The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “But take Snap with you,” he said to Bert. “He’ll growl at the gypsy men, and maybe he’ll scare ’em so they’ll give back Helen’s doll.”

  “Well, Snap can growl hard when he wants to,” said Bert with a laugh. “But still I think it wouldn’t be a good thing to take him to the gypsy camp. They nearly always have dogs in their camp—the gypsies do—and those dogs might get into a fight with Snap.”

  “Snap could beat ’em!” declared Freddie.

  “No, don’t take him!” ordered Flossie. “I don’t want Snap to get bit.”

  “I don’t either,” agreed Bert, “so I’ll leave him at home I guess. Well, there’s daddy calling me. I’ll have to run. I’ll tell you all about it when I come back.”

  So, while Flossie and Freddie, with the little cake Dinah had baked for them, went to have a good time playing party, Mr. Bobbsey, with a policeman and Bert, went to the gypsy camp. The policeman did not have on his uniform with brass buttons—in fact, he was dressed almost like Mr. Bobbsey.

  “For,” said this policeman, whose name was Joseph Carr, “if the gypsy men were to see me coming along in my helmet, with my coat covered with brass buttons, and a club in my hand, they would know right away who I was. They could see me a long way off, on account of the sun shining on the brass buttons, and they would have time to hide away that little girl’s doll, or anything else they may have taken. So I’ll go in plain clothes.”

  “Like a detective,” said Bert.

  “Yes, something like a detective,” agreed Mr. Carr. “Now let’s step along lively.”

  Several persons had seen the gypsy caravan of gay yellow and red wagons going through Lakeport, and had noticed them turn up along the farther shore of Lake Metoka. There was a patch of wood several miles away from the town, and in years past these same gypsies, or others like them, had camped there. It was to these woods that Bert and his father were going.

  “Do you think we’ll find Helen’s doll?” asked the boy.

  “Well, maybe, Bert,” answered his father. “And yet it may be that the gypsies have it, but will not give it up. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

  “If I get sight of it they’ll give it up soon enough,” said Policeman Carr.

  After about a two-hours’ walk Bert, his father and Mr. Carr came to the woods. Through the trees they looked and saw the red and yellow wagons standing in a circle. Near them were tied a number of horses, eating what little grass grew under the trees, while dogs roamed about here and there.

  “I’m glad we didn’t bring Snap,” said Bert. “There’d have been a dog fight as sure as fate.”

  “Yes, I guess so,” agreed his father.

  By this time they had entered the gypsy camp, and some of the dark-faced men, with dangling gold rings in their ears, came walking slowly forward as if to ask the two visitors with the little boy what was wanted.

  “We’re after a big doll,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “One was taken from a little girl in our town yesterday. Perhaps you gypsies took it by mistake; and, if so, we’d be glad to have it back.”

  “We haven’t any doll,” growled one big gypsy. “We have only what is our own.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” said Mr. Carr. “We’ll have a look about the camp and see what we can find.”

  The gypsy growled and said something else, though what it was Bert could not hear. The gypsies did not seem pleased to have visitors, nor did the dogs who sniffed about the feet of Bert, his father and the policeman. One dog growled, while others barked, and then the gypsy man who had first spoken made them go away.

  “You are wasting your time here,” said this gypsy, who seemed to be the leader, or “king,” as he is sometimes called. “We have nothing but what is our own. We have no little girl’s doll.”

  “We’ll have a look about,” said Mr. Carr again.

  But though the policeman and Mr. Bobbsey, to say nothing of Bert, who had very sharp eyes, looked all about the gypsy camp, there was no sign of the missing doll. If a gypsy man had taken it, of which Helen, at least, was very sure, he had either hidden it well or, possibly, had gone off by himself to some other camp in another part of the woods.

  “If the doll would only talk now and tell us where she is, we could get her,” said Bert with a laugh to his father, when they had walked through the camp and come out on the other side.

  “That’s right,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey; “but I’m afraid the doll isn’t smart enough for that. Do you see anything else that the gypsies may have taken?” asked the twins’ father of the policeman.

