The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  I will not tell you all the things that happened on the steamboat, for so much more happened on Blueberry Island that I will have to hurry on to that. Besides, the trip to the middle of the lake did not take more than an hour, and not much can take place in an hour.

  I say not much, and yet sometimes lots of things can. But not a great deal did to the Bobbseys this time, though, to be sure, a strange dog tried to get hold of Snoop in his crate, and Freddie nearly fell overboard reaching after his hat, which blew off.

  “But I could swim even if I did fall in,” he said, for Mr. Bobbsey had taught all four twins how to keep afloat in water.

  “Well, we don’t want you falling in,” his mother answered. “Now you sit by me.”

  This Freddie did for a short time. Then he got tired of sitting still and jumped down from his chair, at the same time calling to his little sister:

  “Say, Flossie, let’s go and watch the engine.”

  “All right,” answered the little girl, ready, as always, to do anything her brother suggested.

  As Flossie jumped from her chair to join her brother, she accidently kicked an umbrella belonging to a man who was sitting near by, and the umbrella fell to the floor and slipped out under the railing right into the water.

  “Oh—oh—oh!” gasped Flossie.

  But Freddie turned and ran as fast as he could to the stairs that led to the lower deck.

  “Here! where are you going?” cried his father, and started after his son.

  “Goin’ after that umbrella!”

  “I think not!” and Mr. Bobbsey caught up with Freddie and picked him up in his arms.

  Meanwhile, Mrs. Bobbsey told the man how sorry she was, and said that they would replace the umbrella. But the man returned that he would not allow that.

  “No one needs an umbrella on such a lovely day, anyway,” he said.

  But a deckhand who was cleaning some mops in the water had already rescued the umbrella.

  “Blueberry Island!” called a man on the steamer, after the boat had made one or two other stops. “All off for Blueberry Island!”

  “Oh, let us off! Let us off!” cried Flossie, getting up in such a hurry from her deck chair that she dropped her doll. “We’re going camping there.”

  “I guess the passengers know it by this time, without your telling them,” laughed her father. “But come on—don’t forget anything.”

  Such a scrambling as there was! Such a gathering together of packages—umbrellas—fishing rods—hats, caps, gloves and the crate with black Snoop in it. Sam and Dinah helped all they could, and between them and Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and the children the family managed to get ashore at last.

  A gangplank had been run from the boat to the dock, and over this Bert drove Whisker and the goat cart. The goat seemed glad to get off the steamboat.

  “Oh, wouldn’t Snap just love it here!” cried Nan, as they went on shore and looked at the island. “Isn’t it too bad he isn’t with us?”

  “I’m going to find him!” declared Bert. “Those old gypsies sha’n’t have our trick dog!”

  Blueberry Island was, indeed, a fine place for a camp. In the winter no one lived on it, but in the summer it was often visited by picnic parties and by those who liked to gather the blueberries which grew so plentifully, giving the island its name.

  In fact, so many people came to one end of the island in the berry season that a man had set up a little stand near the shore, where he sold sandwiches, coffee, candy, and ice-cream, since many of the berry-pickers, and others who came, grew hungry after tramping through the woods.

  But where Mr. Bobbsey was going to camp with his family, the berry-pickers and picnic parties seldom came, as it was on the far end of the island, so our friends would be rather by themselves, which was what they wanted.

  Mr. Dalton, the man who kept the little refreshment stand, had his horse and wagon on the island, and he had agreed to haul the Bobbsey’s trunks and other things to where their tents, already put up, awaited them.

  “And can’t we ride there in the goat wagon?” asked Freddie of his mother, as he saw Bert get up behind Whisker in the little cart.

  “Yes, I think you and Flossie may ride now that we are on the island,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Do you want to go, Nan?”

  “No, I’ll walk with you and daddy. I’ll get enough goat rides later.”

  “Oh, how nice it is!” cried Mother Bobbsey when she and Nan came in sight of the tents of the camp. “I know we shall like it here!”

  “I hope you will,” said her husband. “And now we must see about something to eat. I suppose the children are hungry.”

