snoop, who purred happily.
“Oh, I think this is a lovely show!” exclaimed Nellie Johnson. “I’m coming every day.”
A little later, near the box which had been made into a cage for Snoop, there came a loud noise. Snoop meowed very hard, and hissed as he used to do when he saw a strange dog. At the same time something went:
“Gobble-obblcobble!” Then came a great crash, more cries from Snoop and out into the middle of the barn floor dashed the black cat with a big, long-legged, feathered creature clinging to poor Snoop’s tail.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Flossie. “The wild animals are loose!”
CHAPTER X
A Sham Battle
For a few moments there was wild confusion in that part of the barn where the “show” was going on. Nan gave one look at the strange mixture of the howling Snoop and the gobbling bird in the centre of the floor, and then, catching Flossie up in her arms, Nan made a spring for the haymow.
“Wait! Wait!” cried Flossie. “I’m losing all the pins! I’ve dropped the pin cushion!”
That was her cash-box—the pins she had taken in as admission to the little play.
“We can’t stop for it now!” cried Nan. “We must get out of the way.”
“The cat has a fit!” cried Tom Mason.
“Oh, poor Snoop!” wailed Flossie.
“Grab him, somebody!” shouted Harry.
“No, let Snoop alone!” advised Bert. “He might bite, if you touched him now, though he wouldn’t mean to.”
“But what is it? What gave him the fit?” asked Mabel Herold.
“Our old turkey gobbler,” answered Harry. “The gobbler has caught Snoop by the tail. It’s enough to give any cat a fit.”
“I should say so!” cried Bert. “Look out! They’re coming over this way! Look out!”
The children scrambled to one side, for Snoop and the big turkey gobbler were sliding, rolling and tumbling over the barn floor toward the board seats where the show audience, but a little while before, were enjoying the performance.
The girls had followed Nan and Flossie up to a low part of the haymow, and were out of the way. But the boys wanted to be nearer where they could see what was going on.
The noise and the excitement had roused Snap, the dog, who had curled up in his cage and was sleeping, after having been exhibited as a raging and roaring lion, and now Snap was barking and growling, trying to understand what was going on. Perhaps he wanted to join in the fun, for it was fun for the turkey gobbler, if it was not for poor Snoop.
“Look out the way! Clear the track! Toot! Toot!” came a sudden cry and little Freddie came running toward the gobbler and cat, dragging after him his much-prized toy fire engine.
“Get back out of the way, Freddie!” ordered Bert. “Snoop may scratch or bite you, or the gobbler may pick you. Get out of the way!”
“I’m a fireman!” cried the fat little fellow. “Firemans never get out of the way! Toot! Toot! Clear the track! Chuu! Chuu! Chuu!” and he puffed out his cheeks, making a noise like an engine.
“You must come here!” insisted Bert, making a spring toward his little brother.
“I can’t come back! Firemans never come back!” half screamed Freddie. “I’m going to squirt water on the bad gobble-obble bird that’s biting my Snoop!”
And then, before anyone could stop him, Freddie unreeled the little rubber hose of his fire engine, and pointed the nozzle at the struggling gobbler and cat in the middle of the barn floor.
I have told you, I think, that Freddie’s engine held real water, and, by winding up a spring a little pump could be started, squirting a stream of water for some distance.
“Whoop! Here comes the water!” cried Freddie, as he started the pump working.
Then a stream shot out, right toward the cat and turkey. It was the best plan that could have been tried for separating them.
With a howl and a yowl Snoop pulled his claws loose from where they were tangled up in the turkey’s feathers. With a final gobble, the turkey let go of Snoop’s tail. The water spurted out in a spraying stream, Freddie’s engine being a strong one, for a toy.
“That’s the way I do it!” cried Freddie, just like Mr. Punch. “That’s the way I do it! Look, I made them stop!”
“Why—why, I believe you did!” exclaimed Bert, with a laugh.
