The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “Come back, children! Come back!” begged Mother Bobbsey. “Oh, Richard!” she called to her husband, “get the children!”

  “All right,” he answered, but he could hardly keep from laughing, it was all so funny. Dinah still sat where she had fallen, after being knocked over by the strange dog, and there was a look of wonder on her face, as if she did not quite understand how it had all happened.

  “I beg your pardon. I’m sure I’m very sorry for what has happened,” said the man whose dog had caused all the trouble by rushing at Snap.

  “Oh, you couldn’t help it,” returned Mrs. Bobbsey. “Richard,” she again called to her husband, “do look after Flossie and Freddie. I’m afraid they’ll be hurt.”

  “I’ll help get them, and the cat too!” offered Tommy Todd. “I like cats and dogs,” he added, and, carefully setting down the basket of flowers, he, too, ran down the platform.

  By this time Snap, chasing after the strange dog, was half-way across the street in front of the railroad station, but Snoop, the black cat, was not in sight. Flossie and Freddie, having come to the end of the platform, stopped, for they had been told not to cross a street without looking both ways for wagons or automobiles. And it was while they had thus come to a stop that their father came up to them.

  “Don’t go any farther,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

  “But we want to get Snoop!” cried Freddie.

  “And Snap will be lost, too,” said Flossie, ready to cry.

  “That’s all right. We’ll get them both. Snap won‘t go far. I’ll bring him back. Where’s your whistle, Bert?”

  Bert had followed his father, while Nan stayed with her mother to help get Dinah up. Dinah was so fat that once she sat down flat on the platform she could hardly get up alone. It was not often, of course, that she sat down that way. This time it was an accident. So while Mrs. Bobbsey and Nan were helping up the fat cook, Bert gave his father a tin whistle he carried for calling Snap when the big dog was far away.

  Mr. Bobbsey blew a loud blast on the whistle. Snap, who was now running down the street after the strange dog, turned and looked back. But he did not come toward the station.

  “Come here, Snap!” called Mr. Bobbsey. “Come here at once!” And he said it in such a way that Snap knew he must come. Again the whistle was blown and Snap, with a last bark at the dog which had made so much trouble, turned and came running back.

  “I wish you could call my dog back as easily as you called yours,” said the man who owned the animal Snap had been chasing. “But I guess I had better go after him myself,” he added. “Your dog and mine don’t seem to get along well together, and I think it’s Rover’s fault. But he has never traveled in a train before, and perhaps he was frightened.”

  “Our dog and cat like to ride in a train,” said Flossie, patting the head of Snap, who was wagging his tail.

  “Oh, but we’ve got to find Snoop!” cried Freddie, who had, for the moment, forgotten about the black cat. “Come on Flossie.”

  The two younger Bobbsey twins were about to set off on a search for their pet when they saw Tommy Todd coming toward them, with the black cat in his arms.

  “I’ve found her for you,” he said, smiling. “She’s all right, only a little scared I guess, ’cause her heart’s beating awful fast.”

  “Thank you, little man,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Oh, Snoop! Did the bad dog bite you?” asked Flossie, putting her arms around the cat as Tommy held her.

  “No, she isn’t bitten,” said Freddie, as he looked carefully at Snoop. “Where did you find her, Tommy?”

  “She was hiding behind some boxes down by the express office. I saw her go that way when the two dogs ran across the street, so I looked there for her. She didn’t want to come out but I coaxed her. I like cats and they always come to me.”

  “That’s ’cause you’re kind to them,” said Flossie. “Come on now, Snoop, you must go back into your basket until we get home.”

  “And don’t run away again, either, Snap!” said Bert to the dog, shaking a finger at him. Snap seemed to understand and to be a bit sorry for what he had done. He drooped his tail, and when a dog does that he is either ashamed or afraid.

  “Oh, don’t be cross with him,” begged Nan, who had come along now, after having helped her mother get Dinah to her feet. “Don’t make him feel bad, Bert, after we’ve had such a nice time in the country.”

  “All right, I won’t,” laughed Bert. “It’s all right, old fellow,” he said to Snap. “I guess you didn’t mean it.”

  This time Snap wagged his tail, which showed that he felt much happier.

