Having seen that Freddie was safe at home, Tommy hurried back to the lumber yard office. Then he went on a number of errands for Mr. Bobbsey. The twins’ father said, that night, he had seldom met such a bright and willing boy.
“Tommy will grow up to be a fine man, I’m sure,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
One day, a little while after Freddie had been lost under the lumber pile, he and Flossie were standing in the school yard at recess, Alice Boyd came up to them.
“Want some candy?” she asked, holding out some in a paper.
“Thanks,” said Freddie, taking some.
“Where did you get it?” Flossie inquired, as she took a piece.
“My sister and I made it,” answered Alice.
“How do you make candy?” inquired Freddie.
“Oh, you just put some sugar and water on the stove in a tin dish,” Alice answered, “and when it boils you pour it out on a buttered pan—you butter the pan just as you butter a slice of bread.”
“Why do you butter the pan?” demanded Flossie.
“So the candy won’t stick to it. Candy is awful sticky. Our dog got a lump in his mouth, and it stuck to his teeth so he couldn’t open his jaws.”
“I wouldn’t give a dog candy,” declared Freddie. “I’d rather eat it myself.”
“Oh, well, we didn’t ‘zactly give the candy to our dog,” said Alice. “A lump of it fell on the floor, and he grabbed it up before we could stop him. Anyhow, we didn’t want the candy after it had rolled on the floor.”
Flossie and Freddie ate the sweet stuff Alice handed them, and thought it very good. That afternoon when Flossie reached home from school, she marched out into the kitchen and said:
“Dinah, I’m going to make some candy!”
“Make candy, honey lamb! How yo’ all gwine t’ make candy?”
“Oh, you just put some sugar and water on the stove to boil, and when it boils you butter a pan like a slice of bread, and pour the candy in it so it won’t stick. And if a lump falls on the floor—a lump of candy I mean—that belongs to Snap. Though I hope it doesn’t make his jaws stick together so they’ll never come open, or he can’t bark. But I’m going to make some candy.”
“Now look yeah!” said Dinah. “Does yo’ ma know yo’ is gwine t’ do dish yeah candy business?”
“No, Dinah, but I’ll tell her when she comes home,” for on coming in from school Flossie had been told that her mother was not in.
“Yo’ll tell her when she comes home?” cried the old colored cook. “Yo’ won’t need t’ tell her, honey lamb. She’ll done know dat yo’ all has been up t’ suffin strange. Make candy! Oh mah gracious! I done guess you’d bettah not!”
“Oh, please, Dinah! It’s easy. You can help me.”
Dinah gave in, as she usually did, and got out some sugar, some water and a saucepan for the little girl. Dinah knew Flossie was too little to be trusted alone around the stove, so she stood near herself.
“Let me pour in the water,” begged Flossie, and she was allowed to do this. Then the sugar and water in the saucepan was soon bubbling on top of the stove. Flossie buttered a pan, getting almost as much butter on her fingers as she did on the tin, but Dinah gave her a wash rag, so that was all right.
Letting the candy boil, Dinah went about her kitchen work, while Flossie sat in a chair near the stove watching. Pretty soon the door bell rang, and Dinah went to answer it. Flossie stayed in the kitchen looking at the steaming pan of candy until she heard a voice calling to her from the yard.
“Flossie! Flossie! Come on out and play!”
It was Stella Janson, a little girl who lived next door.
“I can’t come out right away, Stella,” answered Flossie. “I’m making candy and I have to watch it. You sit down on the porch and when the candy is done I’ll bring some out to you.”
Flossie went to the door to tell this to the little girl, and then she saw that Stella had a new doll.
“Oh, isn’t she pretty!” cried Flossie. “I must see her!”
Forgetting all about the candy boiling on the stove, Flossie went out on the porch. There she and Stella took turns holding the doll. All this while Dinah was at the front door. A peddler had rung the bell, and it took the colored cook some little time to tell him her mistress did not want to buy a new kind of piano polish.
All at once Dinah gave a cry and quickly closed the door.
“Sumfin’s burnin’! Sumfin’s burnin’!” she shouted as she hurried back to the kitchen.
