The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “Well, anyhow, Nan and Bert are there,” said Freddie.

  “And you’re here,” said the red-mustached policeman, “That’s easy to see, though what he means about being half of the Bobbsey twins is more than I can guess. How many is twins, anyhow?”

  “Two,” some one said.

  “We’re four—that is, two sets,” explained Flossie painstakingly. “Bert and Nan are older than us.”

  “Oh, I see,” said the policeman whom the other officers called Captain, or “Cap.” for short. “Well, where did you come from and where are you going?”

  “We live at the Parkview Hotel,” said Freddie, “and we got in here to have a ride. We didn’t think you’d find us so soon.”

  “It is too bad,” said the captain, with a laugh. “And I’m afraid I can’t give you a ride any farther than to the station house. I suppose you know who you are and where you live,” he went on, with a smile; “but, as we have to do things by rule in the police department, I’ll have to make sure. So I’ll take you to my office and telephone to the hotel. If I find you belong there I’ll take you back.”

  “Then we’ll have another ride!” said Flossie. “That will be nice, won’t it, Freddie?”

  “Um, I guess so. Only I’d like to sit out in front with the driver as long as you sneezed and told ’em we were here.”

  “I didn’t sneeze any more than you giggled!” cried Flossie. “And, anyhow, I couldn’t help it. That fuzzy blanket—”

  “Of course, that was it!” laughed the captain. “Never mind. No harm has been done, and you shall have a ride back home. Though I think, for the sake of your folks, I’ll send you back in a taxicab, instead of in this patrol auto, and with an officer in plain clothes, instead of one wearing a uniform. It will look better at the hotel,” he explained to his men.

  “Sure,” was their answer.

  And so the two little Bobbsey twins and Laddie were given a ride to the precinct station house in the big automobile patrol, and they sat on the laps of the kindly policemen.

  Quite a crowd of children gathered around the doors of the police station as Flossie, Freddie and Laddie were lifted out of the automobile, and there were all sorts of stories told about them. Some believed the children had been rescued from the fire; others that they had been taken from a robbers’ cave, and still others that these were the children, who, playing with matches, had caused the fire.

  But all these guesses were wrong, as we know, Flossie, Freddie and Laddie had just gone for a ride, and they had one, though it did not turn out exactly as they expected. However, they had a good time.

  It did not take the police captain long to find out that what Freddie had said was true—that the three youngsters lived at the Parkview Hotel.

  “Your aunt has been looking all over for you,” said the captain to Laddie, after telephoning. “I sent word that I’d soon have you safely back, and you mustn’t run away again.”

  “I asked him to,” said Freddie, telling the truth like a little man. “I asked him and Flossie to come.”

  “Well, next time you’d better ask before you crawl into a police automobile,” said the captain, with a laugh. “You can’t always tell where it is going. However, no harm is done this time. Come and see me again,” he added.

  Then the captain called a taxicab and sent the children to the hotel in charge of one of his policemen, who did not wear a uniform. This was done so no crowd would gather in front of the hotel to stare at Freddie, Flossie and Laddie, as would have happened if a policeman in uniform, with his bright brass buttons, had gone with them.

  “Oh, Laddie! how could you do it and worry me so?” cried Mrs. Whipple, when her little nephew had come back to the hotel with the Bobbsey twins.

  “I asked him,” said Freddie, willing to take all the blame. “We wanted a ride and we just crawled in and hid. I’m awful sorry.”

  “And I’m sorry I sneezed,” said Flossie. “If I hadn’t maybe we’d have had a longer ride.”

  “No, we wouldn’t,” declared Freddie, shaking his head. “We got to the station house, anyhow, and that’s where the automobile lives when it isn’t workin’. Anyhow, we had fun!”

  “Yes, we did,” said Laddie; “and I liked it.”

  “But you mustn’t go away again without telling me,” said his aunt.

  “I won’t,” he promised.

  “Next time we’ll take you with us,” said Flossie. “You’ll like it, only I hope a fuzzy blanket doesn’t make you sneeze.”

