“Oh, you mustn’t!” gasped Flossie.
“Course we can,” declared Laddie. “My aunt always lets me look at a fire when it’s near here, and this is awful close. Maybe this hotel will burn down.”
“Oh-o-o-o!” cried Flossie. “Where’s my doll?” And she ran to get her pet.
“Come on, we’ll go!” said Freddie to Laddie. “Girls don’t like fires, but we boys do.”
“Sure,” said Laddie. “We’ll go, all right. My aunt’s looking out the front window, and we can go out the side door and down the elevator,” he went on. “I know all the elevator men, ’cause I’ve lived in this hotel a whole year. My aunt won’t care ’cause she won’t see us, so she won’t be worried. I don’t like her to worry.”
“Me either,” said Freddie. So the two little boys, making sure Mrs. Whipple was still looking from the front windows of her apartment, to see what all the excitement was about, stole out of a door into the side hall and so reached the elevators.
“Down, George!” called Laddie to the colored elevator man.
“Down it am, Master Laddie,” was the good-natured answer. “Where is yo’all gwine?”
“To see the fire,” was the answer. “Don’t he talk funny?” asked Laddie of Freddie, as they left the elevator at the ground floor.
“He talks just like our colored cook, Dinah,” said Freddie. “Did you ever see her?”
“Nope.”
“You ought to eat some of her pancakes,” went on Freddie. “I’ll write, when I have a chance, and ask her to send you some.”
“Oh, hear the engines whistlin’!” cried Laddie. “Hurry up, or maybe they’ll be gone before we get there.”
The fire was not near enough to the hotel to cause any danger, though many of the hotel guests were excited, and so no attention was paid to the small boys, Freddie and Laddie, as they hurried out to see all that was going on. There was a crowd in the side street and more engines and hook and ladder trucks were dashing up to help put out the fire.
From the blazing store great clouds of black smoke were pouring out, and firemen were rushing here and there. Laddie looked for a while at the exciting scene and then he called to Freddie:
“I’m going back and get my aunt. She likes to look at fires.”
“All right; I’ll wait for you here,” Freddie said. They had been standing not far away from the side entrance to the hotel, and as Laddie turned to go back after his aunt, Freddie walked down the street a little way, nearer the fire.
“I can see Laddie and his aunt when they come,” thought the small boy.
But just then a bigger crowd, anxious to watch the fire, came around the corner, and, rushing down the narrow side street, fairly pushed Freddie ahead of them.
“Here! Wait a minute! I don’t want to go so fast!” cried the little fellow. “I want to wait for Laddie!”
No one paid any attention to him, and he was swept along, half carried off his feet by the rush, until at last he found himself standing alone, almost in front of the burning store.
“Oh, I can see fine here!” thought Freddie. “I wish Laddie and his aunt would hurry and come here. Wow! This is great!”
Freddie was so excited watching the puffing engines, seeing the big black clouds of smoke, and the leaping, darting tongues of lire from the windows of the burning building, also watching the firemen squirt big streams of Water on the blaze, that he did not think of himself, and the first he realized was when some one shouted at him:
“Stand back there, youngster!”
Freddie did not know he was the “youngster” meant, and stood where he was.
“Get back there!” cried the voice again. “You may be hurt!”
But Freddie was busy watching the fire. He wished he had brought his own little engine with him.
“I could squirt water on some of the little sparks, anyhow,” he said to himself. “I guess I’ll go back and get it, and find Laddie and his aunt.”
Freddie was about to turn when suddenly he saw a fireman in a white rubber coat, which showed he was one of the chiefs, or head men, rushing toward him.
“Get back! Get back!” cried this fireman. “Don’t you know you’re inside the fire lines!”
Then for the first time Freddie noticed that back of him was stretched a rope, behind which stood the crowd of men and boys. Freddie was so small that he had slipped under the rope, not knowing it. He had either slipped under himself or been pushed by the throng.
“Get back! Get back!” cried the fireman.