At the same time Stella, who was out on the porch with Flossie, began to sniff the air.
“What’s that funny smell?” she asked.
Flossie also sniffed.
“Oh, it’s my candy burning!” she cried. “My nice candy! I forgot all about it!”
She and Dinah ran into the kitchen at the same time. Over the stove black smoke was curling up from the saucepan of candy.
“Oh, oh!” cried Flossie.
“Keep away, honey lamb—don’t touch it!” cried Dinah. “It’s hot! I’ll lift it off!”
She was just doing that, using an iron holder so she would not burn her hand, when Freddie came rushing in, dragging after him his toy fire engine with which he had been playing out in the yard.
“Fire! Fire!” cried Freddie. “Fire! Fire! I’m a fireman! I put out fires! Look out!”
Freddie’s fire engine, though a toy, squirted real water, from a real little rubber hose. The little fireman pointed the hose at Dinah, who was carrying the smoking and burning pan of candy over to the sink.
“Fire! Fire! Pour on water! Pour on water!” shouted Freddie.
“Look out dere, honey lamb! Don’t squirt no watah on me!” cried Dinah.
But Freddie had started the pump of his engine, and a stream of water squirted all over Dinah.
“Oh mah good landy!” cried the fat cook. “Stop it, Freddie! Stop it! Dish yeah am awful! It suttinly am turrible!”
Luckily for Dinah, Freddie had been playing so long out in the yard with his engine that there was only a little water left in it. When this had squirted out there was no more until he filled the tank again.
“Oh my!” cried Dinah, as she went on over to the sink, and set down the smoking pan of candy. “Oh my!”
“Is the house on fire?” Freddie demanded.
“No, it isn’t,” said Flossie. “It’s just my nice candy that burned. Oh dear! And I did want it so much!”
“Never mind, I’ll make some mo’, honey lamb!” promised Dinah, wiping her face on her apron. “But don’t yo’ squirt no mo’ watah on me, Freddie pet.”
“No, I won’t, Dinah,” he promised. “But I saw the smoke coming out of the kitchen, and I knew there was a fire.”
“It wasn’t ‘zactly a fire,” said Stella. “But I guess the candy burned up. It’s as bad as when we dropped all of ours on the floor.”
But good-natured Dinah made another pan of the sweet stuff for Flossie. This did not burn, and it was soon turned out into the buttered tin to cool. And when it was cool Flossie, Freddie and Stella ate it.
Mrs. Bobbsey only laughed when Flossie told her what had happened, but she said she thought the little girl had better not try to make any more candy until she was a little older.
The weather was getting colder day by day now. The children had red cheeks when they went to school, and they ran and romped along to keep warm.
“It will soon be cold enough to have a frost,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Yes,” said his wife, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we had one tonight. I have brought in my geraniums and other plants.”
“A frost!” cried Bert. “Good! That means the chestnuts will crack out of their burrs. We’ll go chestnutting!”
The next morning Bert hopped out of bed earlier than usual. He looked from the window. The ground was white, and so was the roof of the porch.
“Oh, it’s snow!” cried Freddie, who also got up.
“No, it’s just frost,” Bert said. “The
first frost of the Winter. Now we’ll get ready to have some fun. I’m glad today is Saturday. No school, and we can go after chestnuts!”
“Hurrah!” cried Freddie. “May I come, Bert?”
“Yes, we’ll all go!”
CHAPTER XIV
After Chestnuts
Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie all came down to breakfast together.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Mother Bobbsey, smiling at the children. “What does this mean? Saturday morning, and you are all up as early as though it were a school day. You haven’t looked at the wrong date on the calendar; have you?”
“No, Mother,” answered Freddie. “But we’re going after chestnuts, and we must get to the woods early.”
“So the squirrels won’t get all the nuts, Bert says,” put in Nan.
“But we’ll leave some for them; won’t we?” asked Flossie. “I wouldn’t want the squirrels to go hungry.”