  So the Bobbsey twins, with their little friend, had a ride away and a ride back again, and when Mrs. Bobbsey came home that afternoon from the Natural History Museum with Bert and Nan, and heard what had happened, she was so surprised she did not know what to say.

  Of course she made Flossie and Freddie promise never to do it again, and of course they said they never would.

  “I never saw such little tykes as Flossie and Freddie have gotten to be lately,” said Mrs. Bobbsey to Nan that night.

  “This being in a big city seems just to suit them, though,” returned Nan.

  “Yes. But I wish your father would come back. I feel rather lost without him in this big hotel.”

  “I’m here,” said Bert, with a smile.

  “Yes, you’ll have to be my little man, now. And do, please, keep watch of Flossie and Freddie while your father is away. There’s no telling what they’ll do next.”

  And really there was not. For instance, who would have supposed that a goat—

  But there, I’d better start at the beginning of this part of my story.

  It was a few days after the ride in the automobile patrol that Mrs. Bobbsey received word that a friend whom she had known when they were both small children was living in New York. This lady asked Mrs. Bobbsey to call and see her.

  “We do not live in a nice part of New York,” wrote the lady—who was a Mrs. Robinson—in her letter, “for we can’t pay much rent. But our apartment house is not hard to reach from your hotel, and I would very much like to see you. Come and bring the children. They can watch the other children playing in the streets. I know the streets are not a very nice place to play in, but that’s all we have in New York.”

  So Mrs. Bobbsey decided to call on her old friend, whom she had not seen for many years. She said she would take Flossie and Freddie with her. Nan and Bert were going to a moving picture show with another boy and girl and the latter’s mother.

  Mrs. Robinson lived on the east side of New York, in what is called an apartment house. Some called them tenements, and in them many families are crowded together, for room is very valuable in the big city of New York.

  After Mrs. Bobbsey had talked for a while with her former girlhood friend, Flossie and Freddie, who had been sitting still in the parlor, asked if they could not go out in the street and watch the other children at play.

  “Yes, but don’t go off the steps,” said their mother.

  The two Bobbsey twins promised, but something happened that made them forget. This was the sight of a red-haired, snub-nosed boy, driving a goat, hitched to a small wagon, up and down the street.

  “Oh, look at that!” cried the excited Freddie. “Isn’t that great!”

  “It’s cute,” said Flossie. “I wonder if he’d give us a ride?”

  “Let’s ask him,” said Freddie. “I’ve got ten cents. Maybe he’d ride us for that. Come on!”

  And so, forgetting all about their promise not to go off the steps of the apartment house where their mother’s friend lived, the two small Bobbsey twins hurried down to look at the goat.

  CHAPTER XX

  Mr. Bobbsey Comes Back

  “Hey, Jimmie! Give us a goat ride, will you?” called a boy in the street.

  “I will for two cents,” answered the red-haired lad driving the goat and wagon.

  “Aw, go on. Give us a ride for a cent!”

  “Nope. Two cents!”

  “Oh, did you hear that?” asked Flossie of Freddie. “He gives
rides for two cents.”

  “Then we’ll have some,” said Freddie. “How many rides can you get for ten cents?”

  “A lot, I guess,” said Flossie, who forgot all about the number-work she had studied for a little while in school.

  “Hey!” called Freddie to the boy with the goat. “We’ve got two cents—we want a ride.”

  The boy, who was sitting in an old goat wagon, pulled on the reins and guided his animal over toward the curb.

  “Does you really want a ride?” he asked, “No foolin’?”

  “No foolin’,” answered Freddie. “Sure we want a ride. I’ve got five cents.” He showed only half of the money he had in his pocket, keeping the other nickel back.

  “I’ll give you an’ your sister a ride for dat!” cried the goat boy, not speaking the way Freddie and Flossie had been taught to do. “Hop in!”

  “Can I drive?” asked Freddie.

  “Nope. I’m afraid to let youse,” was the answer. “Billy’s a good goat, but you see he don’t just know you. Course I could introduce youse to him, an’ then he’d know you. But first along you’d better not drive him. I’ll steer him were you want to go. I gives a ride up an’ down de block fer two cents,” he went on. “Course two of you is four cents.”

