“No, I want to carry his head.”
“I choosed his head first!” said Flossie, “The tail is nicest anyhow.”
“Then why don’t you carry that?”
“’Cause it’s so flopsy. It never stays still, and when it flops in my face it tickles me. Please you carry the tail end, Freddie.”
“All right, Flossie, I will. But we had better go now, or maybe Momsie or Nan or Bert or Dinah might come out and tell us not to go. Come on!”
So, hand in hand, now and then looking back to make sure no one saw them to order them back, Flossie and Freddie started out to search for the lost Snoop. They wandered here and there about the island, at first not very far from the camp. When they were near the tents they did not call the cat’s name very loudly for fear of being heard.
“We can call him loud enough when we get farther away,” said Freddie.
“Yep,” agreed his sister. “Anyhow he isn’t near the tents or he’d’ve come back before this.”
So the two little twins wandered farther and farther away until they were well to the middle of the island, and out of sight of the white tents.
“Snoop! Snoop! Snoop!” they called, but though they heard many noises made by the birds, the squirrels and insects of the woods, there was no answering cry from their cat.
After a while they came to a place where a little brook flowed between green, mossy banks. It was a hot day and the children were warm and tired.
“Oh, I’m goin’ in wading!” cried Freddie, sitting down and taking off his shoes and stockings.
“You hadn’t better,” said Flossie. “Mamma mightn’t like it.”
“I’ll tell her how nice it was when I get home,” said the little fellow, “and then she’ll say it was all right. Come on, Flossie.”
“No, I’ve got clean white stockin’s on and I don’t want to get ’em all dirty.”
“Huh! They’ve got some dirt on ’em now.”
“Well, they aren’t wet and they’d get wet if I went in wading.”
“Not if you took ’em off.”
“Yes they would, ’cause I never can get my feet dry on the grass like you do. You go in wading, Freddie, and I’ll sit here an’ watch you.”
So Freddie stepped into the cool water and shouted with glee. Then he waded out a little farther and soon an odd look came over his face. Flossie saw her brother sink down until the brook came up to the lower edge of his knickerbockers, wetting them, while Freddie cried:
“Oh, I’m caught! I’m caught. Flossie, help me! I’m caught!”
CHAPTER XVIII
Flossie Is Tangled
Flossie Bobbsey, who had been sitting on the cleanest and dryest log she could find near the edge of the stream to watch Freddie wade, jumped up as she heard him cry. She had been wishing she was with him, white stockings or none.
“Oh, Freddie, what’s the matter?” she cried. “What’s happened?”
“I—I’m caught!” he answered. “Can’t you see I’m caught?”
“But how?” she questioned eagerly. “You aren’t caught in a trap like Snap was, are you?”
“No, it isn’t a trap—it’s sticky mud,” Freddie said. “My feet are stuck in the mud!”
“Oh—oh!” said Flossie, and an odd look came over her face. “You are stuck in the mud! How did you do it, Freddie?”
“I didn’t do it! It did it! I just stepped in a soft place, and now when I pull one foot out the other sticks in deeper. Can’t you help me out, Flossie?”
“Yes, I’ll help you out!” she cried, and she ran down to the edge of the stream, as though she intended to wade out to where poor Freddie was trying to pull his feet loose from the sticky mud.
“Oh, don’t come in! Don’t come in!” cried Freddie, waving her back with his hand. “You’ll be stuck, too!”
Flossie stood still on the edge of the little brook. She looked at Freddie, who was in the middle of the stream, too far out for Flossie to reach with her outstretched hands, though she tried to do so.
“Can’t you pull your feet out?” she asked.
“Nope!” answered Freddie. “I can’t, for I’ve tried. As soon as I get one foot up a little way the other goes down in deeper.”
“Then I’ll go and call mamma!”
“No, don’t do that!” begged Freddie. “Maybe if you would get a long stick, Flossie, and hold it out to me, I could sort of pull myself out.”
