“All right, I’ll go,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Can’t we come?” asked Freddie, and as he had hold of his little sister’s hand, it was Flossie, of course, whom he included in his question.
“No, you must go with your mother,” said his father, and when the little fat fireman seemed disappointed Mr. Bobbsey went on: “I guess supper is almost ready, isn’t it, Dinah?”
“Deed it am. An’ dere’s puddin’ wif shaved-up maple sugar scattered ober de top an’—”
“Oh, I want some of that!” cried Flossie. “Come on, Freddie! We can look for the gypsies after supper.”
“And we’ll get Helen out of the shiny wagons,” added Freddie, as he hurried toward the Bobbsey home with Flossie, fat Dinah waddling along after them.
“I’ll go with you,” offered Bert to his father. “Maybe you would want me to go on an errand.”
“Yes, take Bert with you,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “I’ll look after Nan, Flossie and Freddie. And be sure to tell Mrs. Porter that if I can do anything for her I will.”
“I’ll tell her,” and then Mr. Bobbsey, with Bert, walked to the Porter house next door.
The crowd in the street grew larger, and there was much talk about the gypsies. Some said that several little boys and girls had been carried off, but, of course, this was not so.
As Flossie and Freddie tore on toward the house in front of fat Dinah, they continued to chatter about the gypsies.
“If gypsies take little girls we don’t want to be them—the gypsies, I mean—Freddie.”
“Humph-umph; that’s so. Well, I guess we’ll be in a circus anyhow. That’ll be more fun. You can ride a horse in the ring, and sometimes I can ride with you and sometimes I can be a clown. When I’m a clown I can squirt water from my fire engine over the other clowns. That’ll make the folks holler and laugh.”
When Nan and Mrs. Bobbsey reached the house each of the little twins was munching on a piece of maple sugar, given them by Dinah to keep them from nibbling at the pudding before the time to serve it came.
“My, Momsie! aren’t you glad the gypsies came and got Helen Porter? It gives us something to think about,” remarked Freddie coolly.
“Freddie Bobbsey!” gasped his mother. “No, I am not glad the gypsies got Helen—if they did. And you and Flossie find enough to think about, as it is. And give the rest of us enough to think about, what is more.”
“There go daddy and Bert into Mrs. Porter’s house now,” said Nan.
“Now tell me just what happened, and I’ll do all I can to help you,” said Mr. Bobbsey to Mrs. Porter, when he got to her house and found her half crying in the sitting-room where there were a number of other women.
“Oh, Helen is gone, I’m sure she is!” cried the mother. “The gypsies have taken her! I’ll never see her again!”
“Oh, yes you will,” said Mr. Bobbsey in mild tones. “I’m sure it’s all a mistake. The gypsies haven’t taken her at all. What makes you think so?”
“Johnnie Marsh saw them carry her away.”
“Then let’s have Johnnie in here where we can talk to him. Bert, suppose you do one of those errands you spoke of,” said his father with a smile, “and bring Johnnie in out of the crowd where I can talk to him quietly.”
John, or Johnnie, as he was often called, was very ready to come when Bert found him outside the Porter house, telling over and over again to a crowd of boys what he had seen, or what he thought he had seen.
“Now tell us just what happened,” said Mr. Bobbsey, when the small boy was seated in a chair in the Porter parlor.
“Well, I was coming from the store for my mother,” said Johnnie, “and I saw the gypsy wagons. I thought it was a circus.”
“That’s what Flossie and Freddie thought,” said Bert to his father.
“But it wasn’t,” went on Johnnie. “Then I saw Helen playing in Grace Lavine’s yard down the street when I came past. And a little while after that, when I had to go to the store for my mother again, ’cause I forgot a yeast cake, I saw a gypsy man running along the street and he had Helen in his arms and she was crying.”
“What made you think it was Helen?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“’Cause I saw her light hair. Helen’s got fluffy hair like your Flossie’s.”
