“Take me off! Take me off!” cried Freddie again.
“That’s all right,” said the Aquarium man. “Don’t be afraid, little boy. The turtle won’t hurt you, and we’ll soon have you off his back. He won’t bite you, and you’re having a fine ride!”
Freddie, it seemed, had not thought of that before.
“That’s so!” he exclaimed, and his face did not show much fright now. “I am having a ride, ain’t I?”
Flossie heard this, and then, instead of being afraid her brother would be hurt, she cried out:
“Oh, I want a turtle ride, too!”
“No!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey, who was not so worried, now that he saw the Aquarium man on his way to get Freddie. “One turtle ride is enough for the family. Hold fast, Freddie!” he called, as the turtle came around on the side of the pool near to where the Bobbseys stood.
By this time the man was out on the middle of the wooden piece that held the heavy wire netting, and as the turtle swam near that the man leaned over and quickly lifted Freddie from the swimming creature’s back.
“There you are, my boy!” cried the man, as he held Freddie out to another attendant who had come to help. “Now you’re all right except for wet feet, and we can dry them for you in the engine room.”
“We have to keep the boilers going in Winter to warm the water for the tropical fish,” said the man to Mr. Bobbsey. “Take your little boy there and we’ll dry his shoes and stockings.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Bobbsey. By this time Freddie was safely out of the turtle pool, and the big creature, relieved of that strange thing on his back, had sunk down to the bottom of the pool, as though to hide away. It was lucky he had kept himself afloat as long as he had, or Freddie might have been wet all over.
“Well, you do seem to have the oddest things happen to you, Freddie,” said his father with a smile. “What will you do next?”
“I—I couldn’t help this, Daddy,” said the little fellow. “I—I just slipped!”
“Well, don’t do it again,” said the Aquarium man, with a smile. “If you had fallen in the other pool, where there are half a dozen turtles, though none as large as the one you rode on, you might have been bitten. But you’re all right. Now come along and we’ll dry you out.”
It was an easy matter to dry Freddie’s feet and legs in front of the warm furnaces in the boiler room, but his shoes and stockings did not get rid of their wetness so soon. And, as Mr. Bobbsey did not want to wait, he sent one of the attendants out to buy new shoes and stockings for his son. With these on, and carrying the damp ones in a bundle, Freddie was soon ready to go home.
“I guess I’ve had enough of the ‘quarium,” he said. “Anyhow I had a funny ride.”
“I should say you did!” agreed Bert. “I wish we had a picture of you riding around on the back of that turtle.”
Mrs. Bobbsey was at first alarmed, and then she laughed, when told of what had happened. She made Freddie drink some hot milk, so he would not get cold, but he told her the water of the turtle pool was warm, as it always is in Winter, and he said: “I don’t think I’ll even have the snuffles,” which he did not, as the next day proved.
For two or three days Mr. Bobbsey was busy attending to his business in New York, but he found time to take the children to see the many sights.
“I want to go on a ferryboat and across the Brooklyn Bridge,” said Flossie, one day.
“Oh, I want to go on a ferryboat too. And I want to see what makes the ferryboat go!” cried Freddie eagerly.
“All right; I’ll take you out today,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “And I’ll show you as much of the ferryboat as I can,” he added.
Then they went across the Brooklyn Bridge on a car, and later on they took quite a trip on the ferryboat to St. George, Staten Island, and back, and Freddy even got a glimpse into the engine-room of the boat and went home satisfied.
“There is so much to see!” exclaimed Nan, after a day spent in the Bronx Park, where there are many animals. “I don’t believe we could see it all in a year.”
“That’s right,” agreed Bert. “But we’re going to see something good this afternoon.”
“What?” asked Flossie. “Are we going to another ‘quarium?”
“No, to a matinée in the theatre,” said her larger brother. “It’s an awful funny play—anyhow, the billboard pictures are.”
“Are we all going?” asked Freddie.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “We are all going.”
