The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “Oh, a picnic! What fun!” cried Nan, when she heard about it.

  And such good times as the Bobbseys had when they went to the cool green woods, with well-filled lunch baskets! Mr. Mack, the store keeper, was so grateful to Frank, for having saved the twenty dollars for him, that he sent a large bag of cakes and oranges for the woodland-dinner.

  Frank went with the others, and a number of country boys and girls were invited. They played games and sat about in the long grass under shady trees to eat the good things Dinah and Martha had cooked. Freddie played with his fire engine to his heart’s content, and, though he managed to get pretty wet himself, no one else suffered much.

  And, a few days before Frank was to go back to his guardian Mr. Bobbsey gave the children another treat. They were taken to a nice moving picture show at Rosedale where the circus had been.

  After some funny reels had been shown, there was flashed on the screen a schoolhouse, with the children clustering about the teacher.

  “Oh, it’s us! It’s us!” whispered Nan. “Those are our pictures!”

  “So they are!” agreed Bert. And they were. Views of the sham battle the children had witnessed were thrown on the screen, and then came a scene showing Freddie. No sooner had he noticed himself in the pictures than he cried out loud:

  “Oh, that’s me! Now watch me fall in the brook!”

  And he did, amid the laughter of the audience.

  I wish I had space to tell you of all the other things the Bobbseys did at Meadow Brook, but this book is as full as it will hold. So I will just say that when the time came Frank went back to Mr. Mason’s home, and, a little later, the Bobbseys taking Snoop and Snap, went back to Lakeport, there to spend some weeks at home, until it was time to go on another vacation. And so, having enjoyed the company of the twins, we will say goodbye to them.

  THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME

  CHAPTER I

  Tommy Todd’s Story

  “Mother, how many more stations before we’ll be home?”

  “Oh, quite a number, dear. Sit back and rest yourself. I thought you liked it on the train.”

  “I do; but it’s so long to sit still.”

  The little fellow who had asked the question turned to his golden-haired sister, who sat in the seat with him.

  “Aren’t you tired, Flossie?” he asked.

  “Yes, Freddie, I am!” exclaimed Flossie. “And I want a drink of water.”

  “Dinah will get it for you,” said Mother Bobbsey. “My! But you are a thirsty little girl.”

  “Deed an’ dat’s whut she am!” exclaimed a fat, good-natured looking colored woman, smiling at the little girl. Dinah was the Bobbsey family cook. She had been with them so long that she used to say, and almost do, just what she pleased. “Dis am de forty-sixteen time I’se done bin down to de end ob de car gittin’ Miss Flossie a drink ob watah. An’ de train rocks so, laik a cradle, dat I done most upsot ebery time. But I’ll git you annuder cup ob watah, Flossie lamb!”

  “And if you’re going to upset, and fall down, Dinah, please do it where we can see you,” begged Freddie. “Nothing has happened since we got on this train. Do upset, Dinah!”

  “Yes, I want to see it, too,” added Flossie. “Here, Freddie, you can have my place at the window, and I’ll take yours on the outside. Then I can see Dinah better when the car upsets her.”

  “No, I want to sit here myself, Flossie. You wanted the window side, and now you must stay there.”

  “No, I don’t want to. I want to see Dinah upset in the aisle. Mamma, make Freddie let me sit where I can see Dinah fall.”

  “Well, ob all t’ings!” gasped the fat, colored cook. “If you chilluns t’ink dat I’se gwine t’ upsot mahse’f so yo’ kin see suffin t’ laugh at, den all I’se got t’ say is I ain’t gwine t’ do it! No, sah! Not fo’ one minute!” And Dinah sat up very straight in her seat.

  “Children, be nice now,” begged Mother Bobbsey. “I know you are tired with the long ride, but you’ll soon hear the brakeman call out ‘Lakeport’; and then we’ll be home.”

  “I wish I were home now,” said Freddie. “I want to get my dog Snap out of the baggage car, and have some fun with him. I guess he’s lonesome for me.”