  “I’ve got a nickel,” said Freddie quickly.

  “Sure, dat’s right. I forgot. Well, I’ll give you both a ride up and down de block and half way back again for de nickel.”

  “Here it is,” said Freddie, handing it over, as he and Flossie took their seats in the goat wagon. There was plenty of room for them and the red-haired driver. Other children on the block crowded to the curbstone and looked on with eager eyes as the Bobbsey twins started on their ride. Mrs. Bobbsey, talking with her friend in the darkened parlor, knew nothing of what was going on.

  “Say, he is a good goat,” said Freddie, when they were half-way down the block.

  “Sure he’s a good goat!” agreed the boy, whose name was Mike. “There ain’t none better.”

  “It’s lots of fun,” said Flossie.

  It was a fine day, even if it was Winter. The sun was shining brightly, so it was not cold. What snow there was in New York, before the Bobbseys came on their visit, had either melted or been cleaned off the streets so one would hardly know there had been a storm.

  “I wish we had a goat,” said Freddie, when the ride was almost over.

  “So do I,” agreed Flossie. “Let’s ask Daddy to buy one,” she suggested.

  “We will,” said Freddie.

  “I’m goin’ to sell dis goat,” put in Mike.

  “You are? Why?” cried the Bobbsey twins.

  “’Cause I’m going to work. You see I won’t have time to look after him. I bought him off a feller what moved away, an’ I keeps de goat in Sullivan’s livery stable. But I have to pay a dollar a month, an’ so I began givin’ de boys an’ girls around here rides for two cents to pay for Billy’s keep. But I can’t do dat when I goes to work, so me mudder says I must sell ‘im. I don’t want to, but I has to.”

  Flossie looked at Freddie and Freddie looked at Flossie on hearing this. Neither of them said a word, but any one who knew them could easily have told that they were thinking of the same thing—the goat.

  “Well, I’ll ride you back to where youse got in me wagon,” said Mike, “and then your nickel’s about used up.”

  “Oh, I’ve got another!” cried Freddie eagerly. “We want more ride. Don’t we, Flossie?”

  “Sure we do! Oh, it’s such fun!”

  So they rode up and down the block again, and when that was over Flossie and Freddie spent some time talking to Mike.

  By this time Mrs. Bobbsey had ended her visit and had come out to look for her children.

  “I thought I told you not to go off the steps,” she said. They were down the street looking at the goat.

  “Well, we didn’t mean to,” admitted Freddie. “But we did so much want a goat ride.”

  “And we had ten cents’ worth!” laughed Flossie.

  Mrs. Bobbsey smiled. It was very hard to be cross with these small twins. They never meant to do wrong, and, I suppose, taking a ride up and down the block was not so very bad.

  “Good-bye!” called Freddie to Mike, the goat boy, as Mrs. Bobbsey led her children away.

  “Good-bye!” added Flossie, waving her hand.

  “Good-bye,” echoed Mike.

  “And don’t forget!” said Freddie.

  “No, I won’t.”

  Mrs. Bobbsey might have asked what it was Mike was not to forget, only she was in a hurry to get back to the hotel, and so did not question Freddie.

  When they reached their rooms they found a letter from Mr. Bobbsey, saying he would have to stay in Lakeport a day longer than he expected. But he would soon be in New York again, he wrote.

  Bert and Nan came home from the moving pictures, saying they had had a delightful time.

  “So did we—in a goat wagon,” cried Freddie.

  “And Freddie and me are goin’ to—” began Flossie, but Freddie quickly cried:

  “Come on and play fire engine, Flossie!” so his little sister did not finish what she had started to say.

  It was the next day, soon after breakfast, that one of the hotel messengers—a small colored boy—knocked on the door of the suite of apartments occupied by the Bobbsey family, and when Mrs. Bobbsey answered, the colored boy said:

  “He am downstairs, Ma’am. He am in de lobby.”

  “Who is?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

  “De boy what wants to see yo’ little boy, Ma’am.”

  “Some one to see Freddie? Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, Ma’am. He didn’t gib no name.”