Much excited over the joys before them, for in Lakeport there was only one theatre, and plays did not show there often, the Bobbsey twins made ready to go to the matinée. Flossie and Nan wore new frocks, and Bert and Freddie had new suits, so they were quite dressed-up, they felt.
The play was a very amusing one, and the children laughed so hard that Freddie at last rolled off his seat and had to be picked up by his father.
But this only made all the more fun, and the people around the Bobbsey family joined in the laughter when an usher helped Mr. Bobbsey place Freddie in his proper place again.
Then the curtain went down on the first act, and as the lights were turned up the children looked about them. Freddie found himself seated next to a boy about his own age, who, with an elderly lady, had come in after the performance began. This was why Freddie had not noticed his little neighbor before.
“Isn’t this a dandy show!” cried Freddie.
“The best I ever saw,” answered the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Freddie Bobbsey. What’s yours?”
“Laddie Dickerson. Where do you live?”
“We live away up in Lakeport, but we’re staying at the Parkview Hotel.”
“Why—why, that’s where we live, my mother and my uncle and my aunt. My father is dead. We live at the hotel, except in the Summer, when we go to the seashore. What floor are you on?”
“The tenth. I know ’cause I holler it out when we come up in the elevator.”
“Why, we live on the tenth floor, too,” said Laddie Dickerson. “It’s funny I never saw you.”
“And it’s funny I never saw you,” replied Freddie. “Say, come and play with me, will you?”
“Sure I will! Well have lots of fun. I’ve got a train of cars.”
“I’ve got a fire engine!” said Freddie, his eyes big with delight. “Oh, what fun we’ll have!”
“Hush, Freddie dear,” said his mother, for the little boy was talking rather loudly. “The curtain is going up again.”
CHAPTER XIII
The “Rescue” of Freddie
During the rest of the play the attention of Freddie and Flossie, who sat near him, was divided between Laddie, the new boy, and the things happening on the stage. Both were so jolly—the funny things the actors did and the chance of having a new playmate—that the two smaller Bobbsey twins did not know which was best.
“Don’t you like this show?” asked Freddie of Laddie, when the curtain went down again.
“Yes. It’s great! But I’m glad you’re comin’ to play with me,” Laddie answered.
“So’m I,” answered Freddie. “You’re glad too, aren’t you, Flossie?”
“Of course I am,” said the little girl.
“Does she—she play with you?” asked Laddie, nodding his head toward Freddie’s little sister, as if in surprise.
“Of course she does. We have lots of fun. Why?”
“But she’s a girl!”
“Of course she’s a girl,” agreed Freddie. “She couldn’t be my sister if she wasn’t a girl. I’ve got another sister, too, but she’s bigger. She’s sitting on the end of the row. She plays with Bert and Flossie plays with me. We’re two sets of twins. Don’t you like girls?”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Laddie slowly. “I never played with ’em much. I—I like your sister, though. She can play with us. Do you ever play store?”
“Lots of times,” said Freddie. “We take some dirt for sugar, some little ston
es for eggs, some big stones for loaves of bread, clam shells and pieces of tin for dishes—we have lots of fun like that. But we haven’t had any fun that way since we came to New York. I fell on a turtle’s back in the ‘quarium, though, and had a ride.”
“You did!” cried Laddie, so loudly that many persons in near-by seats turned to smile at him.
“Sure I did,” answered Freddie. “I’ll tell you about it. I was scared at first, but—”
“Laddie, dear, the curtain is going up and you had better keep quiet,” said the elderly lady who was with the new boy.
“Is she your mother?” Freddie asked.
“No, she’s my aunt. My mother is out in California, but she’s comin’ home soon, and I’m glad of it, though my aunt is awful nice.”
“Hush!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, thinking it was Freddie talking, for now the last act had started. So the two little boys quieted down, each one resolved to start talking again as soon as he could.
The last act of the show proved to be uproariously funny, and Freddie laughed and laughed until he was in danger of rolling on the floor again. But he was held fast in his seat, and so that danger was averted.