  “And he’s lonesome for me, too!” cried Flossie. “He’s as much my dog as he is yours, Freddie Bobbsey. Isn’t he, Mother?”

  “Yes, dear, of course. I don’t know what’s the matter with you two children. You never used to dispute this way.”

  “I guess the long train ride is tiring them,” said Papa Bobbsey, looking up from the paper he was reading.

  “Anyhow, half of Snoop, our black cat, is mine then,” said Freddie. “Isn’t she, Mother?”

  “Yes. And now please don’t talk like that any more. Look out of the window and watch the trees shoot past.”

  “Oh, I’m going to see Snoop!” exclaimed Flossie, suddenly.

  “So’m I,” added Freddie. And in a moment the two children were bending over a basket which was in the seat with Dinah. In the basket was Snoop, the big black cat. She always traveled that way with the Bobbseys. And she seemed very comfortable, for she was curled up on the blanket in the bottom of the basket. Snoop opened her eyes as Freddie and Flossie put their fingers through cracks and stroked her as well as they could.

  “I wish Snap was in here with us,” said Freddie, after a bit. “I hope he gets a drink of water.”

  “Oh, I want a drink of water!” exclaimed Flossie, suddenly. “I forgot I was thirsty. Mother, can’t I have a drink?” she went on.

  “Oh, yes, dear. I suppose so. I’ll get it for you.”

  “No, let Dinah get it so she’ll upset,” begged Flossie.

  “I’ll get it for you, Flossie,” offered Freddie. “Dinah might get hurt.”

  “Dat’s de li’l gen’man,” said the fat cook, smiling. “He lubs ole Dinah.”

  “I love you too, Dinah,” said Flossie, patting the black hand that had done many kind acts for the twins. “But I do want a drink, and you know you would look funny if you upset here in the car.”

  “Yes, I spects I would, chile,” laughed Dinah.

  “May I get Flossie a drink?” asked Freddie.

  “You may both go down to the end of the car where the water-cooler is,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “The train is slowing down now, and going to stop, I think, so you won’t fall. But be careful.”

  Flossie and Freddie started toward the end of the long car, but their sister Nan, who with her brother Bert was a few seats away, went with them, to make sure nothing would happen.

  “I’m not thirsty any more,” Flossie said, after having had two cups of cold water.

  “No, but you will be in half an hour, I’m sure,” laughed Nan. “Every one seems to get thirsty on a railroad journey. I do myself,” and she took some water after Freddie had had enough.

  The train now came to a stop, and Flossie and Freddie hurried back to their seat to look out at the station. Hardly were they both crowded close to the window before there was the sound of shouting and laughing, and into the car came rushing a number of children. With them were two ladies who seemed to be in charge. There were boys and girls—about twenty all together—and most of them made rushes for the best seats, while some hurried down to the tank to get drinks of ice-water.

  “I had that cup first!” cried one.

  “You did not! I had it myself,” said another.

  “That’s my seat by the window!” shouted a third.

  “It is not! I had it first, you can see where I left my hat! Oh, my hat’s gone!” a boy exclaimed.

  “I threw it on the floor, I wanted to sit here myself,” said a big girl with red curls.

  “Children! Children! You must be quiet!” called one of the ladies.

  The train started again, all the other passengers watching the odd children who were making such a confusion.

  “Oh, see the cow!” cried a tall boy. “It’s the last cow you’ll see for a year, fellows, so take
a good look at her,” he added as the train passed along a field.

  “No more good times for a long while,” sighed a boy who had a seat near Freddie and Flossie. “I wish I could live in the country always.”

  Flossie and Freddie looked at him. His clothes were patched here and there, but they were clean. And his face and hands were clean, which could not be said of all the other children, though some of them showed that they had tried to make themselves neat.

  “The country is the best place,” he said, and he looked at the two smaller Bobbsey twins as though he would like to speak to them. “I’m going to be a farmer when I grow up,” he went on, after a pause.

  “He—he’s a nice boy,” whispered Flossie to her brother. “I’m going to speak to him. We can talk about the country.”

  “Wait a minute,” advised Freddie. “Maybe mother wouldn’t want us to talk to strangers.”