  “Dey’s always dat way!” laughed fat Dinah. “I neber seen ’em when dey wasn’t hungry. But jest show me whar’s de cook-stove an’ suffin’ t’ cook, an’ dey won’t be hungry long, mah honey lambs!”

  Dinah was as good as her word, and she soon had a fine meal on the table in the dining tent, for the men Mr. Bobbsey had hired to set up the canvas houses had everything in readiness to go right to “housekeeping,” as Nan said.

  There were several tents for the Bobbsey family. One large one was for the family to sleep in, while a smaller one, near the kitchen tent, was for Dinah and her husband. Then there was a tent that served as a dining-room, and another where the trunks and food could be stored. In this tent was an ice box, for a boat stopped at the island every day and left a supply of ice.

  The children helped to unpack and settle camp, though, if the truth were told, perhaps they did more to unsettle it than otherwise. But Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were used to this, and knew how to manage.

  So the meal was eaten, Whisker was put in his little stable, made under a pile of brush-wood, and the children went out rowing in a boat. They had lots of fun that afternoon, and Bert even did a little hunting for Snap, thinking that, by some chance, the trick dog might be on the island. But Snap was not to be found.

  “Though, of course, we didn’t half look,” Bert said. “We’ll look again to-morrow.”

  And now it was evening in “Twin Camp,” as the Bobbseys had decided to call their place on Blueberry Island. There had been quite a talk as to what to name the camp, but when Dinah suggested “Twin,” every one agreed that it was best. So “Twin Camp” it was called, and Daddy Bobbsey said he would have a wooden sign made with that on it, and a flag to hoist over it on a pole.

  Beds were made up in the sleeping tent, and soon even Nan and Bert declared that they were ready to go to Slumberland by the quickest train or steamboat which was headed for that place. They had been up early and had been very busy. Flossie and Freddie dropped off to sleep as soon as they put their heads on the pillows.

  Freddie did not know what time it was when he awakened. It was in the night, he was sure of that, for it was dark in the tent except where the little oil light was aglow. What had awakened him was something bumping against him. His cot was near one of the walls of the sleeping tent and he awoke with a start.

  “Hi!” he called, as he felt something strike against him. “Who’s doin’ that? Stop it! Stop it, I say!”

  “Freddie, are you talking in your sleep?” asked his mother, who had not slept very soundly.

  “No, I’m not asleep,” Freddie answered. “But something bumped me. It’s outside the tent.”

  “Maybe it’s Whisker feeling of you with his horns,” said Flossie, who slept near her brother, and who had been awakened when he called out so loudly.

  “It—it didn’t feel like Whisker. It was softer than his horns,” Freddie said. “Momsie, I want to come into your bed.”

  “No, Freddie, you must stay where you are. I guess it was only the wind blowing on you.”

  “No, it wasn’t!” said Freddie. “It was a bump that hit me. I’m afraid over here!”

  CHAPTER X

  The “Go-Around” Bugs

  Without waiting for his mother to tell him that he might, Freddie slipped off his cot and went scurrying over the board floor of the tent tow
ard Mrs. Bobbsey’s bed.

  “I’m coming, too!” said Flossie, who generally went everywhere her small brother did.

  “Did something hit you, too?” asked Freddie, turning to his sister.

  “No, but it might. If you are afraid I’m afraid, too.”

  “Oh, you children!” said Mrs. Bobbsey with sigh. “I believe you only dreamed it, Freddie.”

  “No, Momsie, I didn’t! Really I didn’t! Somethin’ bumped me from outside the tent. It hit me in the back—not hard, but sort of soft like, an’—an’ I woked up. I want to sleep with you!”

  “What’s it all about?” asked Daddy Bobbsey. Then Freddie had to explain again, and Flossie also talked until Nan and Bert were awakened.

  “It might have been Whisker,” said Bert. “If he got loose and brushed against the tent and Freddie had rolled with his back close against the side it would be like that.”

  Just then there sounded in the night the “Baa-a-a-a-a!” of the white goat.

  “There he is!” cried Bert.