“Say, Freddie, wouldn’t you like to be an actor man?” questioned Flossie, during a brief interval in the play.
“Sure, I’m going to be an actor man when I grow up,” responded her brother quickly.
“But you’re going to be a fireman too, ain’t you?” queried his sister.
“Of course! I’m going to be an actor man and a fireman too,” replied Freddie. “I can act in a theatre when there aren’t any fires to be put out.”
“But what would you do if you were all dressed up as an actor man when you had to go out to put out a fire?” asked his sister.
“Oh, I’d just tell the people that I couldn’t act any more, and then I’d run right out and get my engine,” answered Freddie simply.
“I guess I’d like to be an actor man too,” put in Laddie. “I heard a big boy tell once that they earn bushels and bushels of money.”
“Sure, they do,” answered Freddie. “They make a thousand dollars a minute, I guess.”
The play ended in a jolly lot of fun and music, and everybody was laughing when the final curtain went down. Fathers and mothers, who had come to bring their children, talked with one another, though they were strangers, and it was because of this that Mrs. Bobbsey, when Freddie and Laddie started to talk together again about the turtle ride, nodded and smiled at the elderly lady with whom Laddie had come to the theatre.
“My little boy seems to have taken quite a fancy to yours,” said the twins’ mother.
“Oh, he isn’t my boy, though I love him as though he were,” said this lady. “Laddie is my sister-in-law’s boy, but she is in California. My husband and I are taking care of Laddie.”
“And Freddie is coming to play store and steam cars and automobile and steam engine, with me, and—and—”
Laddie paused, trying to think of something else.
“Fireman,” said Freddie. “We’re going to play fireman.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Laddie. “I forgot about that. We’re going to play fireman.”
“And I’m going to play with ’em,” added Flossie.
“Yes, she can come,” said Laddie to his aunt. “I guess I’ll like her, though I don’t know much about playin’ with girls,” he added.
“Well, you seem to have it all settled,” laughed his aunt. The Bobbseys and their new friends were standing in the theatre aisle, waiting for the crowds ahead of them to pass out.
“We’re strangers in New York,” added Mrs. Bobbsey. “We are staying at the Parkview Hotel—”
“Why, that’s where my husband and I have been living for a number of years,” said Freddie’s aunt. “My husband has a department store in Harlem, but he likes to live in this section. I like the hotel very much. Won’t you let me call to see you?”
Mrs. Bobbsey said she would be very glad to, and so the two ladies, having thus met, became friends, which Laddie and Freddie had done a little while before. Laddie’s aunt, whose name was Mrs. Whipple, said she would be glad to have Freddie and Flossie, as well as Nan and Bert, come in to play with Laddie.
“Though I am afraid your two larger twins are rather old for our small boy,” said Mrs. Whipple, who had no children of her own.
“Yes, Nan and Bert are getting a little older,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But Freddie and Flossie will be delighted to have a new play-fellow.”
So it was arranged that the next day the two small twins were to go to the Whipple apartment to play with Laddie, and Flossie and Freddie could hardly wait for that time to come.
“Oh, I think New York is just the nicest place!” said Flossie, as she talked with Freddie about whether or not she might bring one doll with her when she went to Laddie’s hotel home.
“It’s dandy!” said Freddie. “Don’t you wish you were coming with us, Bert?”
“Pooh! Dad is going to take me to see the airships go up down at Governor’s Island. They go up even in Winter, for the airmen want to get used to the cold, I guess,” Bert said.
“Oh, I want to see the airships!” cried Freddie. “Can’t Daddy take me, too?” he asked his mother.
“Well, not this time, Freddie,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “You and Flossie are going to have some fun with Laddie. I’ll take you later.”
And with this the small twins had to be satisfied. So, while Nan and Bert were taken downtown, to get a glimpse of the airships flying over New York bay, which the bird-like craft did, in charge of army officers, who wished to learn to fly, even when there was snow on the ground, the small twins, taking some of their toys with them, went to the hotel rooms where Laddie Dickerson lived with his aunt.