The next instant there was a loud noise, as if a gun had been fired, and Freddie felt himself being lifted up and carried along quickly.
CHAPTER XIV
The Store Camp
The noise like a gun which Freddie heard was made when something exploded, or blew up, in the burning store, and at first Freddie thought he had been blown up with it and was flying through the air.
Then, as he opened his eyes (for he had closed them when the strange thing began to happen) he saw that he was in the arms of the fireman with the white rubber coat, and the fireman was smiling down at him.
“Am I—am I hurted?” Freddie asked.
“Bless your little heart! Of course not!” was the answer. “But you might have been if you had stayed where you were—not so much hurt by the fire, for that’s almost out—as by the crowd. How did you get past the fire lines?”
“I—I didn’t see ’em,” said Freddie. “Back in Lakeport, where I live, we don’t have fire lines, though I’ve got a fish line.”
“Humph! You’re from the country, all right. Where do you live, and how comes it your father let you out in the streets during a fire?”
“I live in the Parkview Hotel and my father didn’t let me out. He’s gone to see the airships with Nan and Bert, and Laddie and I came out to see the fire ourselves. Flossie stayed with her doll. Laddie went back to get his aunt, ’cause she likes fires—I mean to see ’em—and I waited for him, and—and—”
“Yes, I guess you don’t know what happened next,” laughed the fireman. “But as I want to telephone to headquarters about one of the engines that is broken, I’ll use the hotel ‘phone, and, at the same time, take you back where you belong. You’re too little to get inside the ropes at a New York fire.”
“I’m going to be a fireman when I grow up,” said Freddie, as the assistant chief carried him into the corridor of the hotel.
“Well, that won’t be for some time yet, and while you’re waiting to grow up don’t go too near fires—they’re dangerous. There you are, and I think some one is looking for you,” the fireman went on, as he saw a lady rushing toward him when he set Freddie down.
“That’s my mother,” said Freddie.
“Oh, Freddie! Where have you been?” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, for when she heard of a fire she went in search of the two small twins, and could not find them in Mrs. Whipple’s rooms.
“I’ve been to the fire, and I was rescued,” answered Freddie. “He did it,” and he pointed to the white-coated fireman.
“Oh, he really wasn’t in any real danger,” the assistant chief said, taking off his heavy helmet and bowing to Mrs. Bobbsey. “He was inside the fire lines and I carried him here.”
“Oh, I can’t thank you enough!” cried Freddie’s mother. “I never knew him to do such a thing as that before. But he is simply wild about fires!”
“Yes, most boys are.”
Then the fireman telephoned about the broken engine. Freddie told his mother how he and Laddie came to go down to watch the “puffers” (part of which story Flossie had already told Mrs. Bobbsey), and then along came Laddie and his aunt. Mrs. Whipple was almost as much worried as was Mrs. Bobbsey.
But everything came out all right; no one was hurt, and the fire, though it badly burned the store in which it started, did not get near the hotel or any other buildings.
But Freddie could not forget about his “rescue,” as he called it, and when his father, with Nan and Bert, came ho
me that evening the story had all to be told over again.
“But you and Laddie did wrong to go down to the fire without telling Laddie’s aunt,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his small son. “You must never do it again!”
“I never will,” promised Freddie. “But I was rescued all right, wasn’t I?”
“I guess so,” and Mr. Bobbsey had to turn his head away so Freddie would not see his smile.
Laddie, Flossie and Freddie soon became fast friends, and when the smaller Bobbsey twins were not being taken about New York, to see what to them were very wonderful sights, they were either playing in the rooms of Mrs. Whipple or in their own at the hotel.
Bert and Nan were a little too old for this kind of fun, but they met, in the same hotel, a brother and sister of about their own age—Frank and Helen Porter—with whom they had good times.
Mr. Bobbsey had to spend many days looking after the business that had brought him to New York, but Mrs. Bobbsey was free to go about with the children. She took Nan and Bert shopping with her sometimes, leaving Flossie and Freddie with Mrs. Whipple. This suited the small twins, for Laddie and they were great friends and played well together.