  “Oh, perhaps it is Laddie,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Bert, please go down and see, will you? If it’s Laddie, who wants Freddie to play with him, I don’t see why he didn’t come here. But go and see.”

  “Oh, I know who it is,” said Freddie, “You don’t need to go, Bert. Just give me five dollars, Mother, and I’ll buy him.”

  “Buy him? Buy what?” asked the surprised Mrs. Bobbsey. “What in the world are you talking about, Freddie?”

  “Mike, the goat boy. He’s brought Billy here, I guess, and Flossie and I are going to buy him. Can’t we, please?”

  “What? Buy a goat when we’re stopping at this hotel?” cried his mother. “Bert, do go and see what mischief those children have gotten into now. A goat! Oh, dear!”

  “I’ll go with him, ’cause Mike don’t know Bert,” offered Freddie.

  “And I want to come!” said Flossie. “I want to see our goat.”

  “Your goat!” cried Nan.

  “Yes, we’re going to buy him. Mike brought him to sell to us.”

  And that is what had happened. When Mrs. Bobbsey followed Bert and Freddie down to the hotel lobby, leaving Nan to look after Flossie in the rooms, this is what she saw:

  Out at the side entrance to the hotel was the goat and the rickety express wagon, in charge of a red-haired, snub-nosed boy, Mike’s small brother. Mike himself, rather ragged, but clean and neat enough, was in the lobby, sitting at his ease on one of the big leather chairs, waiting.

  “I’ve brought de goat,” he said to Freddie, as soon as he saw that small Bobbsey with Bert.

  “What does it all mean?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, while a crowd of the hotel guests and help gathered about.

  “Why, your little boy, Ma’am, what I rode in me goat wagon up and down our block, said you’d buy Billy when I was ready to sell him. I’m ready now, ’cause I’m goin’ to work. So I brought de goat an’ wagon here to de hotel, just as your little boy made me promise to do. It’ll be five dollars for de goat.”

  For a moment Mrs. Bobbsey did not know what to say. Then she turned to Freddie and asked:

  “Did you really tell him you’d buy his goat, Freddie?”

  “I said you’d buy it for Flossie and me. Won’t you? We can have such fun with it!”

  �
��A goat in a New York hotel!” cried Bert, laughing, “Oh, dear!”

  “Hush, Bert,” said his mother. “Freddie did not know any better. Of course we can’t keep it,” she said to Mike, “and I’m sorry you had the trouble of bringing him here. My little boy didn’t stop to think, I’m afraid. He should have told me. But here is a dollar for your trouble, and I think you can easily sell your goat somewhere else.”

  “Oh, yes, I can easy sell him,” said Mike. “But your little boy made me promise to bring Billy to dis hotel today and here I am, ‘cordin’ to promise.”

  “Yes, I see you kept your word,” and Mrs. Bobbsey could not help smiling. “But really we have no place to keep a goat here, and we could hardly take it to Lakeport with us. So I’m afraid Freddie will have to do without it.”

  “All right,” said Mike good-naturedly, as he took the dollar.

  Of course Freddie and Flossie were disappointed at not having the goat and wagon, but they soon forgot that when their mother promised to take them to see another play that afternoon.

  “It’s a wonder Flossie or Freddie didn’t try to bring the goat up to our rooms in the elevator,” said Bert, when they were in their apartment again.

  “Well, he was a good goat!” declared Freddie.

  “And he could go fast,” added Flossie.

  “I was going to play fireman with him when we got back to Lakeport,” went on Freddie. “Now I can’t.”

  “I think you’ll have just as much fun some other way,” said his mother, laughing.

  Three days after that, when Mrs. Bobbsey came in from shopping with the two sets of twins, she heard some one moving about in their apartment as she entered.

  “Oh, it’s Daddy!” cried Flossie, as some one caught her up in his arms. “Daddy’s come back!”

  “I’m so glad!” called Freddie, running to get a hug and kiss from his father. “And we almost had a goat!” he added.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Uncle Jack’s Real Name

  “Well! Well!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey, when he heard what Freddie said. “That’s great! Almost had a goat, did you? I must hear about that!”

  “But first tell us about Uncle Jack,” begged Nan. “Is he going to get better?”