  “Let me take Snoop,” begged Flossie of Tommy, and the “fresh air boy,” as the twins called him, handed over the black cat. They all walked back to where Dinah and Mrs. Bobbsey were waiting. Snoop was put in her basket, where she curled up as if glad to be away from the noise and excitement.

  The fresh air children had gone their various ways and Tommy set off down the street toward his poor home, which, as he had said, was down near the “dumps.”

  “Wait a minute!” called Mr. Bobbsey after him. “Give me your address, Tommy. Mrs. Bobbsey wants to come and see your grandmother.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Tommy, and he seemed rather surprised. “Well, I live on Lombard Street.”

  “What number?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, taking out a note book and pencil.

  “There isn’t any number on our house,” said Tommy. “Maybe there was once, but it’s gone now. But it’s the last house on the street, the left hand side as you go toward the dumps.”

  “All right,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I guess we can find you. But that’s a long way to walk from here. Aren’t you going to take a car?”

  “No—no, sir,” answered Tommy. “I don’t mind walking.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t the car fare,” whispered Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “Just what I was thinking myself,” answered her husband. “Here, Tommy,” he went on. “Here’s a quarter. Use it to ride home, and get yourself an ice cream soda. It’s warmer here than out on the fresh air farm,” and he held out the money. “The ice cream will cool you off.”

  “Oh, I—I don’t want to take it,” said Tommy. “I don’t mind the walk.”

  “Come on, take it!” insisted Mr. Bobbsey. “You can run some errands for me later on, and earn it, if you like that better.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that,” said Tommy, and this time he took the money. “I’ll run errands for you whenever you want me to,” he added, as he started toward the street car.

  “All right,” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. “And tell your grandmother that we will get her more sewing to do.”

  “She’ll be glad to hear that,” Tommy said. He was quite a little man, though no older than Bert.

  “And I won’t forget about taking my saved-up money to buy a ship, so you and I can go and get your father from the desert island,” said Freddie, as Tommy got on the car.

  “And I’m coming too,” added Flossie. “You said I could cook.”

  “You ought to take Dinah along to cook,” laughed Nan.

  “Maybe we will; sha’n’t we, Freddie?” asked his little sister.

  “Well, if we can get a ship big enough for her and us we will,” Freddie decided. “But I haven’t got much money, and Dinah needs lots of room.”

  With Snap and Snoop now safe, the Bobbseys and Dinah got in a carriage and left the station to drive to their home. On the way they saw the man whose dog had barked at Snap. The man had the animal by a chain and was leading him along. Snap growled as he looked out and saw him.

  “Be quiet, sir!” ordered Bert.

  “Yes, be nice and quiet like Snoop,” said Flossie.

  “There’s our house!” cried Freddie, as they turned a corner. “Why, it’s been painted!” he added, in surprise.

  “Oh, so it has!” exclaimed Nan.

  “Yes, I had it painted while you were at Meadow Brook,” returned Mr. Bobbsey. “Do you like it?”
he asked his wife.

  “Yes, it’s a lovely color. But I’d like it anyhow for it’s home. It was nice in the country, but I’m glad to be home again.”

  “So are we!” cried Flossie. “We’ll have lots of fun here; sha’n’t we, Freddie?”

  “That’s what we will!”

  “Home again! Home again!” gaily sang Nan as her father opened the front door, and they all went in. “We’re all at home again!”

  CHAPTER V

  Tommy’s Troubles

  “Oh, there’s Johnnie Wilson!” cried Freddie Bobbsey. “I’m going to call to him to come into our yard.”

  “Yes, and there’s Alice Boyd,” added Flossie. “I’m going to play with her. She’s got a new doll. Come on over, Alice!” she called.

  “And you come over, too, Johnnie!” shouted Freddie.

  A boy and a girl came running across the street to the Bobbsey house. The two smaller twins and their little friends were soon having a good time in the yard. It was the morning after the family had come home from Meadow Brook.

  “Did you have a good time in the country?” asked Alice of Flossie.

  “Oh, didn’t we just though! It was—scrumptious!”

  “And false-face robbers stopped the train coming home,” added Freddie. “Only it was make-believe.”