  Flossie looked back to where her father and mother were sitting. Mrs. Bobbsey was speaking to one of the ladies who had come in the car with the noisy children.

  “Are you taking part of an orphan asylum on an outing?” Flossie heard her mother ask.

  “No. These are some ‘fresh air’ children. They have been out in the country for two weeks, and now we are taking them home. Poor things! I wish we could have kept them longer out in the green fields and woods, but there are others waiting for their chance to go.

  “You see,” she went on, and Flossie and Freddie listened carefully, “some kind people give us money so that the poor children of the city may have a little time in the country during the hot weather. We board them out at different farmers’ houses. This company of children has been on two different farms near Branchville, where we just got on the train. Some of the little ones are from Sanderville.” This was a large city not far from Lakeport, a smaller city where the Bobbsey twins lived. “Others are from Lakeport,” went on the lady, speaking to Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “Indeed!” exclaimed Freddie’s mother. “I did not know there was a fresh air society in our city.”

  “It has only just been formed,” said the lady, who was a Miss Carter. “We haven’t much money left, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Then you must let me give you some,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “And I will get some friends of mine to give money also. Our own children enjoy it so much in the country that I want to see others have a good time, too.”

  Then he and Mrs. Bobbsey began to talk about ways of helping poor children, and Flossie and Freddie did not listen any more. Besides, just then the train was passing along a field in which were many horses, some of which raced alongside the cars, and that interested the twins.

  “Oh, look at ’em run!” cried the fresh air boy who sat in front of the smaller Bobbsey twins. “Don’t they go fast?”

  The other fresh air youngsters crowded to their windows to look out, and some tried to push their companions away so they might see better. Then a number all wanted a drink of water at the same time, and the two ladies who were in charge of the children were kept busy making them settle down.

  The quiet, neat boy about whom Flossie had whispered to her brother, turned around in his seat and, looking at Freddie, asked:

  “Were you ever on a farm?”

  “Yes,” answered Freddie, “we just came from our uncle Dan’s farm, at Meadow Brook. We were there ’most all Summer. Now we’re going back home.”

  “Where do you live, and what’s your name?” asked the strange boy.

  “My name’s Freddie Bobbsey, and this is my sister Flossie,” was the answer. “We’re twins. Up there, in that other seat, are my brother and sister, Bert and Nan. They’re twins too, but they’re older’n we are. We live in Lakeport.”

  “You do?” cried the boy in surprise. “Why, that’s where I live! My name is Tommy Todd.”

  “That’s a nice name,” put in Flossie politely. “I don’t know any one of that name in Lakeport though. Where does your father live?”

  Tommy Todd did not answer at once, and Freddie was surprised to see tears in the eyes of the strange boy.

  “I—I guess you folks don’t ever come down to our part of Lakeport,” he said. “We live down near the dumps. It isn’t very nice there.”

  Freddie had heard of the “dumps.” It was on the farther side of the city, a long distance from his nice home. Once, when he was very little, he had wandered away and been lost. A policeman who found him had said Freddie was near the “dumps.”

  Freddie remembered that very well. Afterward, he heard that the “dumps” was a place where the ashes, tin cans, and other things that people threw away were dumped by the scavengers. So Freddie was sure it could not be a very nice place.

  “I live out near the dumps, with my grandmother,” went on Tommy Todd.

  “We’ve a grandmother too,” said Flossie. “We go to see her at Christmas. We’ve two grandmas. One is my mother’s mother, and the other is my father’s mother. That’s my papa and my mother back there,” and Flossie pointed to where Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were talking to the fresh air lady.

  “Doesn’t your father live with you and your grandmother?” asked Freddie.

  “I—I haven’t any father,” said Tommy, and once more the tears came into his eyes. “He was lost at sea. He was a captain on a ship, and it was wrecked.”

  “Oh, please tell us about it!” begged Freddie. “I just love stories about the ocean; don’t you, Flossie?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’m going to be a sea captain when I grow up,” said Freddie. “Tell us about your father, Tommy.”

  So while the train rushed on Tommy Todd told his sad little story.