“I guess there’ll be enough for all of us,” said Bert. “But there will be a lot of fellows after the nuts this morning, on account of the frost which has cracked open the prickly burrs, and let the nuts fall out. So if we want to get our share we’ll have to start soon. Nan and I will look after Flossie and Freddie, Mother.”
Mrs. Bobbsey thought for a moment.
“Yes, I guess it will be all right,” she said. “The woods are safe, and there are no snakes this time of year.”
“I’m not afraid of snakes,” exclaimed Freddie. “They only stick out their tongues at you.”
“Some snakes bite,” said Bert. “But, as mother says, there are none in the woods now. When it gets cold snakes crawl inside hollow logs and go to sleep. So get ready to go after chestnuts!”
The Bobbsey twins finished their breakfast, and while Bert found some old salt bags which he put in his pocket to hold his chestnuts, Flossie and Freddie went out to the kitchen where Dinah was working.
“Dinah, where is the biggest basket you have?” asked Freddie.
“And I want the next biggest!” exclaimed Flossie.
“Mah goodness, honey lambs! What am all de meanin’ ob big baskets?” asked the colored cook.
“We’re going after chestnuts,” explained Freddie, “and we want something to put them in. Here’s just the basket I want,” and he took a big one, that Dinah used sometimes when she went to market.
“I’ll take this one,” said Flossie, as she picked up one in which Sam, Dinah’s husband, used to bring in kindling wood for the fire.
“Well, if yo’ honey lambs brings dem baskets home full ob chestnuts yo’ shore will hab a lot,” laughed Dinah.
Flossie and Freddie, with their big baskets, went out in the side yard where Nan and Bert were waiting for them.
“Oh, look at what those children have!” Nan exclaimed. “You two surely don’t expect to fill those baskets with chestnuts; do you?” she asked, laughing.
“Of course we do,” said Freddie, very seriously.
“No, no!” cried Bert. “Those baskets are too big. There aren’t that many chestnuts in the woods, and, if there were, and you filled the baskets you couldn’t carry them home. Get smaller baskets, or do as Nan and I do—take salt bags. They’re easier to carry, and you can stuff them in your pocket while you’re going to the woods.”
Flossie and Freddie still thought the big baskets would be best, but their mother told them to do as Bert said, and finally the four twins started off down the road, each one carrying a cloth salt bag.
About a mile from the Bobbsey home was a patch of woodland, in which were a number of chestnut trees.
“Oh, look! There goes Charley Mason!” called Nan to Bert as they were walking along the road. “I believe he’s going chestnutting, too.”
“It looks so,” returned Bert. “I say, Charley!” he called, “are you going to the woods?”
“Yes,” came the answer.
“Come along with us,” cried Bert.
“All right,” Charley answered. “I promised to call for Nellie Parks and her brother George, though.”
“We’ll stop and get them on our way past their house,” said Nan, “and then we’ll all go on together.”
“It will be a regular party; won’t it?” cried Freddie.
“It surely will,” laughed Nan.
“Only we haven’t anything to eat,” said Flossie.
“We can eat chestnuts,” declared Freddie.
“Too many of them, raw, before they are boiled or roasted, aren’t good for you,” said Nan. “So be careful.”
Charley Mason crossed the street to join the Bobbsey twins, and a little later they reached the house where Nellie Parks and her brother lived. These two were on the steps waiting.
“Oh, hello, Nan!” cried Nellie. “I didn’t expect to see you. Charley said he’d stop for us, but I’m glad you did, too. The Bobbseys are going with us, Mother,” Nellie called back to her mother who was looking out of a window.
“It’s a regular chestnutting party,” said Flossie.
“Only we haven’t anything to eat,” added Freddie, and all the others laughed.
“That’s so!” exclaimed Nellie’s brother George, who was older than any of the others. “It isn’t much of a party, even to go after chestnuts, unless you have something to eat. Wait a minute.”
He hurried back into the house, and soon came out with a pasteboard box.
“What’s in there?” asked his sister.
“Lunch for the chestnutting party,” George answered. “Now you won’t have to worry, Flossie and Freddie.”
“That’s nice!” said the two little twins in a chorus.