Other times Bert and Nan would go to the park, or somewhere with the Porter brother and sister, and Mrs. Bobbsey would take Flossie and Freddie to a matinée or the moving pictures.
“Oh, I think New York is just the nicest place in the world,” said Nan one afternoon, after a trip she and Bert had had on top of a Fifth avenue automobile stage, Frank and Helen Porter having gone with them.
“Yes, it is nice,” agreed Bert “But it’s nice in Lakeport, too. You can’t have fun riding down hill here, and the skating isn’t as good as on our Lake Metoka. And I haven’t seen an ice-boat since we came here, except in moving pictures. I wonder how Tommy Todd is making out with mine.”
“Hasn’t he written to you?” asked Nan.
“No; but he promised he would. Guess I’ll write him a postal now and ask him how the Bird is sailing.”
“And I’ll write to some of the girls in Lakeport,” said Nan.
I had forgotten to tell you that some time before this, Mr. Whipple, the man who owned the store where Flossie’s hat was bought the day the monkey chewed up hers, had met the two smaller twins in his wife’s rooms one day, when Flossie and Freddie had come to play with Laddie.
“Why, those are the two little children who were on the elevated express,” said the store owner, in surprise.
“That’s so, you do know them, don’t you?” returned Mrs. Whipple.
“I should say I did!” cried her husband, and he told all that had happened, while Mrs. Whipple related how Laddie, Flossie and Freddie had come to know one another in the theatre.
Mr. Whipple, at another time, once more met Mr. Bobbsey, whom he had seen that day in the store, and the two families became very good friends, though Mr. Whipple was so busy he did not have much time for calling.
One evening, however, Mr. Whipple came home from the store rather earlier than usual, and, finding Flossie and Freddie in his apartments playing with Laddie, the store-owner asked:
“How would you youngsters like to come and see a woodland camp—a camp with tents, a real fire, where a man is cooking his dinner and all that? How would you like it?”
“Oh, please take us!” begged Laddie.
“Where is it?” Freddie asked, ready to go at once.
“In my store,” said Mr. Whipple.
“A store is a funny place for a camp in the woods,” said Freddie. He and Flossie had often pretended to camp out in a tent made from a blanket or quilt, and they knew what it meant.
“Well, you just come and see it,” laughed Mr. Whipple. “If your folks say it’s all right, I’ll take you all to-morrow.”
“Oh, we’ll come!” cried Freddie. “I love a camp!”
CHAPTER XV
Sad News
Bert and Nan Bobbsey were so interested when they heard that Freddie and Flossie were going to see some sort of a camping scene at Mr. Whipple’s store that they, too, begged to be allowed to join the party.
“Come right along!” exclaimed the merchant. “The more the merrier. I hope you’ll like it.”
“Is it a real camp, with trees and all?” asked Freddie.
“Well, there are some real bushes, and make-believe trees,” said Mr. Whipple. “I couldn’t grow real big woodland trees in my store, you know. But the tent is real, so is the fire, and the men who are camping out eat real food.”
“I’d like that part,” said Flossie.
“Well, come along, then,” invited Mr. Whipple.
Mrs. Bobbsey, as well as Mrs. Whipple, were to go with the five children, and they made up a merry party as they set out for the uptown department store.
“Oh, we’re going in an automobile!” cried Freddie, as they came out of the Parkview Hotel and saw a big car standing at the curb. The chauffeur got down off his seat and opened the door as he saw Mr. and Mrs. Whipple.
“Yes, this is our machine,” said the merchant. “I don’t care much for riding around New York, though in the Summer I take long trips in the car. But as we have so many children with us today,” and he looked at Nan, Bert, Flossie, Freddie and Laddie, “it will be better to go in the machine.”
On the way up, through the streets of the great city, the Bobbsey twins, as did Laddie, looked out of the windows at the many sights. Once Freddie saw a fire engine speeding on its way to some blaze.
“Oh, let’s get out and watch!” he begged.