The gobbler ran out through the open barn door, his feathers wet and bedraggled. He must have thought he had been caught in a rainstorm. And poor Snoop was glad enough to crawl away in a dark corner, to lick himself dry with his red tongue.
“Poor Snoop!” said Freddie, as he stopped his engine from pumping any more water. “I’m sorry I got you wet, Snoop, but I couldn’t help it. I only meant to sprinkle the gobbler.”
He patted Snoop, who began purring.
“Well, I guess that ends the show,” said Bert, who looked funnier than ever now, as a clown, for the white on his face was streaked in many ways with the water, some of which had sprayed on him.
“Yes, the performance is over,” announced Harry.
“Oh, but it was lovely!” said Nan, as she slid down the hay with Flossie. “I don’t see how you boys ever got it up.”
“Oh, we’re smart boys!” laughed Harry.
“But I lost all the pins!” wailed Flossie. “Nan wouldn’t let me stop to pick them up!”
“I should say not! With that wild animal bursting in on us!” exclaimed Mabel. “Oh, but I was so frightened!”
“Pooh! I wasn’t!” boasted Freddie. “I knew my fire engine would scare them.”
“Well, it did all right,” announced Bert “I guess we’d better let Snap out now,” he said, for the dog was barking loudly, and trying to break out of the packing box of which his cage was made.
Snoop’s cage was broken, where the black cat had forced his way out.
“His tail must have been hanging down through the bars,” explained Bert, “and the gobbler came along and nipped it. That made Snoop mad, and he got out and clawed the turkey.”
“I guess that was it,” agreed Harry. “Well, we had fun anyhow, if Snoop and the turkey did have a hard time.”
Snoop was soon dry again, and not much the worse for what had happened to him. The gobbler, except for the loss of a few feathers, was not hurt. But after that the turkey and cat kept well out of each other’s way.
Everyone voted the show a great success, and the children planned to have another one before they left Meadow Brook farm. But the Bobbsey twins did not know all that was in store for them before they went back to the city.
One day, when they were all seated at dinner in the pleasant Bobbsey farmhouse, Uncle Daniel paused, with a piece of pie half raised on his fork, and said:
“Hey!”
“What’s the matter?” asked Aunt Sarah. “Did you think you heard the old ram coming again?”
“No, but it sounded like thunder,” replied her husband, “and if it’s going to rain I must hurry, and get those tomatoes picked.”
“I heard something, too,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“So did I,” spoke up Freddie. “Maybe it’s the old black bull down in the pasture.”
“No. There it goes again!” said Uncle Daniel. “It must be thunder!”
There sounded a dull distant booming noise, that was repeated several times.
Uncle Daniel got up hastily from the table and went to the door.
“Not a cloud in the sky,” he remarked, “and yet that noise is growing louder.”
It was, indeed, as they all could hear.
“It’s guns, that’s what it is,” declared Bert “It sounds like Fourth of July.”
“That’s what it does,” agreed his cousin Harry. “It’s back of those hills. I’m going to see what it is.”
“So am I!” cried Bert. The boys had finished their dinners, and now started off on a run in the direction of the booming sounds.
“Come along,” said Uncle Daniel to Mr. Bobbsey. “We may as well go also.”
“I want to come!” cried Freddie.
“Not now,” said his mother. “Wait until papa comes back.”
Mr. Bobbsey, with his brother and the two boys, soon reached the top of the hill. All the while the sound like thunder was growing louder. Then puffs of smoke could be seen rising in the air.
“What can it be?” asked Bert.
“I can’t imagine,” answered Harry.
They saw, in another minute, what it was.
Down in a valley below them was a crowd of soldiers, with cannon and guns, firing at one another. The soldiers were divided into two parties. First one party would run forward, and then the other, both sides firing as fast as they could.
“It’s a war!” cried Bert. “It’s a battle!”
“It’s only a sham battle!” said Mr. Bobbsey. “No one is being hurt, for they are using blank cartridges. It must be that the soldiers are practicing so as to know how to fight if a real war comes. It is only a sham battle.”
