It had been indeed, a full day since the Bobbsey twins had left their home in Lakeport that morning, and Mrs. Bobbsey insisted on Flossie and Freddie, at least, going to bed early. This the small twins were glad enough to do, after they had told Nan and Bert the different things that had happened after they got on the express train.
“It was an awful splendid store,” said Flossie, in speaking about Mr. Whipple’s establishment.
“Bigger’n any store in Lakeport,” added her twin.
“And the nicest clerks that ever was,” went on Flossie. “Why, one of ’em had a whole counter full of cologne, and she squirted some on me when I went past, and it smelled awful good!”
After breakfast the next morning, when Mr. Bobbsey had finished sending some telegrams and telephone messages, he asked the children what they first wanted to see in New York.
“The monkeys!” cried Flossie and Freddie.
“I want to go on Fifth avenue and see the lovely shops and stores,” said Nan.
“And I want to go to the history museum and see the stuffed animals and the model of a whale,” said Bert, who had been reading of this.
“Well, how would you like to go and see some live fish?” asked Mr. Bobbsey. “That ought to satisfy all of you, and Nan can see some stores on the way to the Aquarium. I have to go downtown in New York,” he said to his wife, “and I can take the children to the Aquarium at the Battery as well as not.”
“All right,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “If you’ll do that I’ll stay here and rest. Afternoon will do for me to go out. Now mind, Flossie and Freddie, don’t get lost again!”
The small twins promised they would not and soon all four were on their way downtown with their father. This time they went in the subway, or underground road, which, as Freddie said, was like one big, long tunnel.
“We’ll get out at the Brooklyn Bridge or City Hall Park,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I have to see a man in the City Hall, and from there we can walk to the Battery, as it is a nice day. Or we can ride, if you get too tired.”
The children were sure they would not get too tired, and a little later they all got out at the subway station at Brooklyn Bridge.
There were many persons hurrying to and fro, trains coming in and going out, and lights all over, making the children think it was night, though it was in the morning.
“Wait here just a minute,” said Mr. Bobbsey, showing the twins a less crowded place where they could stay. “I want to get a magazine over at the news-stand,” he added.
The magazine he wanted had been put away under a pile of papers, and as the boy was getting it out Flossie caught sight, down the platform, of a man pasting up on the advertising boards in the underground station, some new posters.
“Oh, maybe it’s signs about a circus, Freddie!” cried the little girl “Come on and watch!”
Freddie was always ready to go, and he had darted off after his sister down the long platform before Bert and Nan saw them. When the two older children missed the younger twins they looked hurriedly about for them.
“There they are—watching that bill-poster,” said Bert. For the underground subway stations are much used by advertisers, gaily colored sheets of paper being pasted on boards put there for that purpose.
“You mustn’t run away like that!” said Nan to Flossie, as she came up to her sister, to lead her back.
“We wanted to see if it was a circus poster, but it isn’t,” returned Freddie.
“Well, come on back. Daddy will miss us,” declared Bert. He started back—at least he thought he did—for the place where their father had told them to wait for him. But the subway station under the New York sidewalks was so large and rambling, there were so many stairways leading here and there, up and down, and there were so many platforms that it is no wonder Bert went astray.
“Where are you going?” asked Nan at last.
“Well, I was trying to find the place father told us to wait,” Bert answered.
“It’s over this way,” said Nan, pointing just the other direction from the one in which Bert was walking.
“All right, we’ll try that, but it seems wrong,” he stated.
They walked a little way in that direction. They saw nothing of their father, however, and there were fewer people on the platform where they now were.
“Oh, dear!” cried Flossie, “I’m thirsty! I want a drink!”
“So do I!” added Freddie.
Nan and Bert looked about them. They were still in the underground station, and they could see trains coming in and going out, and crowds of people hurrying to and fro. But they could not see their father nor the place where he had told them to wait. At last Nan said:
“Bert, I don’t know where we are! We’re lost!”
