The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  The next moment Flossie’s apple was thrust into the elephant’s mouth, and, as he chewed it, his little eyes seemed to twinkle in delight.

  “He likes an apple just as much as I do,” said Freddie. “Elephants is funny!”

  “Don’t try to go in there to feed this one peanuts!” said Bert, fearing that the little twin boy might try to do as his sister had done. Generally Flossie and Freddie wanted to do the same things.

  “No, I won’t go in,” Freddie said.

  Having swallowed the apple, the elephant held out his trunk toward the Bobbseys again. He was asking for “more,” as plainly as though he had spoken.

  “No more!” called the keeper, and this the elephant seemed to understand, for he lowered his trunk, and backed into his corner, throwing hay dust over his back as he did in the Summer to keep the flies from tickling him.

  “Well, I guess we’ve seen enough of elephants for one day,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “I thought I should faint when I saw Flossie go into that cage. I wish I could get a cup of tea.”

  “We’ll go and have lunch,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “It’s about noon, I think.”

  They went to a restaurant near a great round stone, which was perched on the top of a big ledge of rock, and when Freddie wanted to know what it was his father told him.

  “That’s a rocking stone,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “It stands there on a sort of little knob, and it is so nicely balanced that a man, or two or three boys, can easily push it and rock it to and fro.”

  “Do you mean one man can move that big rock?” asked Bert.

  “Yes, he can make it rock, but he can not make it move off the rock on which it rests. Come and try.”

  Bert and his father pushed their backs against the stone, and, surely enough, they could make it rock an inch or two back and forth. Freddie helped, or at least he thought he did, which is the same thing. But the stone really did rock, and the children thought it was quite a wonderful thing. Sometimes your heavy piano, if it stands on an uneven place in the floor, may be rocked back and forth a little. That’s the way it was with the rocking stone. The restaurant where the Bobbseys ate was named “Rocking Stone,” because it was within sight of the strange rock.

  I have not time to tell you all that the Bobbsey twins saw and did in Bronx Park that day. But they had a fine time, and Flossie and Freddie, at least, wanted to come back the next day.

  “There’re lots of things that we didn’t see,” remarked Flossie.

  “Yes. And I want to rock that big stone again,” added Freddie. “Why, it rocked back and forth just as easy as a cradle!”

  “Oh, Freddie Bobbsey! The idea! To make out that big rock was like a cradle!” cried Flossie.

  “I didn’t say it was like a cradle. I said it wobbled just like a cradle,” replied Freddie. “Daddy, can we go back again to-morrow?”

  “I planned to take you to the Natural History Museum to-morrow,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “There you can see all sorts of stuffed animals—walruses almost as big as a small house, a model of a whale and many other strange things.”

  “Oh, do let’s go!” begged Bert.

  “We will,” promised Mr. Bobbsey, but when the next day came the plan of the Bobbseys had to be changed.

  In Mr. Bobbsey’s mail that morning was a letter from his bookkeeper at the lumberyard, which, when Mr. Bobbsey had read it, made him thoughtful.

  “I hope there isn’t bad news,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “No, not exactly bad news,” was her husband’s answer. “But I think I shall have to go back home.”

  CHAPTER XVIII

  A Strange Ride

  Nan and Bert, who were in the room with their mother and father when the letter was read, looked quickly at Mr. Bobbsey. Flossie and Freddie had gone to the next apartment to play with Laddie.

  “Does that mean we’ve got to go back?” asked Bert.

  “We haven’t seen half enough of New York,” added Nan.

  “Oh, no, you won’t have to come back with me,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “You’ll stay here at the hotel, and I’ll return in a few days.”

  “What’s it all about?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “Uncle Jack,” answered her husband.

  “You mean the woodchopper who was so kind to Flossie and Freddie?”

  “Yes, and because he was so kind I can’t refuse to do what he wants me to.”

  “What is it he wants you to do?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “Did he write to you?”

  “No, he got some one to do it for him, and my bookkeeper sent the letter on to me.”