Together the children walked down the street, past Mr. Bobbsey’s lumber yard, and then they were out in a part of the city where there were very few houses. It was almost like the country. A little later they came to the woods. The woods were on both sides of a broad road, and before the children reached the clump of trees they could see other boys and girls scurrying around, poking in among the leaves on the ground to get the nuts which had fallen down when the frost cracked open the burrs.
“I hope they’ll leave some for us,” said Nellie Parks.
“Oh, I guess there will be plenty,” returned her brother.
The Bobbsey twins and their friends hurried into the woods. Flossie and Freddie were the first to begin poking among the leaves with sticks which they picked up.
“Have you found any nuts yet?” asked Freddie, after a minute or two.
“Oh yes, I’ve got one!” cried Flossie. “I’ve got two—three—a whole lot,” and she showed some brown things in her fat little hand.
“Let’s see,” called Bert, and when Flossie held them out to him he laughed and said:
“Those aren’t chestnuts. They are acorns. You have been looking under an oak tree, Flossie. You must look under a chestnut tree.”
“Aren’t these all chestnut trees?” asked Freddie.
“Oh, no,” replied Bert, whose father had told him something of the different kinds of trees, from which lumber is made. “There are oak, hickory, maple and elm trees in these woods. Here, I’ll show you a chestnut tree.”
He pointed one out to the little twins, showing them how they could always tell it afterward by the leaves and bark.
“Look there for chestnuts and maybe you’ll find some,” said Bert. Flossie threw away the acorns, and she and Freddie began poking in among the leaves again, while the others went to different trees.
Freddie soon called:
“I’ve found some! I’ve found some!”
He hurried over to Bert with some shiny brown nuts in his hand. Each nut had a little “tail” fastened to it.
“Yes, those are chestnuts,” Bert said. “Now see whether you or Flossie will fill a bag first.”
“I’ve got a whole lot of nuts!” Flossie cried. “Oh, such a lot. Come on Freddie and—Ouch! Oh dear!” she suddenly cried.
“What is it?” asked Nan, quickly running over to her little sister. “Did you hur
t yourself?”
“Something stuck me in the fingers,” Flossie answered, holding up her chubby hand.
“Maybe it’s a snake,” said Freddie.
“No, it’s only chestnut burr stickers,” said Nan. “I’ll get them out for you, Flossie. After this, open the burrs with a stick. Oh, look here!” she cried, as she glanced down at the ground. “Flossie has found a whole lot of nuts in a pile!”
They all came over to look at Flossie’s find. Surely enough, there were a number of the brown nuts in a little hollow in the ground.
“How did they get there?” asked Nellie.
“Some squirrel or chipmunk must have gathered them in a heap, ready to carry to its nest,” said George. “Well, we’ll just take them, as it will save us the trouble of hunting for them. Put them in your bag, Flossie.”
“But won’t the squirrel be hungry?” asked the little girl.
“Well, don’t take quite all of them. But there are lots of chestnuts this Fall, and the squirrels can find and gather them more easily than we can. Take them, Flossie.”
“I’ll give Freddie some too,” she said, and the two small Bobbsey twins divided most of the nuts between them.
By this time Nan, Bert and Nellie had also found some of the nuts under different trees, though none were nicely piled up like those Flossie happened upon. The nuts were down under the dried leaves, which had fallen from the trees earlier in the season. By brushing the leaves to one side with a stick the nuts could be seen.
“This is too slow for me,” said George Parks at last. “I want to pick nuts up faster than this.”
“How can you do it?” asked Charley Mason.
“By shaking some down from a tree. Let’s find a tree that has a lot of nuts on it, and shake it. Then the nuts will fall down, and they won’t get under the leaves. We can easily pick them up then.”
“Good!” cried Bert Bobbsey. “We’ll do it.”
They searched through the woods until they found just the tree they wanted. Looking up they could see the burrs clinging to the branches. The frost had opened the burrs and the brown nuts could be seen, just ready to fall.
“If there was a good wind,” said George, “that would blow the nuts down: but, as there isn’t, we must shake the tree.”
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