“Yes, I know she has,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “What did you do when you thought you saw the gypsy man carrying Helen away?” and they all waited anxiously for Johnnie’s answer.
“I ran home,” said Johnnie. “I didn’t want to be carried off in one of those looking-glass wagons.”
“Quite right,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Then you really didn’t see the gypsy man pick Helen up in his arms?”
“No,” slowly answered the little boy, “he only just ran past me. But he must have picked her up in Grace’s yard, for that’s where Helen was playing.”
“Then we’d better go down to where Grace Lavine lives and see what she can tell us,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“You don’t need to,” put in Bert. “I see Grace out in front now with some other girls. Shall I call her in?”
“Oh, please do!” exclaimed Mrs. Porter. “My poor Helen! Oh, what has happened to her?”
“We’ll get your little girl back, even if the gypsies have her,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “But I don’t believe they have taken her away. Call in Grace, Bert.”
Grace was not as excited as Johnnie, and told what she knew.
“Helen and Mary Benson and I were playing in my yard,” said Grace. “We had our dolls and were having a tea party. Mary and I went into the house to get some sugar cookies, to play they were strawberry shortcake, and we left Helen out under the trees with her doll. When we came back she wasn’t there, nor her doll either, and down the street we saw the gypsy wagons.”
“Did you see any gypsy man come into the yard and get Helen?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“No,” said Grace, shaking her head, “I didn’t. But the gypsies must have taken her, ’cause she was gone.”
“Oh, please some one go after the gypsies, and make a search among them, at any rate!” cried Mrs. Porter.
“We’ll get right after them,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I don’t really believe the gypsies took Helen, but they may have seen her. They can’t have gone on very far. I’ll call some policemen and we’ll get after them.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Bert. “Maybe we’d better get an automobile.”
“It would be a good idea,” said his father. “Let me see now. I think—”
But before Mr. Bobbsey could say what he thought there was the sound of shouts in the street, and when those in the Porter home rushed to the windows and doors they were surprised to see, coming up the front walk, the missing little girl herself!
There was Helen Porter, not carried off by the gypsies at all, but safe at home; though something had happened, that was sure, for she was crying.
“Here she is! Here she is!” cried several in the crowd, and Mrs. Porter rushed out to hug her little girl close in her arms.
CHAPTER III
Worried Twins
“Oh, Helen! how glad I am to have you back!” cried Mrs. Porter. “How did you get away from the gypsies? Or did they really have you?”
The little girl stopped crying, and all about her the men, women and children waited anxiously to hear what she would say.
“Did the gypsies take you away?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“No, the gypsies didn’t get me,” said Helen, her voice now and then broken by sobs. “But they took Mollie!”
“Took Mollie!” cried Mr. Bobbsey. “Do you mean to say they really did take a little girl away?”
“They—they took Mollie!” half-sobbed Helen, “and I—I tried to get her back, but I couldn’t run fast enough and—and—”
“Well, if they really have Mollie,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “we must get right after them and—”
“Mollie is the name of Helen’s big doll—almost as large as she is,” explained Mrs. Porter, who w
as now smiling through her tears. “Mollie isn’t a little girl, though probably there are several in Lakeport named that. But the Mollie whom Helen means is a doll.”
“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “But did the gypsies really take your doll, Helen?”
“Yes, they did,” answered the little girl. “A bad gypsy man took her away. I was playing with Mollie in Grace Lavine’s yard, and Grace and Mary went into the house to get some cookies. I stayed out in the yard with my doll, ’cause I wanted her to get tanned nice and brown. I laid her down in a sunny place, and I went over under a tree to set the tea table, and when I looked around I saw the gypsy man.”
“Where was he?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“He was just getting out of one of the red wagons. And there was a little gypsy girl in the wagon. She was pointing to my doll, and then the man jumped down off the wagon steps, ran into the yard, picked up my doll, and then he jumped into the wagon again and rode away. And he’s got my nice doll Mollie, and I want her back, and—oh, dear!” and Helen began to cry again.