CHAPTER XI
Freddie and the Turtle
Bert Bobbsey looked all around the big underground subway station before he answered Nan. Then he took off his cap to scratch his head, as he often did while thinking. Next he looked down at Flossie and Freddie.
If he thought he was going to find the two little twins in a fright at what Nan had said about being lost, Bert was mistaken. The two flaxen-haired tots were looking down the long platform, into the gloom of the long tunnel of the subway.
“Aren’t they funny, Freddie?” asked Flossie.
“Yep, awfully funny,” was Freddie’s answer.
“What’s funny?” asked Bert, wishing he could see something at which to laugh.
“Those red and green lights down the track,” explained Freddie. “They blink so funny and come up and go out—”
“Just like winking at you,” said Flossie. “I like it down here. It isn’t like the dark tunnels we went in on the steam cars.”
“Well, I’m glad somebody likes it,” said Bert to Nan. “But say, how do we get out of here?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she said. “When I ran after Flossie I didn’t look which way I was going.”
“I didn’t, either. Strange how we could get lost in a place like this,” and Bert seemed worried and spoke more loudly than he intended. Freddie heard what his brother said and looked up quickly.
“Are we really lost?” he asked.
“It seems so,” answered Nan. “I ran after you two, and we have walked about so many platforms and up and down so many stairs that I can’t see or remember the place where Father told us to wait for him.”
“Well, there’s no danger, that’s sure,” said Bert. “It’s an odd place to be lost in—a subway station. I was never in one before, but if we stay here long enough Dad is sure to find us. Here comes somebody now, looking for us, I guess.”
A man in a blue suit, carrying a red lantern, and with white numbers on either side of his cap, walked toward the four twins.
“Is your name Bobbsey?” he asked.
“Yes; but how did you know?” was Bert’s question.
“Your father sent me to look for you. He guessed you must have wandered away, and he thought it best to stay where he told you to wait, and let one of us find you. A lot of men are hunting up and down the different platforms for you.”
“Well, I’m glad you found us!” sighed Nan. “We didn’t know what to do.”
“Just come with me,” said the subway guard. “I’ll take you to your father,” and he did, leading the children down a long platform and over a sort of bridge, then down a flight of steps. Though they did not know it, the twins had wandered quite a distance from the place Mr. Bobbsey had left them.
The subway station was a rambling place, with several doors to go in by and come out of, a number of platforms and stairways, and wiser persons than four small children could easily become confused there.
When Mr. Bobbsey came back, after buying his magazine, and could not find his children, he guessed what had happened, and wisely asked a guard to make a search, instead of doing it himself.
“For I don’t come to New York often enough to be sure of finding my way around in all the odd nooks and
corners,” said the lumber merchant.
“And it wasn’t a circus poster at all!” said Freddie, after Flossie had told what had caused her to wander away. “It was only about chewing gum.”
Speaking of chewing gum made Flossie remember she was thirsty, and after Mr. Bobbsey had thanked the man with the red lantern, and had explained to Freddie that it was used to stop trains in case of an accident, the Bobbsey party went up out of the underground station and into a candy store.
“I know what I’m going to have!” exclaimed Freddie.
“So do I!” cried Flossie.
“Chocolate soda!”
“Yes! And I want plenty of cream on top!”
“Suppose they haven’t got any chocolate soda?” remarked Mr. Bobbsey, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, I know they’ve got chocolate soda,” remonstrated his little son. “They always have chocolate soda at soda fountains! Don’t they, Flossie?”
“Of course they do! I don’t think it would be a real soda fountain if they didn’t have chocolate soda,” replied the little girl.
“I think I’m going to have an orange phosphate,” said Bert.
“And that is just what I am going to have too,” added Nan.
“Phosphate!” cried Freddie in wonder. “I wouldn’t drink any phosphate! That’s what they make matches of.”
