“Well, I guess they couldn’t treat dishes like baseballs and footballs!” cried Nan. “Just think of throwing a sugar bowl up into the air or hitting it with a bat, or kicking a teapot all around the lots!”
“That certainly wouldn’t be very nice,” said Miss Pompret.
She went over to the closet, unlocked the glass doors, and set some of the rare pieces out on the lace cover of the dining room table. Bert and Nan saw that Miss Pompret handled each piece as though it might be crushed, even in her delicate hands, which were almost as white and thin as a piece of china.
“This is the wonderful Pompret tableware,” went on the old lady. “It has been in my family over a hundred years. My great-grandfather had it, and now it has come to me. I have had it a number of years, and I think more of it than anything else I have. Of course, if I had any little children I would care for them more than for these dishes,” went on Miss Pompret. “But I’m a lonely old lady, and you neighborhood children are the only ones I have,” and she smiled rather wistfully at Nan and Bert.
Carefully dish after dish was taken from the closet and set out for the Bobbsey twins to look at. They did not venture to so much as touch one. The china seemed too easily broken for that.
“I should think you’d have to be very careful when you washed those dishes,” remarked Nan, as she saw how light glowed through the side of one of the thin cups.
“Oh, I am,” answered Miss Pompret. “No one ever washes this set but me. My maid is very careful, but I would not allow her to touch a single piece. I don’t use it very often. Only when some old and dear friends come to see me is the Pompret china used. And then I am sorry to say, I can not use the whole set.”
“Why not?” asked Bert. “Are you afraid they’ll break it?”
“Oh no,” and Miss Pompret smiled. “I’m not afraid of that. But you see I haven’t the whole set, so I can’t show it all. One of the sorrows of my life is that part of my beautiful set of china is missing.”
“There’s a lot of it, though,” added Bert, as he saw a number of shelves covered with the rare plates, cups and saucers.
“Yes, but the sugar bowl and cream pitcher are missing,” went on Miss Pompret, with a shake of her white head. “They were beautiful. But, alas! they are missing.” And she sighed deeply.
“Where are they?” asked Nan.
“Ah, that’s the mystery I am going to tell you about,” said Miss Pompret. “It isn’t a very big story, and I won’t keep you long. It isn’t often I get a chance to tell it, so you must forgive an old lady for keeping you from your play,” and again she smiled, in rather a sad fashion, at Nan and Bert.
“Oh, we like it here!” exclaimed Nan quickly.
“It’s lots of fun!” added Bert. “I like to hear about a mystery.”
“Well,” began Miss Pompret, “as I told you, this set of china has been in our family over a hundred years. It was made in England, and each piece has the mark of the man who made it. See, this is what I mean.”
She turned over one of the cups and showed the Bobbsey twins where, on the bottom, there was the stamp, in blue, of some animal in a circle of gold.
“That is the mark of the Waredon factory, where this china was made,” went on Miss Pompret. “Only china made by Mr. Waredon can have this mark on it.”
“It looks like our dog Snap,” said Bert.
“Oh, no!” laughed Miss Pompret. “That is supposed to be the British lion. Mr. Waredon took that as a trade-mark, and at the top of the golden circle, with the blue lion inside, you can see the letter ‘J’ while at the bottom is the letter ‘W.’ They stand for the name Jonathan Waredon, in whose English factory the china was made. Each piece has this mark on it, and no other make of china in the world can be rightfully marked like that.
“Well, now about the mystery. Some years ago, before you children were born, I lived in another city. I had the china set there with me, and then it was complete. I had the cream pitcher and the sugar bowl. One day a ragged man came to the house. He was very ragged and poor. I suppose you would call him a tramp.
“The cook I then had felt sorry for him, and let him come into the kitchen to have something to eat. As it happened, part of my rare china set was on a table in the same room. I was getting ready to wash it myself, as I would let no one else touch it.
“Well, when I came out to wash my beautiful dishes the sugar bowl and cream pitcher of the set were gone. They had been on the table when the tramp was eating the lunch the cook gave him, but now they could not be found. The cook and I looked all over for them—we searched the house, in fact, but never found them.”
“Who took them?” asked Bert, eagerly.
“Well, my dear boy, I have never found out. The cook always said the tramp put the sugar bowl and cream pitcher in his pocket when her back was turned to get him a cup of coffee. At any rate, when he was gone the two pieces were gone also, and while I do not want to think badly of any one, I have come to believe that the tramp took my rare dishes.”
“Didn’t you ever see him again?” asked Nan.
“No, my dear, never, as far as I know.”
“And did you never find the dishes?” Bert wanted to know.
“Never. I advertised for them. I inquired if any boys in the neighborhood might have slipped in and taken them for a joke, but I never found them. To this day,” went on Miss Pompret, “I have never again set eyes on my cream pitcher and sugar bowl. They disappeared as completely and suddenly as though they had fallen down a hole in the earth. The tramp may have taken them; but what would he do with just two pieces? They were too frail for him to use. A man like that would want heavy dishes. Perhaps he knew how valuable they were and perhaps he intended asking a reward for bringing them back. But I never heard from him.
“So that is why my rare set of Pompret china is not complete. The two pieces are missing and I would give a hundred dollars this minute if I could get them back!”
“A—a hundred dollars!” exclaimed Bert.