“Never mind,” said Mr. Bobbsey quietly. “I’ll try to get your doll back again. How large was it?”
“Nearly as large as Helen herself,” said Mrs. Porter. “I didn’t want her to play with it today but she took it.”
“Yes, but now the gypsy man with rings in his ears—he took it,” explained Helen. “He carried my doll off in his arms.”
“Then it must have been the doll which Johnnie saw the gypsy man carrying, and not Helen!” exclaimed Bert. “Did it look like a doll, Johnnie?”
“Well, it might have been. It had light hair like Helen’s, though.”
“Helen’s doll had light hair,” said Mrs. Porter. “And probably if a gypsy put the doll under his arm, and ran past any one it would look as though he were carrying off a little girl. Especially as the doll really had on a dress Helen used to wear when she was a baby.”
“That is probably what happened,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “The gypsy man’s little girl saw, from the wagon, the doll lying in the Lavine yard. Gypsies are not as careful about taking what does not belong to them as they might be. They often steal things, I’m afraid. And, seeing the big doll lying under the tree—”
“Where I put her so she’d get tanned nice and brown,” interrupted Helen.
“Just so,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey. “Seeing the doll under the tree, with no one near, the gypsy man made up his mind to take her for his little girl. This he did, and when he ran off with Mollie, Johnnie saw what happened and thought Helen was being kidnapped.
“But I’m glad that wasn’t so, though it’s too bad Mollie has been taken away. However, we’ll try to get her back for you, Helen. Maybe the gypsies took other things. If they did we’ll send the police after them. Now don’t cry any more and I’ll see what I can do.”
“And will you get Mollie back?”
“I’ll do my best,” promised the Bobbsey twins’ father.
There being nothing more he could do just then at the Porter home, Mr. Bobbsey went back to his own family, and told his wife, Flossie, Freddie and Nan what had happened.
“Oh, I’m so glad Helen is all right,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“But it’s too bad about her doll,” sighed Nan. She had a doll of her own—a fine one—and she knew how she would feel if that had been taken.
“Helen’s doll could talk,” said Flossie. “I know, ’cause she let me make it talk one day. You wind up a winder thing in her back, and then you push on a shoe button thing in her front and she says ‘Mamma’ and ‘Papa’ and other things.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Nan. “Mollie is a talking doll. I guess she has a little phonograph inside her. Maybe that’s the noise Johnnie heard when the gypsy man carried the doll past him, and Johnnie thought it was Helen crying.”
“I guess that was it,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey.
“Well, it’s too bad to lose a big talking doll. I must see what I can do to help get it back. I’ll call up the chief of police.”
“It would be worse to lose your toy fire engine,” declared Freddie.
“Why, Freddie Bobbsey!” exclaimed his little sister, “nothing could be worse than to lose your very best doll—your very own child!”
Mr. Bobbsey, being one of the most prominent business men in the town, had considerable business at times with the police and the fire departments, and the officers would do almost anything to help him or his friends.
So, after supper—at which Dinah had served the pudding with the shaved-up maple sugar over the top, Flossie and Freddie each having had two helpings—Mr. Bobbsey called up the police station and asked if anything more had been heard of the gypsies.
“Well, yes, we did hear something of them,” answered Chief Branford, over the telephone wire. “They’ve gone into camp, where they always do, on the western shore of the lake, and as I’ve had several reports of small things having been stolen around town, I’m going to send on officer out there to the gypsy camp, and have him see what he can find. You say they took your little girl’s doll?”
“No, not my little girl’s,” answered Mr. Bobbsey, “but the talking doll belonging to a friend of hers.”
“Her name is Molly, Daddy,” said Flossie, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, was listening to her father talk over the telephone. “I mean the doll’s name is Mollie, not Helen’s name.”
“I understand,” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh, and he told the chief the name of the doll and also the name of the little girl who owned it.