  “I’m not sure,” answered Mr. Carr. “We had a report of two horses missing, and they may be here, but most horses look so much alike to me that I can’t tell them apart. I guess I’ll have to get the men who own them to come here and see if they can pick them out.”

  For half an hour Bert, his father and Mr. Carr roamed through the gypsy camp, the dark-faced men and women scowling at them, and the dogs now and then barking. If there were any boys or girls in the camp Bert did not see them, and he thought they might be hiding away in some of the many wagons.

  “Well, we didn’t find the doll,” said Mr. Carr when they were on their way back to Lakeport. “But I’m sure some of the horses the gypsies have don’t belong to them. The chief of police is going to make them move away from that camp anyhow, for the man who owns the land doesn’t like the gypsies there. He says they take his neighbors’ chickens.”

  Flossie and Freddie, as well as Helen Porter, were much disappointed when Mr. Bobbsey and Bert came back without the doll. Helen was sure some gypsy had it, but as it could not be found, nothing could be done about it.

  “We’ll help you look for your doll this afternoon,” said Freddie to the little girl, into whose eyes came tears whenever she thought of her lost pet. “Maybe you left Mollie under some bush in Grace’s yard.”

  “I looked under all the bushes,” said Helen.

  “Well, we’ll look again,” promised Freddie, and they did, but no doll was found.

  The next day the gypsies were made to move on with their gaily colored wagons, their horses and dogs, and though they went (for they had no right to camp on the land near the lake), they were very angry about it.

  “They said they had camped there for many years,” reported Mr. Carr, telling about the police having driven the dark-faced men and women away, “and that they would make whoever it was that drove them away sorry that he had done such a thing.”

  “I suppose that means,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “that they’ll help themselves from somebody’s chicken coop.”

  “We haven’t got any chickens,” said Freddie.

  “But we’ve got a dog and a cat,” put in Flossie. “If those gypsies take Snap or Snoop I—I’ll go after ’em, I will!”

  “So’ll I!” declared her little fat brother.

  “What’ll you do when you get to where the gypsies are?” asked Bert.

  “Why, I—I’ll—” began Freddie.

  “Oh, I’ll just pick Snoop up in my arms and tell Snap to come with me and we’ll run home,” answered Flossie.

  “But maybe the gypsies—”

  “Don’t, Bert,” admonished his father. “I do not believe that you little twins need worry about your cat and your dog,” he continued.

  But for several days and nights after that Flossie and Freddie were very much worried lest their pets should be taken away. But the gypsies did not come back again—at least for a time, and though the small Bobbsey twins again helped Helen hunt under many bushes for her talking doll it could not be found.

  “I just know the gypsy man took my Mollie!” declared Helen.

  “I’ll help you get it back if ever I see those gypsies,” declared Freddie, but at that time neither he, Flossie nor Helen realized what strange things were going to happen about that same talking doll.

  It was about a week after this (and summer seemed to have come all of a sudden) that, when the mail came one morning, Mrs.
Bobbsey saw a postal card that made her smile as she read it.

  “What’s it about, Momsie?” asked Freddie, when he noticed his mother’s happy face. “Are we going back to New York?”

  “No, but this postal has something to do with something that happened in New York,” was Mrs. Bobbsey’s answer. “It is from the express company to your father, and it says there is, at the express office, a—”

  Just then Mrs. Bobbsey dropped the postal, and as Nan picked it up to hand to her mother the little girl saw one word.

  “Oh!” cried Nan, “it’s a postal about a goat!”

  “A—a goat?” gasped Flossie.

  “A goat!” shouted Freddie. “A live goat?”

  “Why—er—yes—I guess so,” and Nan looked at the postal again.

  “Oh, I know!” cried Freddie. “It’s that goat I almost bought in New York—Mike’s goat! Oh, did daddy get a goat for us as he promised?” asked the little boy of his mother.

  CHAPTER V

  A Bumpy Ride

  The Bobbsey twins—all four of them—stood in a circle about their mother, looking eagerly at her and at the postal card which Nan had handed to her. Freddie and Flossie were smiling expectantly while Nan and Bert looked as though they were not quite sure whether or not it was a joke.