“Oh, just hear that!” cried Bert, laughing. “Freddie thinks they make matches of phosphate.”
“They do, too!” answered the little boy.
“You are thinking of phosphorus, Freddie,” explained Mr. Bobbsey. “That is different, and it is poisonous.” Then the drinks were ordered and quickly served.
“And now I want to go to see the big fish!” said Freddie, sipping the last drops of his sweet drink. “Are there any animals in the ‘quarium, Daddy?”
“Well, there aren’t any lions or tigers,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “We’ll go to see them later in Bronx Park. But, of course, fish are animals. It won’t take me long to run into City Hall and see my friend. Then we’ll go to the Aquarium.”
Left on the top steps of the City Hall building, this time the Bobbsey twins were found safely there when their father came out, and a little later they were on their way to Battery Park in a Broadway street car, that ran on the ground.
“We’ve ridden under the ground in the subway, over the ground in the elevated and now we’re riding on the ground,” said Nan. “New York is a funny place!”
The Aquarium, as those of you know who have seen it, is in the round, brown stone building, on a point of land almost the very end of the island of Manhattan. It is where the North and East rivers come together to form New York Bay, and, years ago, this building was where the immigrants, or people who came to the United States from other countries, were kept for a while until they could be sent out West, or down South, or wherever they wanted to go.
Now it is a place where many fish, big, little, ugly and beautiful, are shown in tanks of water so the boys and girls can see what strange things are in the ocean, rivers and lakes of this world.
Led by Mr. Bobbsey, Bert and Nan, with Flossie and Freddie trailing on behind, walked around the big building, looking in the glass tanks wherein swam the fish.
“What’s over there?” asked Freddie, pointing to where a crowd of people were standing near some pools in the middle of the floor.
“Oh, different big fish—a sea lion, alligators and turtles,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Let’s look at the sea lion!” called Flossie.
“I want to see a swimming turtle,” said Freddie. “I had a mud turtle once, but he went away.”
“You shall see everything,” promised Mr. Bobbsey.
They went over to the pool, where a number of large alligators, and one crocodile, were lying in or out of the water. Some were lazily swimming about, and the crocodile was asleep out on the stone ledge, with his big mouth wide open.
“He’s waiting for some one to come along and feed him,” said Bert.
“I guess he’d eat a lot,” laughed Freddie, looking at the rows of big teeth in the crocodile’s mouth.
They passed on to the pool of the sea lion. That sleek, brown animal was swimming about like a big fish, now and then stopping under one of the pipes where the water ran into his pool, and holding his mouth under the little stream as though taking a drink. Now and then he barked like a dog.
Around the stone ledge, or wall of the pool, was a wire grating, and near the floor was a sort of pipe running all around, so the smaller children could step up on this to look in—something which the big folk did not have to do.
“Be careful!” cried Nan, as Flossie leaned well over the edge to get a better look at the sea lion. “You might fall in.”
“She could get a ride on his back if she did,” said Freddie.
“Well, I’m not going to!” exclaimed Flossie, drawing back, a little frightened, as the seal splashed the water right under her, some drops going in her face.
They watched the seal for a while, went over to the other tanks, where some sturgeon and other big fish swam about, and then Freddie called:
“I want to see the big turtles! Where are they?”
“Over here,” said Mr. Bobbsey, leading the way toward the south end of the building near the tank, where the green moray—a sort of big eel—was lying half in and half out of a piece of sewer pipe put in his tank to make him feel more at home. “There are the big turtles,” and Mr. Bobbsey lifted Flossie up over the rail so she could look down more easily.
There were some very large turtles in the tank, swimming by moving their broad flippers. Sometimes they would swim about close to the white tiled bottom of the tank, but the water was clear, so they could be seen easily. Again the turtles would rise to the top, so that their big, hard shells were out of water, like a raft which the boys build to play with when the city’s vacant lots or country meadows are flooded in the Spring.