The cannons roared, the rifles rattled and flashes of fire and puffs of smoke were on all sides.
“Oh, look at the horses—the cavalry!” cried Harry, as a company of men, mounted on horses, galloped toward some of the soldiers, who turned their rifles on them.
Then one man, on a big black horse, left the main body and came straight on toward Mr. Bobbsey, Uncle Daniel, and the two boys.
“We’d better look out!” cried Bert “Maybe he wants to capture us!”
CHAPTER XI
Moving Pictures
The man on the black horse continued to ride toward the two boys, Uncle Daniel and Mr. Bobbsey. Behind him more men on horses rushed forward, but they were going toward some soldiers on foot, who were firing their rifles at the “cavalry,” as Harry called them, that being the name for horse-soldiers.
“Oh, look, some of the men are falling off their horses!” cried Bert
“Maybe they are hurt,” Harry said.
“No, I guess it’s only making believe, if this is a sham battle,” went on Bert.
By this time the man on the black horse was near Mr. Bobbsey.
“You had better stand farther back, if you don’t mind,” he said.
“Why, are we in danger here?” asked Uncle Daniel.
“Well, not exactly danger, for we are using only blank cartridges. But you are too near the camera. You’ll have your pictures taken if you don’t look out,” and he smiled, while his horse pawed the ground, making the soldier’s sword rattle against his spurs.
“Camera!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. “Is someone taking pictures of this sham battle?”
“Yes, we are taking moving pictures,” replied the soldier. “The man with the camera is right over there,” and he pointed to a little hill, on top of which stood a man with what looked like a little box on three legs. The man was turning a crank.
“Moving pictures!” repeated Uncle Daniel, looking in the direction indicated.
“That’s what this sham battle is for,” went on the soldier who sat astride the black horse. “We are pretending to have a hard battle, to make an exciting picture. Soon the camera will be pointed over this way, and as it wouldn’t look well to have you gentlemen and boys in the picture, I’ll be obliged to you if you’ll move back a little.”
“Of course we will,” agreed Mr.
Bobbsey.
“Especially as it looks as though the soldiers were coming our way.”
“Yes, part of the sham battle will soon take place here,” the cavalryman went on.
“Come on back, boys!” cried Uncle Daniel, “We can watch just as well behind those trees, and we won’t be in the way, and have our pictures taken without knowing it.”
“Yes, and we won’t be in any danger of having some of the paper wadding from a blank cartridge blown into our eyes,” added Mr. Bobbsey.
“Say, this is great!” cried Harry. “I’m glad we came.”
“So am I,” said Bert
The boys looked on eagerly while the battle kept up. They saw the soldiers charge back and forth. The cannon shot out puffs of white smoke, but no cannon balls, of course, for no one wanted to be hurt. Back and forth rushed the soldiers on horses, and others on foot, firing with their rifles.
Of course they were not real soldiers, but were dressed in soldiers’ uniforms to make the picture seem real. I suppose you have often seen in moving picture theatres pictures of a battle.
It was well that Mr. Bobbsey and the others had gotten out of the way, for shortly afterward the men rushed right across the spot where Bert and Harry had been standing.
“If we were there, then we’d have been walked on,” said Bert.
“Yes, and we’d have had our pictures taken, too,” said Harry, pointing to the man with the camera who had taken a new position.
“I wouldn’t mind that, would you?” asked Bert.
“No, I don’t know as I would,” replied the country cousin. “It would be fun to see yourself in moving pictures, I think. Oh, look! That horse went down, and the soldier shot right over his head.”
A horse had stumbled and fallen, bringing down the rider with him. But whether this was an accident, or whether it was done on purpose, to make the moving picture look more natural, the boys could not tell.
The firing was now louder than ever. A number of cannon were being used, horses drawing them up with loud rumblings, while the men wheeled the guns into place, loaded and fired them.
On all sides men were falling down, pretending to be shot, for those who took the moving pictures wanted them to seem as nearly like real war as possible.
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