  “I wish I’d been there,” said Johnnie, after Freddie had told about it. “We went up to a lake this Summer. Nothing much happened there except I fell in and most drowned.”

  “I call that something,” said Freddie. “I fell in a brook, but it wasn’t deep.”

  “The lake’s awful deep,” went on Johnnie. “It hasn’t any bottom.”

  “It’s got to have a bottom, or all the water would drop out, and then it wouldn’t be a lake,” said Freddie.

  “Well, maybe it has,” admitted his friend. “Anyhow, the bottom’s awful far down. I didn’t get to it and I was in the water a good while. It’s a awful deep lake.”

  “It isn’t as deep as the ocean,” Freddie said, “and I’m going on the ocean in a ship.”

  “Are you? When?” asked Johnnie.

  “When Tommy Todd and I start to look for his father. His father is lost at sea on a desert island, like Robinson Crusoe, and we’re going to find him.”

  “Take me along!” begged Johnnie. “I’m not afraid of the ocean, even if it’s deeper’n the lake. Take me with you.”

  Freddie thought about it carefully.

  “Well, you may come if the ship is big enough,” he said. “I promised to let Flossie come. She’s going to cook. Oh, no, Dinah’s going to cook. I forgot about that. We’ll have to get a bigger ship, I guess, so’s to make room for Dinah. I guess you may come, Johnnie. I haven’t counted how much money I’ve saved up, but I will soon.”

  “Is Tommy Dodd going to help buy the ship?” asked Johnnie.

  “His name isn’t Dodd, it’s Todd,” explained Freddie. “But he can’t put in much money I guess, ’cause he’s poor. He’s a fresh air boy, but he’s nice. He runs errands for Mr. Fitch, the grocer. We met Tommy on the train.”

  “Then if you put in the most money to buy the ship more’n half of it will be yours,” said Johnnie, “and you can take as many as you like.”

  “No, half of the ship is going to be Tommy’s,” insisted the little Bobbsey twin, “’Cause it’s his father we’re going after, you see.”

  “That’s so,” admitted Johnnie. “Well, I’m coming anyhow. I’ll put in some money to buy things to eat.”

  “That’ll be nice,” said Freddie. “I forgot about eating. I’m hungry now. I think Dinah is making cookies. Let’s go ‘round to the kitchen to see.”

  Flossie and Alice were up on the side porch, playing with their dolls, when Freddie and Johnnie ran around to the back door. Surely enough, Dinah was making cookies, and she gave the boys some.

  “Do you think we’d better save any of these for the time when we go on the ship?” asked Johnnie, as he took a bite out of his second cookie.

  “No, I don’t guess so,” replied Freddie. “We won’t go for a week or two anyhow, and the cookies wouldn’t keep that long. Anyhow, Dinah will make more. Say, I’ll tell you what let’s do!”

  “What?”

  “Go down to the lake and sail our boats.”

  “All right. But I don’t want to fall in.”

  “We’ll go down to my father’s lumber yard, and if we fall in, near the edge, we can yell and some of the men will pull us out. Come on!”

  Mrs. Bobbsey said Freddie might go, if he would be sure to be careful. He was often allowed to visit his father’s lumber yard, for it was known he would be safe there. And Johnnie’s mother said he might go also. So the little fellows trudged away, leaving the girls to play dolls on the porch.

  Freddie and Johnnie had fun at the edge of the lake. They each had a small sailboat, and, holding the strings, which were fast to the toy vessels, the boys let the wind blow the boats out a way and then hauled them in again.

  After a while, however, they grew tired of this, and Freddie said:

  “Let’s go up to the office to see my father. He likes me to come to see him, and maybe he’ll give us five cents for ice cream cones.”

  “That’ll be nice,” said Johnnie.

  Mr. Bobbsey was very busy, for he had a great deal of work to do after having spent so much time in the country that Summer. But he was glad to see the boys.

  “Well, how’s my little fireman this morning?” he asked, catching Freddie up in his arms. “Have you put out any fires yet?”

  “Not yet. We’ve been playing boats.”

  “And how are you, Johnnie?” went on Mr. Bobbsey, as he patted Freddie’s playmate on the back.