“Oh, I know. It’s like the picture in my story book of the boy who fell through the ice, and his sister held out a long pole to him and he pulled himself out. Wait a minute, Freddie, and I’ll get the stick. I’m glad you didn’t fall through the ice, though, ’cause you’d get cold maybe.”
“This water is nice and warm,” said Freddie. “But I don’t like the mud I’m stuck in, ’cause it makes me feel so tickly between the toes.”
“I’ll help you out,” said Flossie. “Wait a minute.”
She searched about on the bank until she found a long smooth branch of a tree. Holding to one end of this she held the other end out to her brother. Freddie had to turn half around to get hold of it as his back was toward Flossie, and she could not cross the brook.
“Now hold tight!” cried the little boy. “I’m going to pull!”
Flossie braced her feet in the sand on the bank of the brook and her brother began to pull himself out of the mud. His feet had sunk down to quite a depth, and when he first pulled he made Flossie slide along the ground until she cried:
“Oh, Freddie, you’re going to make me stuck, too! Don’t pull me into the water!”
Freddie stopped just in time, with the toes of Flossie’s shoes almost in the water.
“Did you pull loose a little bit?” she asked.
“Yes, a little. But I don’t want to pull you in, Flossie. If you could only hold on to a tree or a rock, then I wouldn’t drag you along.”
“Maybe I can hold to this tree,” and Flossie pointed to one near by. “If I can stretch my arms I can reach it.”
“Look for a longer tree branch to hold out to me,” said Freddie, and when his sister had found this she could reach one end to her brother, keep the other end in her right hand, and with her left arm hold on to a small tree. The tree braced Flossie against being pulled along the bank, and when next Freddie tried, he dragged his feet and legs safely from the sticky mud, and could wade out on the hard, gravelly bottom of the brook.
“I guess that was a mud hole where some fish used to live,” said the little fellow, as he came ashore, a little bit frightened by what had happened.
“Your feet are all muddy,” said Flossie, “and you are all wet around your knees.”
“Oh, that’ll dry,” said Freddie. “And I can wash the mud off my feet. It was awful sticky.”
It certainly seemed to be, for it took quite a while to wash it off his bare feet and legs, though he stood for some time in the brook, where there was a white, pebbly bottom, and used bunches of moss for a bath sponge.
But at last Freddie’s legs were clean, though they were quite red from having been rubbed so hard with the moss-sponge. Flossie, too, having helped her brother scrub himself, had gotten some water on her shoes and stockings, and a little mud, too.
“But we can walk through places where the grass is high,” said Freddie, “and that will brush the mud off, and the sun will dry your stockin’s same as it will my pants.”
“And we’ll keep on calling for Snoop,” said Flossie.
Freddie having put on his stockings and shoes, the two children set out again, wandering here and there, calling for the black cat. But either he did not hear them or he would not answer, and when, after an hour or two, they got back to camp, they had not found their pet.
“Where have you two been?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “I was just getting anxious about you.”
“We’ve been looking for Snoop,” said Flossie.
“And I went in wadin’ an’ got stuck in the mud, and my pants got a little wet, and
Flossie’s shoes and stockin’s got wet an’ muddy, but we waded in tall grass and we’re not very muddy now,” said Freddie, all out of breath, but anxious to get the worst over with at once.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have gone in wading!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
“You didn’t tell me not to—not today you didn’t tell me,” Freddie defended himself.
“No, because I didn’t think you’d do such a thing,” replied his mother. “I can’t tell you every day the different things you mustn’t do—there are too many of them.”
“But there are so many things we can do too—oh, just lots of them.”
“Yes, and the things we may do and the things we’re not to do are just awful hard to tell apart sometimes, Momsie,” put in Flossie.
“Yes’m, they are,” added Freddie. “And how is a feller and his sister to know every single time what they’re to do and what they’re not to do?”