  “But I thought Uncle Jack was going to the hospital,” Bert said.

  “So he is, Son. In fact, he is in the hospital now, but he is so ill that they fear he will not get better, even if the doctors do all they can for him. He is afraid he might die and he wants to see me before then. He says he has something he wants to tell me.”

  “What do you suppose it can be?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “I haven’t the least idea. Perhaps it’s about his folks. He may have found some of them, or know where they are. If he has any relations they ought to know about him, and not leave him among strangers. Of course I’ll do all I can for him. Mr. Whipple has given me some money to spend on Uncle Jack, so I think the poor old woodchopper will be all right, if he can only get well.”

  “Then you’re going to see him?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “Yes, I think I had better,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “He did me a great favor, caring for Flossie and Freddie, and I must do what I can for him. He says it will make his mind easier if he can talk to me before the doctors try to make him well in the hospital.”

  “Then we can’t go to the Natural History Museum today!” exclaimed Nan.

  “Oh, yes; your mother can take you.”

  “I fear I can’t tell you, as well as Daddy can, about the different things,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, smiling; “but I’ll do the best I can.”

  “Oh, Momsey! Of course we love to have you!” cried Nan, kissing her mother.

  “I know, but you want Daddy, too! I don’t blame you. But we must give him up for a little while, if it is to help Uncle Jack.”

  “Oh, of course we will!” cried Nan, and Bert nodded his head to show that he agreed.

  “I’ll just about have time to catch a train for Lakeport,” said Mr. Bobbsey, looking at his watch. “Where are Flossie and Freddie? I want to say good-bye to them.”

  “They are playing with Laddie,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “I’ll get them.”

  The two younger Bobbsey twins felt sorry that their father had to go away, but they were told he would soon be back again. But as Flossie and Freddie were having such fun playing with Laddie, they did not really think much about Mr. Bobbsey going away, except for five minutes or so.

  “Give our love to Uncle Jack,” said Freddie, as he kissed his father, and started back for the Whipple rooms, where he and Laddie were building a bridge of books for the toy train of cars to cross a river, which was made of a piece of broken looking glass.

  “And here’s an extra kiss I’ll give you for him,” said Flossie, as she hugged her father in bidding him good-bye. “I love Uncle Jack.”

  So Mr. Bobbsey went back to Lakeport, and Mrs. Bobbsey got ready to take Nan and Bert to the Natural History Museum. At first it had been planned to take Flossie and Freddie, but, as they said they did not care much about stuffed animals, and as they were having such fun with Laddie, Mrs. Whipple told Mrs. Bobbsey she would look after the smaller twins and give them their lunch.

  “Then I’ll leave them with you,” said the mother of Flossie and Freddie. “I hope they will be no trouble.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be all right,” said Laddie’s aunt. “Don’t worry about them.”

  So Flossie, Freddie and Laddie built the bridge of books, and on it safely ran the toy locomotive and cars over the river of shiny looking glass.

  When they grew tired of this game they played automobile. To do that Laddie had to turn an
old rocker upside down and stick on one leg a broken drum he had left from his Christmas toys. The drum was the steering wheel, and it made enough noise, when pounded on with a stick, to pretend it was an automobile horn.

  Flossie and Freddie rode in the back part of the overturned chair, and Laddie sat in front of them and made believe he was a chauffeur of a taxicab, running about the streets of New York.

  As Laddie knew the names of many places where the real taxicabs stop, he could call them out from time to time. So that Flossie and Freddie went to the Grand Central Terminal, to Central Park, to the Public Library and many other places (make-believe, of course) in the strange pretend automobile.

  “Oh, I’m going to stop off at the Public Liberry!” called out Flossie, while the play was going on.

  “What you going to stop off at the Public Liberry for?” asked Freddie.

  “I’m going to get a great big picture book,” returned the little girl.

  “’Bout Cinderella?” questioned her brother.

  “No. I’m going to get a picture book with all kinds of stories in it.”