  “But it sounds as though he were still safely tied up,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I’ll have a look outside. Too bad we haven’t Snap with us. He’d give the alarm in a minute if anything were wrong.”

  The goat bleated again, but the sound did not seem near the tent, as it would have done if Whisker has been loose. Putting on his bath robe and slippers, Mr. Bobbsey took a lantern and went outside. Bert wanted to come with his father, but Mrs. Bobbsey would not hear of it.

  “We want a little man in here to look after us,” she said, smiling.

  “Ain’t I almost a man? I can make my fire engine go,” Freddie said, forgetting his fright, now that the “big folks” were up, and the light in the tent was turned higher.

  They could hear Mr. Bobbsey walking around outside, and they heard him speaking to the goat who bleated again. Mr. Bobbsey was as fond of animals as were his children, and Whisker was almost like a dog, he was so tame and gentle.

  “Was the goat loose, Daddy?” asked Nan, when her father came back into the tent.

  “No, he was tied all right in his little stable. It wasn’t Whisker who brushed against Freddie, if, indeed, anything did.”

  “Something did!” declared the small boy. “Didn’t I wake up?”

  “Well, you might have dreamed it,” said Nan. “You often talk in your sleep, I know.”

  “I did feel something bump me,” declared Freddie, and nothing the others could say would make him change his idea.

  “Did you see anything?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey in a low voice of her husband when the twins were in their beds again. Flossie’s and Freddie’s cots were moved over nearer to those of their parents’, and they had dropped off to slumber again, after getting drinks of water.

  “Well, I rather think I did,” answered Mr. Bobbsey in a low voice.

  “You did! What?”

  “I don’t know whether it was a horse or a man, but it was something. It was so dark I couldn’t see well, and the trees and bushes come up around the tents.”

  “How could it be a horse?”

  “It might have been the one that belongs to Mr. Dalton. If the horse were walking around, cropping grass wherever he could find it, he might have brushed past the side of the tent and so have disturbed Freddie.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” agreed Mrs. Bobbsey. “But couldn’t you tell a horse from a man?”

  “No, it was too dark. I only just saw a shadow moving away from the tents as I stepped out.”

  “And was Whisker all right?”

  “Yes, though I guess he was lonesome. He tried to follow me back here when I left him.”

  “I suppose Whisker misses the children,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But do you think it could be a man who was wandering about our tents?”

  “It could be—yes.”

  “One of the gypsies?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say as to that. In fact, I don’t believe the gypsies are anywhere around here. The children have that notion in their heads, but I don’t believe in it. Perhaps it was a blueberry picker who was lost.”

  “But if he was lost, and saw our tents, he’d stop and ask to be set on the right road,” went on Mrs. Bobbsey. “Besides, blueberries won’t be ripe for another week or so, and nobody picks them green.”

  “No, I suppose not,” agreed her husband. “Well, I’m sure I don’t know who or what it was, but I saw a dark shadow moving away.”

  “Shadows can’t do any harm.”

  “No, but it takes some one or something to make a shadow, and I’d like to know what it was. I’ll take a look around in the morning,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “We don’t want Twin Camp spoiled by midnight scares.”

  “Maybe we’d better get another dog, if Snap doesn’t come back,” suggested his wife.

  “I’ll think about that. We can’t very well train Whisker to keep watch. Besides, he can’t bark,” and Mr. Bobbsey laughed as he got back into bed.

  There was no more disturbance that night and the twins did not again awaken. Mr. Bobbsey remained awake for a while, but he heard nothing, and he believed that if it was a man or an animal that had brushed against the tent where Freddie was sleeping, whoever, or whatever, it was had gone far away.

  Dinah had a fine breakfast ready for the twins and the others the next morning. There were flap-jacks with maple syrup to pour over them, and that, with the crisp smell of bacon, made every one so hungry that there was no need to call even Nan twice, and sometimes she liked to lie in bed longer than did the others.

  “Did you find what it was that bumped me, Daddy?” asked Freddie, as he, as last, pushed back his plate, unable to eat any more.