“Suppose you try stopping before you do a thing to ask yourselves whether you ought to do it or not, and not wait until after the thing is done to ask yourselves that question,” suggested Mrs. Bobbsey. “That might help some.”
“Well, I won’t go wading any more today,” promised the little fellow. “But I didn’t think I’d get stuck in the mud.”
Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to laugh, but she did not dare let the two small twins see her, for they would think it only fun, and really they ought not to have gotten wet and muddy.
“And so you couldn’t find Snoop,” remarked Mr. Bobbsey at supper that night. “Well, it’s too bad. I guess I’ll have to get you another dog and cat.”
“No, don’t—just yet, please,” said Nan. “Maybe we’ll find our own, and we never could love any new ones as we love Snap and Snoop.”
“Nope, we couldn’t!” declared Flossie, while Freddie nodded his head in agreement with her.
“But you could get us some new go-around bugs,” the little girl went on. “We haven’t found ours yet.”
“That’s so,” remarked Mr. Bobbsey. “It’s strange where they went to. Well, I’ll see if I can get any more, though I may have to send to New York. But you two little ones must not go off by yourselves again, looking for Snoop.”
“Could we go to look for Snap?” asked Freddie, as if that was different.
“No, not for Snap either. You must stay around camp unless some one goes with you to the woods.”
It was a few days after this, when Mrs. Bobbsey, with the four twins, went out to pick blueberries, that they met a number of women and children who also had baskets and pails. But none of them was filled with the fruit which, now, was at its best.
“What is the matter with the berries?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “We have been able to pick only a few. The bushes seem to have been cleaned of all the ripe ones.”
“That’s what they have,” said Blueberry Tom, who was with the other pickers. “And it’s the gypsies who’s gettin’ the berries, too.”
“Are you sure?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “We haven’t seen any gypsies on the island.”
“They don’t stay here all the while,” said Tom. “They have their camp over on the main shore, and they row here and get the berries when they’re ripest. That’s why there ain’t any for us—the gypsies get ’em before we have a chance. They’re pickin’ blueberries as soon as it’s light enough to see.”
“Well, I suppose they have as much right to them as we have,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But I would like to get enough for some pies.”
“I can show you where there are more than there are around here,” offered Tom. “It’s a little far to walk, though.”
“Well, we’re not tired, for we just came out,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “So if you’ll take us there, Tom, we’ll be very thankful.”
“Come on,” said the boy, whose face was once more covered with blue stains. “I’ll show you.”
The other berry pickers, who did not believe Tom knew of a better place, said they would stay where they were, and, perhaps, by hard work they might fill their pails or baskets, and so Tom and the Bobbseys went off by themselves.
Tom, indeed, seemed to know where, on the island, was one spot where grew the largest and sweetest blueberries, and the gypsies, if the members of the tribe did come to gather the fruit, seemed to have passed by this place.
“Oh, what lots of them!” cried Bert, as he saw the laden bushes.
“Yes, there’s more than I thought,” said Tom. “I’ll get my basket full here all right.”
Soon all were picking, though Flossie and Freddie may have put into their mouths as many as went in their two baskets. But their mother did not expect them to gather much fruit.
They had picked enough for several pies, and Mrs. Bobbsey was looking about for the two smaller twins who had wandered off a little way, when she heard Flossie scream.
“What is it?” asked her mother quickly. “Is it a snake?” and she started to run toward her little girl.
“Maybe she’s stuck in the mud, as Freddie was!” exclaimed Bert.
“Mamma! Mamma!” cried Flossie. “Come and get me!”
“She—she’s all tangled up in a net!” cried the voice of Freddie. “Oh, come here!”
Mrs. Bobbsey, Nan, Bert and Tom ran toward the sound of the children’s voices.
CHAPTER XIX
The Twins Fall Down
Again Flossie cried:
“I’m all tangled! I’m all tangled up! Come and help me get out!”
“What in the world can she mean?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Bert.