  “We can’t stop now!” yelled out Laddie. “We’re three blocks past the liberry already.”

  “Well, then I won’t bother,” answered Flossie.

  After that they played steamboat, a tin horn being the whistle, which was tooted every time the boat stopped or started. This game was great fun, and the children played it for some time until down in the street Laddie heard the tooting of fire engines and the clanging of bells.

  “Oh, there’s another fire!” he cried. “Let’s go down to see it.”

  “No, indeed!” cried Mrs. Whipple, with a laugh, coming into the room just then. “No more fires for you boys. You can look out the window, but that’s all.”

  And so they had to be content with that. The fire did not seem to be a large one, though it was somewhere near the hotel.

  Down in the street were a number of engines and hose carts, and also two police automobile wagons, which had brought the officers who were to keep the crowd from coming so close as to get in the way of the fireman.

  But there is not much amusement in looking out of a window at a fire which cannot be seen, and Flossie, Freddie and Laddie soon tired of this fun—if fun it was. Mrs. Whipple had left the room, to see a lady who called, when Freddie, taking a last look from the window to the street below, said:

  “I know how we could have some fun!”

  “How?” asked Laddie.

  “Get in one of the police wagons and have a ride,” went on the small Bobbsey boy.

  “Oh, let’s do it!” cried Flossie, always ready for anything that Freddie proposed. “How you going to do it?” she asked her brother.

  “Why, we can go down in the elevator,” Freddie said. “There’s nobody in the police wagon now, for all the policemans are at the fire, but we can’t see them or it. And the driver on the front seat of the wagon won’t see us if we crawl in the back.”

  “Oh, so he won’t!” cried Flossie. “’Member how we crawled in the empty ice-wagon once?” she asked Freddie.

  “Yep. I tore my pants that day. But we had a nice ride. We’ll have a nice ride now,” he went on. “We can get in when they don’t see us.”

  “But when the policemans comes back from the fire they’ll see us and maybe arrest us,” said Laddie in a whisper.

  “They won’t if we hide under the seats,” returned Freddie. “See, there are long side seats in the police automobile wagon, and we can lie down under ’em and make believe we’re in a boat.”

  “Oh, if it’s a make-believe game, I’ll do it,” said Laddie. “I guess my aunt won’t care, as long as it isn’t goin’ to a fire.”

  “Then come on,” answered Freddie.

  One of the police patrol wagons, or, to be more correct, automobiles, stood near the curb not far from the front entrance to the hotel. It had brought several policemen to the scene of the fire, and was waiting to take them back.

  As Freddie had said, the chauffeur on the front seat could not see what went on in the back of the wagon, for there was a high board against which he leaned. And there were two long seats, one on each side of the auto patrol, under which three children could easily hide if the police were not too particular in looking inside their wagon as they rode back to the station house.

  The three children hurried out into the hall and got in the elevator, which Laddie called to the floor by pressing the electric signal button.

  “Am yo’ all gwine far?” asked George, the colored elevator boy, as he shot up to the tenth floor and opened the door.

  “I guess not very far,” answered Freddie. None of them knew how long a ride they would get.

  Out the front entrance of the hotel went the three tots. Because of the fire no one paid much attention to them, and the hotel help were used to seeing the children come and go, and perhaps thought Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, or Mrs. Whipple, were not far away.

  So Flossie, Freddie and Laddie had no trouble in getting out, and then they walked quietly down to the automobile patrol. No one was near it, for automobiles—even police ones—are too common to look at in New York, especially when there is a fire around the corner, even if the blaze is a small one.

  So, as it was, no one noticed the children climb into the patrol, and the driver, half dozing, did not hear them.

  As Freddie had said, there was plenty of room for such small tots as these three to crawl under the long seats. And when they were stowing themselves away, Freddie found some blankets, which covered himself, his sister and Laddie.

  “Now they can’t see us!” said Freddie. “But we must keep still!”

  “Hush!” cautioned Flossie. “Somebody’s coming!”