“Well, what is to be done?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as her husband hung up the receiver.
“I think I’ll go with the policeman and see what I can find out about the gypsies,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “If they are going to take things that do not belong to them they may pay a visit to my lumberyard, if they have not done so already. I think I’ll go out to the gypsy camp.”
“Oh, let me come!” begged Bert, always ready for an adventure.
“I wouldn’t go—not at night, anyhow,” remarked Nan.
“Nor I,” added Freddie, while Flossie crept up into her mother’s lap.
“Oh, I’m not going until morning,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Then I’ll take you, Bert, if you’d like to go. We’ll see if we can find Helen’s big, talking doll.”
“She must feel bad at losing it,” said Nan.
“She does,” said Bert. “Though how any one can get to like a doll, with such stupid eyes as they have, I can’t see.”
“They’re as good as nasty old knives that cut you, and kite strings that are always getting tangled,” said Nan with a laugh.
“Yes, I guess we like different things,” agreed her brother. “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t Flossie or Freddie the gypsies took away with them.”
“I wouldn’t go!” declared Freddie. “And if they took Flossie, I’d get my fire engine and squirt water on those men with rings in their ears till they let my sister go!”
“That’s my little fat fireman!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey. “But now I think you’re getting sleepy. Your row on the lake made the sandman come around earlier than usual I guess. Off to bed with you.”
Flossie and Freddie went to bed earlier than Nan and Bert, who were allowed to sit up a little later. There was much talk about the gypsies, and what they might have taken, and Nan and Bert were getting ready for bed when a pattering of bare feet was heard on the stairs, and a voice called:
“Where’s Snoop?”
“Why, it’s Flossie and Freddie!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, as she saw the two small twins. “Why are you out of bed?” she asked.
“Freddie thought maybe the gypsies would take our cat Snoop,” explained Flossie, “so we got up to tell you to bring him in.”
“And bring in Snap, our dog,” added Freddie. “The gypsies might take him, ’cause he does tricks and was once in a circus.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey. “Get back to bed before you take cold.”
“But you won’t
let the gypsies take them, will you?” asked Flossie anxiously.
“No, indeed!” promised her mother. “Snoop is safely curled up in his basket, and I guess Snap wouldn’t let a gypsy come near him.”
But Flossie and Freddie were not satisfied until they had looked and had seen the big black cat cosily asleep, and had heard Snap bark outside when Bert called to him from a window.
“The gypsies won’t take your pets,” their father told the small twins, and then, hand in hand, they went upstairs again to bed.
CHAPTER IV
The Goat
“Can’t we come, too?”
“We’re not afraid of the gypsies—not in daytime.”
Flossie and Freddie thus called after their father and Bert, as the two latter started the next morning to go to find the gypsy camp. The night had passed quietly, Snap and Snoop were found safe when day dawned, and after breakfast Mr. Bobbsey and his older son were to go to Lake Metoka and find where the gypsies had stopped with the gay red and yellow wagons. They were going to see if they could find any trace of Helen’s doll, and also things belonging to other people in town, which it was thought the dark-skinned visitors might have taken.
“Please let us go?” begged the little Bobbsey twins.
“Oh, my dears, no!” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “It’s too far; and besides—”
“Are you afraid the gypsies will carry us off?” asked Freddie. “’Cause if you are I’ll take my fire engine, and some of the funny bugs that go around and around and around that we got in New York, and I’ll scare the gypsies with ’em and squirt water on ’em.”
“No, I’m not afraid of you or Flossie’s being carried off—especially when your father is with you,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But there is no telling where the gypsies are camped, and it may be a long walk before they are found. So you stay with me, and I’ll get Dinah to let you have a party.”
“Oh, that will be fun!” cried Flossie.
“I’d rather play hunt gypsies,” said her brother, but when he saw Dinah come out of the kitchen with a tiny little cake she had baked especially for him and his sister to have a play-party with, Freddie thought, after all, there was some fun in staying at home.
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