  “Is it really a goat, Mother?” asked Bert.

  “Well, that’s what this postal says,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “A goat and cart have arrived at the express office, and your father is asked to come to get them and take them away.”

  “Course he’s got to take ’em away,” said Freddie. “The goat’ll be hungry there, for he can’t get anything to eat.”

  “And he might butt somebody with his horns,” added Flossie.

  “Daddy wouldn’t buy a butting goat,” Freddie declared. “Anyhow, let’s go and get him. I want to have a ride.”

  “If there really is a goat outfit at the express office for us,” said Bert, “we’d better get it I think. I’ll take the postal down to the lumberyard office and ask daddy—”

  “I’m going with you!” cried Freddie.

  “I’m comin’, too!” added Flossie.

  “Suppose you all go,” suggested Mrs. Bobbsey. “Your father will tell you what to do, for I’m sure I don’t know what to say. I never had a goat. Four twins, a dog and a cat are about all I can manage,” she said laughingly, as fat Dinah came waddling into the room to ask what to order from the grocery.

  “A goat! Good lan’ ob massy!” exclaimed the colored cook. “Dere suah will be trouble if de honey lambs takes t’ playin’ wif goats! Um! Um! Um! A goat! Oh, landy!”

  “I know how to drive a goat!” declared Freddie. “Mike, the red-haired boy in New York, showed me. Flossie and I had a ride in his wagon for two cents apiece. It was fun, wasn’t it, Flossie?”

  “Yep. I liked it. We had lots of fun in New York. Freddie rode on a mud turtle’s back and we had bugs that went around and around and around.”

  “Maybe the goat will go around and around and around,” said Nan, half laughing.

  “Well, hurry down to your father’s office with the postal,” advised Mrs. Bobbsey. “He’ll know what to do.”

  And when the four excited Bobbsey twins—for even Bert was excited over the chance of owning a goat—reached their father’s office he told them all about it.

  “You remember,” he said, “that when Freddie and Flossie ‘almost’ bought the goat in New York I promised that if I could find a good one for sale, with a harness and wagon I’d buy it for you this summer. Well, I heard of one the other day, and I got it, having it sent on here by express. Now we’ll go down and see what it looks like.”

  “It’s going to be my goat—Flossie’s and mine, isn’t it?” asked Freddie, as they started for the express office down near the railroad station.

  “No more yours than it will be Nan’s and Bert’s, my little fat fireman,” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. “You must all be kind to the goat and take turns riding in the wagon.”

  “Can’t we all ride at once?” asked Nan.

  “Well I don’t know how large the wagon is,” answered Mr. Bobbsey, as he started from his lumberyard for the express office with the children. “Maybe you can all get in at once if the goat is strong enough to pull you.”

  “I hope he’s a big goat,” said Freddie. “Then me and Bert will drive him and ride you and Flossie, Nan.”

  “Don’t let him run away with me, that’s all I ask!” begged Nan, laughing.

  They found the goat in a crate on the express platform. Near him was a good-sized wagon, like those the children had seen in Central Park when on their visit to New York.

  “Oh, we can all get in it!” cried Freddie, as he ran from the wagon over to where the goat was bleating in his crate. The animal was a large white one, and he seemed gentle when Flossie and Freddie put their hands in through the slats of the crate and patted him.

  “I think he’d like to get out where he can walk around and have something to eat and drink,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “We must take him out of his crate.”

  This was soon done with the help of the express agent, and, when the last piece of wood was taken off, the goat stepped out of his crate in which he had traveled from a distant city, and gave a loud,

  “Baa-a-a-a-a!”

  Then he stamped his forefeet on the platform, and shook his head, on which were two horns.

  “Oh, look out! He’ll run away!” cried Freddie, who was afraid of losing his goat before there was a chance for a ride.

  But the goat seemed tame, kind and gentle, and after walking about a little, stood still beside the crate and let the children pat him, while Mr. Bobbsey paid the express agent.