  CHAPTER II

  A Sudden Stop

  “I don’t remember my father very well,” said Tommy Todd. “I was real little when he went away. That was just after my mother died. My grandmother took care of me. I just remember a big man with black hair and whiskers, taking me up in his arms, and kissing me good-bye. That was my father, my grandmother told me afterward.”

  “What made him go away from you?” asked Flossie. “Didn’t he like to stay at home?”

  “I guess maybe he did,” said Tommy. “But he couldn’t stay. He was a sea captain on a ship, you know.”

  “Of course!” cried Freddie. “Don’t you know, Flossie? A sea captain never stays at home, only a little while. He has to go off to steer the ship across the ocean. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  “I don’t want you to,” returned Flossie, as she nestled up closer to her brother. “I want you to stay with me. If you have to go so far off to be a sea captain couldn’t you be something else and stay at home? Couldn’t you be a trolley-car conductor?”

  “Well, maybe I could,” said Freddie slowly. “But I’d rather be a sea captain. Go on, Tommy. Tell us about your father.”

  “Well, I don’t know much,” went on Tommy Todd. “I don’t remember him so very well, you know. Then my grandmother and I lived alone. It was in a better house than we have now, and we had more things to eat. I never get enough now when I’m home, though when I was on the fresh air farm I had lots,” and, sighing, Tommy seemed sad.

  “My father used to write letters to my grandmother—she is his mother,” he explained. “When I got so I could understand, my grandmother read them to me. My father wrote about his ship, and how he sailed away up where the whales are. Sometimes he would send us money in the letters, and then grandma would make a little party for me.

  “But after a while no more letters came. My grandmother used to ask the postman every day if he didn’t have a letter for her from my father, but there wasn’t any. Then there was a piece in the paper about a ship that was wrecked. It was my father’s ship.”

  “What’s wrecked?” asked Flossie.

  “It means the ship is all smashed to pieces; doesn’t it?” asked Freddie of Tommy.

  “That’s it; yes. My father’s ship was in a storm and was smashed on the rocks. Everybody on it, and my father too, was drowne
d in the ocean, the paper said. That’s why I like the country better than the ocean.”

  “I used to like the ocean,” said Flossie slowly. “We go down to Ocean Cliff sometimes, where Uncle William and Aunt Emily and Cousin Dorothy live. But I don’t like the ocean so much now, if it made your father drown.”

  “Oh, well, there have to be shipwrecks I s’pose,” remarked Tommy. “But, of course, it was awful hard to lose my father.” He turned his head away and seemed to be looking out of the window. Then he went on:

  “After grandmother read that in the paper about my father’s ship sinking she cried, and I cried too. Then she wrote some letters to the company that owned the ship. She thought maybe the papers were wrong, about the ship sinking, but when the answers came back they said the same thing. The men who owned the ship which my father was captain of, said the vessel was lost and no one was saved. No more letters came from my father, and no more money. Then grandmother and I had to move away from the house where we were living, and had to go to a little house down by the dumps. It isn’t nice there.”

  “Does your grandma have any money now?” asked Flossie.

  “A little. She sews and I run errands for the groceryman after school, and earn a little. But it isn’t much. I was glad when the fresh air folks took me to the farm. I had lots to eat, and my grandmother had more too, for she didn’t have to feed me. She is going to the fresh air farm some day, maybe.”

  “That will be nice,” said Flossie. “We’re going to Uncle Dan’s farm again next year, maybe, and perhaps your grandma can come there.”

  “I don’t believe so,” returned Tommie. “But anyhow I had fun, and I weigh two pounds more than ‘fore I went away, and I can run errands faster now for Mr. Fitch.”

  “Why, he’s our grocery man!” cried Freddie. “Do you work for him, Tommy?”

  “Sometimes, and sometimes I work for Mr. Schmidt, a butcher. But I don’t earn much. When I get through school I’ll work all the while, and earn lots of money. Then I’m going to hire a ship and go to look for my father.”

  “I thought you said he was drowned in the ocean!” exclaimed Flossie.