  “Oh, I’m all right. I’m going in the ship with Freddie to help find Tommy Todd’s father who’s on a desert island.”

  “Oh, you are; eh? Well speaking of Tommy, that looks like him out there now.”

  Mr. Bobbsey pointed to the outside office. There stood the boy Freddie and Flossie had talked to on the train. He was speaking to one of the clerks, who did not seem to want to let him inside the railing.

  “That’s all right,” called Mr. Bobbsey. “He may come in. What is it, Tommy?” he asked kindly, as the clerk stepped aside.

  “I’ve come to do the errands, to earn the quarter you gave me yesterday,” said the fresh air boy, as he came in.

  “Oh, there’s no hurry about that,” returned Mr. Bobbsey. “I don’t know what errands I want done today.”

  “Well, I’d like to do some,” Tommy said. “I’d like to earn that money, and then, maybe, you’d have some more errands for me to run, afterward, so I could earn more money. I need it very much, and Mr. Fitch hasn’t any work for me today. I want to do all I can before school opens,” Tommy went on, “’cause it gets dark early in the afternoon now, and my grandmother doesn’t like to have me out too late.”

  “That’s right. How is your grandmother, Tommy?”

  “She—she’s sick,” was the answer, and Tommy’s voice sounded as though he had been crying, or was just going to do so.

  “Sick? That’s too bad!”

  “That’s why I want some more errands to do, so I can earn money for her. She was hungry when I got home yesterday, and I spent that money you gave me—all but the five cents for car fare—to buy her things to eat. There wasn’t anything in the house.”

  “Oh, come now! That’s too bad!” said Mr. Bobbsey. “We must look into this. Here, Freddie, you and Johnnie and Tommie go down to the corner and get some ice cream. It’s a hot day,” and he held out some money to Tommy. “I’ll let you carry it,” he said, “as the other boys might lose it. Get three ten cent plates of cream.”

  Tommy seemed to hang back.

  “Could I have this one ten cent piece all for myself?” he asked.

  “Why, of course you may. There is a dime for each of you. Don’t you like ice cream?”

  “Oh, yes indeed. But I’d rather save this for my
grandmother. I’m not very warm.”

  “Now look here!” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. “You spend that money for yourself and for Freddie and Johnnie. I’ll see that your grandmother is taken care of. I’m going to telephone to my wife, now, to go down to see her.”

  “Oh, all right, thank you!” cried Tommy. And then, when he had hurried off down to the ice cream store with Freddie and Johnnie, Mr. Bobbsey called up his wife at home and asked her to see Mrs. Todd.

  Mrs. Bobbsey went to the little house on Lombard Street at once. She found Tommy’s grandmother to be a nice woman, but quite ill from having worked too hard during the hot weather. She was very feeble.

  “But I must keep a home for Tommy,” she said to Mrs. Bobbsey. “His father, my son, was lost at sea, and Tommy is all I have now. I don’t mind the hard work when I’m well, but I don’t feel good now.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “We’ll get you well and strong again, and then you can keep a home for Tommy.”

  Mrs. Todd told very much the same story Tommy had told—that her son, Tommy’s father, had sailed away to sea, and after many days a passing vessel had sighted the wreck of his. Broken lifeboats were floating about the surface of the ocean, but no one alive was found in them. As there was no trace of Captain Todd or any of the sailors, every one believed they had all been drowned.

  “Tommy seems to think his father may be alive,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

  Mrs. Todd sighed.

  “I sometimes used to think that myself,” she said. “But now I have given up hope. It is over five years, and if my son were alive he would have sent me some word before now. I wish he would come back, for then he would look after Tommy and me.”

  It was not a nice place where Tommy lived with his grandmother, but Mrs. Todd did her best to keep the house neat and clean. Mrs. Bobbsey called in a doctor, and also sent a woman to nurse Mrs. Todd until she grew better, which she did in a few days.

  Then she could keep on with her sewing, by which she earned enough for her and Tommy to live on. But it was not a very good living they made, and they often did not have enough to eat.

  “I’ll give you some of my sewing to do,” promised Mrs. Bobbsey, “and so will some ladies I know.”