  There was a piece of paper pasted on the crate in which the goat had traveled. One end of the paper was flapping loose, and, seeing it, the white animal nibbled at it, and finally ate it, chewing it up as though he liked it; as indeed he did, not so much for the paper as for the dried paste by which it had been stuck on.

  “Oh, look!” cried Nan. “The goat’s eating the label off his crate so we can’t send him back. He likes us, I guess.”

  “We like him, anyhow,” said Freddie, laughing and patting the billy. “Come on, Bert. Hitch him up and give us a ride.”

  “Shall I?” asked Bert of his father.

  “Why, yes, I guess so. Might as well start now as any time. The man I bought him from said he was kind and gentle and liked children. Harness him up, Bert.”

  A complete harness had come with the goat and wagon, and when the white animal had been given a drink of water and fed some grass which Flossie and Freddie pulled for him, Bert, helped by his father and the express agent, put the harness on.

  “What are we going to call him?” asked Nan. “We’ll have to have a name for our goat. We don’t want to call him ‘it,’ or ‘Billy.’”

  “Name him Whisker,” said Bert. “See, he has whiskers just like an old man.”

  “Oh, that’s a nice, funny name!” laughed Flossie, and Freddie thought so too. So the goat was named Whisker, and he seemed to like that as well as any. What he had been called before they got him, the children did not know.

  Whisker did not seem to mind being hitched to the wagon, and when Mr. Bobbsey had made sure that all the straps were well fastened, Bert took the front seat, with Nan beside him, while Flossie and Freddie sat in the back. They set off, Mr. Bobbsey walking beside the goat to make sure he did not run away.

  But Whisker seemed to be a very good goat indeed, and went along nicely, and so slowly and carefully that Freddie, several times, begged to be allowed to drive.

  “I will let you after a while,” promised Bert. “Let me get used to him first.”

  When the Bobbsey twins came riding down their street in the goat wagon you can imagine how surprised all the other children were. They gathered in front of the house and rushed into the yard when Bert turned Whisker up the driveway.

  “Oh, give us a ride! Give us a ride!
” cried the playmates of the Bobbsey twins.

  “Yes, I’ll give you all rides,” promised Bert good-naturedly.

  Then began a jolly time for the Bobbsey twins and their friends. Whisker did not seem to mind how many children he hauled around the smooth level yard at the side of the house, and sometimes the wagon was as full as it could hold. Nor did the goat try to butt any one with his horns, letting the boys and girls pet him as much as they pleased.

  “He’s almost as nice as my doll the gypsies took,” said Helen Porter, after she had had a ride. “I like Whisker.”

  “Did you find your doll?” asked Flossie.

  “No. I can’t find Mollie anywhere. I just know she’s been turned into a gypsy. Oh, dear!”

  “Flossie and I’ll help you find her,” promised Freddie once again. “Some day I’m going to drive the goat all alone, and I’ll give you and Flossie a long ride, Helen. Then we’ll go off and find your doll.”

  “That’ll be nice,” said Helen.

  The Bobbsey twins never knew how many friends they had until they got the goat wagon. For a time Snoop and Snap were forgotten, because there was so much fun to be had with Whisker. Bert gave many rides to his little sister and brother and to their playmates, and in a few days Freddie was allowed to drive the goat, so gentle was the white animal.

  One day, soon after Bert had hitched Whisker to the wagon, and was going to give his two sisters and brother a ride, a telephone message came from Mr. Bobbsey, asking Bert to come to the lumber office to get something Mr. Bobbsey had to send home to his wife.

  “I’ll give you a ride when I come back,” promised Bert, hurrying down the street.

  “We’ll leave Whisker hitched up,” said Nan. “I’ll go in and finish sewing up that hole in my stocking I was mending.”

  “And I’ll stay out here in the goat wagon,” said Freddie, while Flossie nodded her head to say she would do the same thing.

  A little later, and before Bert had come back from his father’s office, Helen Porter came walking past the Bobbsey house. Looking in the yard, she saw Flossie and Freddie seated in the goat wagon.