In one end of the tank was a big turtle—the largest of all—swimming by himself, and overhead, hung by a wire from the room, was a stuffed one, larger yet. This, so a sign near it said, was a “leather-back turtle,” and when alive had weighed eight hundred and fifty pounds.
“Whew!” whistled Bert, looking at the big, stuffed fellow. “He could swim around with two or three boys on his back.”
“I’d like to have had a ride on him,” cried Freddie. “But this one is pretty big, too!” and he pointed down at the large swimming turtle, which, just then, stuck his head up out of the water. He seemed to be nearly a yard long and almost as broad.
“Oh!” screamed Flossie, as she saw the big turtle so close to her. “Can he get out of the water, Daddy?”
“No, indeed,” laughed Mr. Bobbsey.
“I can’t see him very good,” said Freddie, and he gave a little jump up from the foot-rail on which he was standing.
Freddie must have jumped up harder and farther than he had any idea of, for before Bert, who was standing near his little brother, could put out a hand to hold him, the flaxen-haired twin had fairly dived over the rail, and down into the tank he fell with a great splash.
No, not such a great splash, either, for Freddie did not fall directly into the water. Instead, only his two fat legs and feet went in, for the small boy landed, sitting right up on the broad back of the big turtle! Right down on the turtle’s back fell Freddie Bobbsey!
CHAPTER XII
In the Theatre
There was a scream from Nan, another from Flossie, and a sort of grunt of surprise from Bert, as they saw Freddie disappear over the railing of the tank, and come into view a second later on the back of the turtle, which was as much surprised as, probably, the little boy himself.
“Here, Freddie! What are you doing down there?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, before he thought what he was saying. He and his wife had so often to ask what Flossie or Freddie were doing, as the smaller twins were so often in mischief, that the father did it this time.
“Oh, the tu
rtle will eat him up! The turtle will eat Freddie up!” cried Flossie.
Freddie, too, after the first shock of surprise, was frightened, and as he clung with both hands to the edges of the turtle’s shell he looked over his shoulder, toward his father and the others, and cried:
“Oh, get me out, Daddy! Get me out!”
The cries of the children, and the call of Mr. Bobbsey, had drawn a crowd around the turtle pool, and among the throng were some of the attendants on duty in the Aquarium.
“What’s the matter?” asked one, elbowing his way through the crowd to the side of Mr. Bobbsey, who was trying to climb over the rail to go to the rescue of his little boy.
“Freddie fell in,” explained Bert. “He’s on the back of the big turtle!”
“Good land!” cried the man. “What will happen here next? Come back, sir,” he went on to Mr. Bobbsey, “I’ll get him out for you.”
“Then please be quick. He may fall off and the turtle may bite him or drown him,” said Freddie’s father.
“Well, the turtle could give him a bad bite,” returned the Aquarium man. “But if he holds on a little longer I’ll get your boy.”
The man jumped up on the ledge of the pool and made his way to the piece of wood that held up the heavy wire screen which divided the turtle pool into two parts, keeping the one big turtle away from the others. All this while Freddie sat on the shell of the big turtle, his chubby legs dangling in the water, and his hands grasping the edges of the shell behind the front flippers. The turtle’s neck was so short that it could not turn its head to bite Freddie, nor could the big flippers reach him. As they had no claws on the ends, they would have done no harm, anyhow, if they had brushed him.
The greatest danger was that the turtle might suddenly sink down to the bottom of the pool, and, though it was not very deep, it was deep enough to have let Freddie drown.
Even though the small boy could swim, the turtle might attack him, or knock his head under water, which would have been a great danger to Flossie’s brother. But, so far, the turtle did not show any wish to sink below the water. It was frightened, that was certain, for it splashed about in the pool and swam as fast as it could, carrying Freddie with it. Freddie was such a small chap, and the turtle was so large, that it did not mind the weight on its back. But there was no telling when it would sink down.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 101