“Did you bring the bugs that go around and around and around?” asked Flossie, as their mother knocked at Mrs. Whipple’s door.
“Yep,” answered Freddie, “And I brought my toy fire engine, too. I wonder if she’ll let us squirt real water?” and he nodded toward the door that was not yet opened by Laddie’s aunt.
“You mustn’t do that unless you are told you may,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “If you squirt water you may spoil the wall paper.”
“We’ll be careful,” promised Freddie, and then Mrs. Whipple’s maid opened the door, and the twins went in to have a good time.
Laddie was very glad to see them, and he was much amused at the “go-around” bugs. He had a number of toys of his own, and when the children were tired of playing with them, and with those the Bobbsey twins had brought, they began to have a make-believe store.
“I’ve got some real store boxes and things,” said Laddie, as he brought them out from his play-room.
“Oh, they are real!” cried Flossie, as she saw them. “Isn’t they grand! Where’d you get ’em?”
“My Uncle Dan gave them to me,” said Laddie. “He keeps a real store, and he sells hats and dresses and lots of things.”
“What’s the name of his store?” asked Freddie.
“He’s Daniel Whipple,” answered Laddie. “He is my mother’s brother—her name was Whipple, too, before she was married to my father. And my middle name is Whipple. I go to my Uncle Dan’s store lots of times; it’s an awful big one.”
“I know it is!” cried Freddie. “I’ve been in it!”
“You have?” cried Laddie in surprise.
“When?” asked Flossie. “When were we in Laddie’s uncle’s store?”
“Don’t you ’member?” went on Freddie. “It was the time the monkey chewed your hat, Flossie. We went into a store to buy a new one, and Daddy came there and found us and the man’s name was Whipple.”
“That’s right—it was,” agreed Flossie. “Oh, isn’t that funny! And now we’re playing with you, Laddie.”
“It is strange, I’m going to tell my aunt.”
And when Laddie did, Mrs. Whipple remembered having heard her husband tell about the two little lost children who came into his de
partment store after a street-piano monkey had spoiled a little girl’s hat.
“And to think you two are those same children!” cried Mrs. Whipple. “It is quite remarkable, and New York such a big place as it is. I must tell my husband. He’s Laddie’s uncle, you know.”
“I’ve got another uncle, too, but we don’t know where he is,” went on Laddie.
“Is he lost at sea?” asked Freddie. “If he is, I know how to find him. Just ask Tommy Todd’s father. He was shipwrecked, and me and Flossie found him in a snow storm.”
“You must tell me about that some time,” said Mrs. Whipple. “But Laddie’s other uncle isn’t lost at sea, so far as we know. It’s too sad a story to tell to children. But Mr. Whipple has a brother, who is also a brother to Laddie’s mother, but this brother has long been lost.”
“How’d he get lost?” asked Freddie. “Did he go to the store and couldn’t find his way back?”
“No, my child. It was different from that. I’ll tell you, perhaps, another time. Go on with your play now.”
So Laddie, Freddie and Flossie went back to their “store,” and had lots of fun. Then they played other games, using Freddie’s fire engine and Laddie’s train of cars, and even Flossie’s doll, who rode as a passenger.
“Well, what’ll we do next?” asked Freddie, when he and Laddie had taken turns squirting water from the fire engine in the bath room.
“Let’s play automobile,” said Laddie. “I can get—”
He stopped talking and seemed to be listening.
“What’s the matter?” asked Flossie, as Laddie hurried to a window that looked down into a side street.
“It’s a fire!” cried Laddie. “I can hear the puffers! Come on! It’s right down this side street!”
Flossie and Freddie looked out of the window long enough to see a crowd of people in front of a store not far from the hotel, which was on a corner. And in the street, which was a side one, as Laddie had said, were a number of fire engines.
“Let’s go down!” cried Freddie, all excited at what he saw.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 102