“Of course we can’t do that!” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“But maybe the fireman who rescued me will be there,” went on Freddie. “I’d like to see him again.”
“I’ll take you around to his fire house some time,” promised Mr. Whipple. “Won’t that do as well?”
Freddie thought it would, and then he noticed a street piano, on top of which perched a monkey.
“Maybe that’s the one who tore your hat, Flossie,” he said.
“No, this is a bigger one,” returned the little girl. “Besides, if he is the same one I don’t want to see him. I feel sorry about the nice cherries on my hat.”
“Don’t you like the one you and your brother bought in my store?” asked Mr. Whipple, with a laugh.
“Oh, yes, it’s awful nice,” said Flossie. “But it hasn’t any cherries on it. But I like it just as well,” she went on quickly, thinking, I suppose, that it might not be polite to say she did not.
“And now for the woodland camp!” cried Mr. Whipple, as they got out of his automobile in front of his store. “You see,” he explained to Mrs. Bobbsey, “I sell a good many things that campers use—tents, pots, pans, fishing rods and lines, lanterns, axes, cook stoves, boats, canoes, guns and so on. Every year I set up, on the top floor of the store, a sort of woodland scene—a camp. I get real bushes from the woods and some logs. Then my men fix up a place to make it look as nearly like the real woods as we can. We have real moss and dirt on the ground, and a little spring of water. There is a real tent—two of them, in fact—and in one there are cots for sleeping, while in the other the meals are cooked. I hire some real campers to stay in my store camp, and they live almost as they would if they were actually camping out. This is to show the people how to use the camping things I sell. It is a new kind of advertisement, you see.”
“And a very good one, I should think,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“It sounds great!” cried Bert. “I wish we could go camping! Do you think we ever could, Mother?”
“Well, I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly. “I did hear your father say something about going to camp this Summer, but warm weather is a long way from us yet. We’ll see.”
“Oh, I believe we can go camping!” cried Nan to Bert in an excited whisper, as they entered the store elevator. “Won’t it be wonderful?”
“Great!” said Bert “I wouldn’t want anything better than to camp on an island in some lake.”
By this
time they were up on the top floor of the big department store owned by Mr. Whipple, and at one end the twins and Laddie could see a number of persons.
“That’s the camp,” said Mr. Whipple. “I don’t believe you’ve seen it this year, have you, Laddie?”
“No, Uncle Dan. Is it different from last year?” for the store-owner had the camp set up each Winter.
“Yes, it’s a little different. There is a new kind of tent, and the men are different.”
Mr. Whipple found a good place for the children to look in on the store camp. As he had said, there were the two tents, and, on some earth and moss between them, a real camp fire was burning, while a man, dressed just as you have seen campers in pictures, was cooking something in a pot over the blaze.
In one tent a table was set for a meal, and while the Bobbsey twins and the others looked on, the two men and a boy, who made up the store camping party, put their food on the table and began to eat.
They acted as though they were in a real camp, and as though they were not being watched by hundreds of eyes. They talked among themselves, washed their dishes after the dinner and then shot at a target with a small rifle, which sent out real bullets.
The boys—Bert, Freddie and Laddie—liked this part very much.
“It certainly looks like the real thing,” was Bert’s remark. “And the best part of it is, everything is so new and clean.”
“It makes me feel hungry to look at ’em eat,” was Laddie’s comment.
“Oh, look at them shoot at that target!” cried Freddie excitedly. “I’d like to do that.”
“You’d have to be careful, so that you didn’t shoot yourself,” replied his brother.
All about the tents in the store camp were things Mr. Whipple sold for those who wanted to take them to a real camp.
“There are some things here I’d like when I go camping,” said Bert. “I’m going to ask my father to get them,” he told Mr. Whipple.
“That will be nice. I asked your father to meet us here and have lunch,” said the store owner, for there was a restaurant in his building. “I thought perhaps he’d like to see the camp himself.”
“I’m sure he would,” said Bert. “I hope he comes.”
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