  “No. And we don’t need to worry about it. Now we must finish getting Twin Camp in order today,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “and then we will begin to have fun and enjoy ourselves.”

  “Are we going to catch any fish?” asked Bert. “Always, when you read of camps, they catch fish and fry them.”

  “Yes, we can go fishing after we get the work done,” said his father. “Work first and play afterward is a rule we’ll follow here, though there won’t be much work to do. However, if we’re to go fishing we’ll have to dig some bait.”

  “I can dig worms!” cried Freddie. “Worms are good for bait, aren’t they, Daddy?”

  “For some kinds of fish, yes. We’ll fish part of the time with worms and see what luck we have. Bert, you and Freddie can dig the bait.”

  “I want to help,” said Flossie. “I helped Nan get out my dolls and toys, and now I want to dig worms.”

  “All right, little fat fairy!” laughed Bert. “Come along.”

  “Mercy, Flossie, digging bait is such dirty work! What do you want to do that for?” asked Nan.

  “I don’t care if it is dirty, it’s fun.”

  “You might have known, Nan,” laughed Mrs. Bobbsey, “that Flossie would not object to dirt.”

  With a shovel for turning up the dirt, and a tin can to hold the worms, Bert and the two smaller twins were soon busy. But they did not have as good luck as they expected. Earthworms were not plentiful on the island. Perhaps they could not swim over the lake from the main shore, Freddie suggested.

  “Aren’t bugs good for bait?” asked Freddie, when he had looked in the tin can and found only a few worms wiggling about after more than half an hour’s digging on the part of himself and Bert.

  “Some kinds of bugs are good for fishing; yes,” Bert answered, and, hearing that, Freddie started back for the tent where the trunks were stored.

  “What are you going to do?” Bert called after his little brother.

  “I’m going to get the go-around bugs. We can use them for bait. Water won’t hurt ’em—the store man told me so. We can use the go-around bugs.”

  “Oh, they’re no good—they’re tin!” laughed Bert.

  But Freddie was not listening. He had slipped into the tent and was searching for the toys he had bought in New York. Bert kept on digging for worms, now and then finding o
ne, which Flossie picked up for him, until he heard another call from Freddie. The little fellow came running from the tent with an empty and broken box in his hand.

  “Look! Look!” cried Freddie. “My go-around bugs comed alive in the night and they broke out of the box. Oh, dear! Now I can’t have ’em to catch fish with! The go-around bugs broke out of the box and they’ve gone away!”

  CHAPTER XI

  The Blueberry Boy

  “What’s the matter, Freddie? What has happened? I hope you haven’t hurt yourself,” and Mrs. Bobbsey, who heard the small twin calling to Bert about the tin bugs, hurried from the tent, where she was making the beds, to see what the trouble was.

  “No, Momsie, I’m not hurt,” Freddie answered. “But look at my go-around bugs!” and he held out the empty and broken box.

  “What’s the matter with them?” asked Mr. Bobbsey who came up just then from the shore of the lake where he had gone to make sure the camp boats were securely tied.

  “My bugs are all gone!” went on Freddie. “They broke out of the box in the night! They bited themselves out!”

  “No, they didn’t bite the box,” said Flossie, coming up to look at what her small brother held. “They just went around and around and around, and they knocked a hole with their heads in the box and so they got out. Did you look for them on the floor of the tent, Freddie?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Come on, we’ll have a look,” Bert said. He dropped the shovel with which he had been digging for worms and ran over to his little brother. He took the box from Freddie.

  “That must have been smashed in the moving,” Bert said to his father.

  “No, it wasn’t smashed,” Freddie said, hearing what Bert remarked to Mr. Bobbsey. “Flossie and I were playing with the bugs yesterday after we got here, and the box wasn’t broken then. It was all right, and so were the go-around bugs. But now they’re gone!”

  “Maybe the box fell off a table or something,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “and broke that way. We’ll look on the floor of the tent for your bugs, my little fat fireman.”

  But no bugs were to be found after a careful search had been made, and Freddie and Flossie were quite disappointed.