“What did Freddie say about a net?” asked Nan, as she stumbled and spilled her blueberries. She was going to stop to pick them up.
“Never mind them,” her mother said. “Let them go. We must see what the matter is with Flossie.”
They saw a few seconds later, as they turned on the path. On top of a little hill, in a place where there was a grassy spot with bushes growing all around it, they saw Flossie and Freddie.
Freddie was dancing around very much excited, but Flossie was standing still, and they soon saw the reason for this. She was entangled in a net that was spread out on the ground and partly raised up on the bushes. It was like a fish net which the children had often seen the men or boys use in Lake Metoka, but the meshes, or holes in it, were smaller, so that only a very little fish could have slipped through. And the cord from which the net was woven was not as heavy as that of the fish nets.
“Flossie’s caught! Flossie’s caught!” cried Freddie, still dancing about.
“Come and get me loose! Come and get me loose!” Flossie begged.
“Mother’s coming! Mother’s coming!” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “But how in the world did it happen?”
She did not wait for an answer, but, as soon as she came near, she started to rush right into the net herself to lift out her little girl. But Bert, seeing what would happen, cried:
“Look out, Mother! You’ll get tangled up, too. See! the net is caught on Flossie’s shoes and around her legs and arms. She must have fallen right into it.”
“She did,” said Freddie. “We were walking along, picking berries, and all of a sudden Flossie was tangled in the net. I tried to get her out, but I got tangled, too, only I took my knife and cut some of the cords.”
“And that’s what we’ve got to do,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “The net is so entangled around Flossie that we’ll never get her out otherwise. Have you a knife, Bert?”
“Yes, Mother. Stand still, Flossie!” he called to his little sister. “The more you move the worse you get tangled.”
With his mother’s help Bert soon cut away enough of the meshes of the strange net so that Flossie could get loose. She was not hurt—not even scratched—but she was frightened and she had been crying.
“There you are!” cried Mother Bobbsey, hugging her little girl in her arms. “Not a bit hurt, my little fat fairy! But how in the world did you get in the net, and what is it doing up on
top of this hill in the midst of a blueberry patch?”
“I—I just stumbled into it,” said Flossie, “same as Freddie got stuck in the mud, only I didn’t wade in the water.”
“No, there isn’t any water around here,” returned Nan. “I can’t see what a net is doing here. I thought they only used them to catch fish.”
“Maybe they put it up here to dry, as the fishermen at the seashore dry their nets,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“No,” announced Tom, who had been looking at the net, “this ain’t for fishes.”
“What is it for then?” asked Bert.
“It’s for snarin’ birds. I’ve seen ’em before. Men spread the nets out on the grass, and over bushes near where the birds come to feed, and when they try to fly they get caught and tangled in the meshes. I guess this net ain’t been here very long, for there ain’t any birds caught in it.”
“But who put it here?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “I think it’s a shame to catch the poor birds that way. Who did it?”
Tom looked carefully around before he answered. Then he said:
“I think it was the gypsies.”
“The gypsies!” cried Bert.
“Yes. They’re a shiftless lot. They don’t work and they take what don’t belong to ’em. They’re too lazy to hunt with a gun, so they snare birds in a net. Why, they’ll even eat sparrows—make a pie of ’em my mother says. And when they get robins and blackbirds they’re so much bigger they can broil ’em over their fires. This is a bird-net, that’s what it is.”
“I believe you’re right,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, when she had looked more closely at it. “It isn’t the kind they use in fishing. But do you really think the gypsies put it here, Tom?”
“Yes’m, I really do. They put ’em here other years, though I never seen one before. You see the gypsies sometimes camp here and sometimes on the mainland. All they have to do is to spread their net, and go away. When they come back next day there’s generally a lot of birds caught in it and they take ’em out and eat ’em.”
“Well, they caught an odd kind of bird this time,” said Bert, with a smile at his little sister. “And it didn’t do their net any good,” he added, as he looked at the cut meshes.
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