  And somebody was coming. It was the policemen coming back to take their places in the patrol, for the fire was out. Laughing and talking, they took their places on the long seat, never noticing the children hidden below.

  And, a few seconds later, away started the automobile, taking the two Bobbsey twins and Laddie on an odd ride.

  CHAPTER XIX

  The Goat

  Everything would have been all right if Flossie had not sneezed. At least that’s what Freddie said afterward, and Freddie ought to have known, for he was right there. Laddie Dickerson did not say it was Flossie’s fault, but then it is only brothers who say such things to their sisters. And Freddie did not really intend to make Flossie feel bad.

  “But we might have had a bigger ride if you hadn’t sneezed,” said Freddie, after it was all over.

  “Well, I couldn’t help it,” was what Flossie said. “And I guess you’d have sneezed, too, if that fuzzy blanket kept tickling your nose; so there!”

  It was in the police patrol automobile that Flossie sneezed. With Freddie and Laddie, she was having a ride, you remember, the three children having hidden themselves under the seats, wrapped up in blankets, when the machine stood in front of the hotel while the policemen were at the fire.

  For a time the two small Bobbsey twins and Laddie rode along in silence, the policemen not knowing the children were at their very feet. And after they had ridden about ten blocks, Flossie sneezed.

  “A-ker-choo!” she cried, when a piece of the fuzzy blanket tickled her nose. “A-ker-choo!”

  “Hello! What’s that?” asked one of the policemen in the automobile.

  “Sounded like a sneeze,” said another.

  “Sure it was a sneeze,” came from a third.

  “Maybe it was Mike, the chauffeur,” suggested the first officer.

  “It didn’t sound like him,” ventured a policeman, close to where the driver sat behind his wooden back-rest. “I say, Mike!” called the policeman, “did you sneeze?”

  “Nope! Haven’t time for sneezes now,” answered the chauffeur.

  “Then it was back here in this automobile,” went on the first policeman, who was quite fat.

  “Maybe it was a cat,” suggested some one.

  “Or a dog,” added
another.

  Just then Freddie laughed—snickered would be more like what he did, I suppose—and once more Flossie sneezed. And Laddie snickered, too. They really could not help it any more than Flossie could help sneezing. For the two boys thought it very funny to listen to what the policemen were saying about Flossie’s sneezes. And when the little girl’s nose was tickled the second time by the fuzzy blanket, and she sneezed again, and the boys laughed or snickered—the policemen knew where the noises came from.

  “It’s in here—right in our automobile!” said the fat policeman again.

  “And it sounded right at my feet,” added another.

  Then all the policemen in the automobile leaned over and looked down. Even Flossie was laughing now, for it all seemed so funny, and she was wondering what her father and mother would say.

  The laughter of the children made the blankets, under which they were hiding, shake as though the wind was blowing them, and seeing this one of the officers pulled loose one corner of the robe and there he saw Flossie, Freddie and Laddie.

  “Well, I do declare!” cried a policeman with a red mustache. “It’s children!”

  “Three of ’em!” cried another.

  The the two Bobbsey twins crawled from under the seat, and Laddie came with them, to stand up in the swaying automobile between the two rows of policemen.

  “Where in the world did you come from?” asked one officer.

  “Under there,” answered Freddie, and he pointed to the place where the blankets were still rolled up.

  “And how did you get there?”

  “We crawled in to get a ride,” said Flossie, “and I couldn’t help sneezing. That fuzzy blanket tickled my nose so!”

  The policemen laughed at this.

  “But who are you and where do you belong?” asked one of the officers who, having some stripes on his sleeve and some gold lace on his cap, seemed to be the leader.

  “We’re part of the Bobbsey twins,” said Freddie. “The other half of us—that’s Nan and Bert—have gone to see a stuffed whale.”

  “No, the whale isn’t stuffed—it’s the sea lion, or wallyrus—I forget which,” put in Flossie. “The whale’s only made out of plaster and wood.”