“Yes, my boy. If some one would get me that sugar bowl and pitcher, with the mark of the lion in a golden circle, and the initials ‘J’ at the top and ‘W’ at the bottom, I would willingly pay one hundred dollars,” said Miss Pompret.
“A—a whole hundred dollars!” gasped Bert. “What a lot of money!”
CHAPTER VI
Wonderful News
Miss Alicia Pompret began putting back in the glass-doored closet the pieces of rare china that had the blue lion in a circle of gold and the initials “J.W.” on the bottom of each piece. Nan and Bert watched her, and saw how carefully her white hands took up each plate and cup.
“A hundred dollars!” murmured Bert again. “I’d like to have all that money. I’d buy—er—I’d buy a goat!”
“A goat!” exclaimed Miss Pompret.
“Yes,” went on Bert. “Freddie nearly thought one once, when we went to the big city, but mother wouldn’t let him keep it. Now we’re back home; and if I had a hundred dollars I’d buy a goat.”
“Well, if you can find my sugar bowl and pitcher I’ll be glad to pay you a hundred dollars,” said Miss Pompret with a smile at Bert. “But I don’t know that I’d like a goat,” she added.
“Do you really mean you’d pay a hundred dollars for two china dishes?” asked Nan, her eyes big with wonder.
“Yes, my dear,” said Miss Pompret. “Of course if they were just two ordinary dishes, such as these,” and she pointed to some on a side table, “they would not be worth a hundred dollars. But I need just those two pieces—the pitcher and sugar bowl—to make my rare set of china complete again. So if you children should happen to come across them, bring them to me and I’ll pay you a hundred dollars. But, of course,” she added, “they must be the pieces that match my set—they must have the lion mark on the underside. However,” she concluded with a sigh, “I don’t suppose you’ll ever find them. The tramp must have broken them many long years ago. I’ll never see them again.”
; “Did you know the tramp’s name?” asked Bert.
“Bless you, of course not!” laughed Miss Pompret. “Tramps hardly ever tell their names, and when they do, they don’t give the right one. No, I’m sure I’ll never see my beautiful dishes again. Sometimes I dream that I shall, and I am disappointed when I awaken. But now I mustn’t keep you children any longer. I’ve told you my little mystery story, and I hope you liked it.”
“Yes, we did, very much,” answered Nan “Only it’s too bad!”
“You aren’t sure the tramp took the dishes, are you?” asked Bert.
“No; and that is where the mystery comes in,” said Miss Pompret. “Perhaps he didn’t, and, maybe, in some unexpected way, I’ll find them again. I hope I do, or that some one does, and I’ll pay the hundred dollars to whoever does.”
“My, that’s a lot of money!” murmured Bert again, when he and Nan were once more on their way home, having said good-bye to Miss Pompret. “I wish we could find those dishes.”
“So do I,” agreed Nan. “But don’t call ’em dishes, Bert.”
“What are they?” her brother wanted to know.
“Why, they’re rare china. When I grow up I’m going to have a set just like Miss Pompret’s.”
“With the dog on the bottom?”
“’Tisn’t a dog, it’s a lion!” exclaimed Nan.
“Well, it looks like our dog Snap,” declared Bert.
They ran on home to find their mother out at the gate looking up and down the street for them.
“Are you children just getting home from school?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “Were you kept in for doing something wrong?”
“Oh, no’m!” exclaimed Nan. “We went to see Miss Pompret.”
“And she’s going to give us a hundred dollars if we find two of her dishes!” exclaimed Bert.
“My! What’s all this?” asked his mother, laughing.
“’Tisn’t dishes! It’s rare china,” said Nan, and then, between them, she and Bert told the story of the little favor they had done for Miss Pompret, and how she had invited them in, given them cake and milk, and told them the mystery story.
“Well, you had quite a visit,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Miss Pompret is a dear lady, rather strange, perhaps, but very kind and a good neighbor. I am glad you did her a favor. I have heard, before, about her china, and knew she had some other rare and old-fashioned things in her house. I have been there once or twice. Now I want you to go to the store for me. Sam is away and Dinah needs some things for supper.”
“I want to go to the store, too!” exclaimed Freddie, who came around the corner of the house just then, with his face and hands covered with mud.
“Oh, my dear child! what have you been doing?” cried his mother.
“Oh, just makin’ pies,” answered Freddie, rubbing one cheek with a grimy hand. “I made the pies and Flossie put ’em in the oven to bake. We made an oven out of some bricks. But we didn’t really eat the pies,” he added, “’cause they were only mud.”
“You look as though you had tried to eat them,” laughed Nan. “Come, Freddie, I’ll wash you clean.”
“No, I want to go to the store!” he cried.
“So do I!” chimed in the voice of Flossie, as she, too, marched around the corner of the house, dirtier, if possible, than her little twin brother. “If Freddie goes to the store, I want to go with him!” Flossie cried.
“All right,” answered Bert. “You go and wash Flossie and Freddie, Nan, and I’ll get the express wagon and we’ll pull them to the store with us. Then we can put the groceries in the wagon and bring them back that way.”
“That will be nice,” put in Mrs. Bobbsey. “I’ll go and see just what Dinah wants. Run along with Nan, Flossie and Freddie, and let her wash you nice and clean.”
This just suited the smaller twins, and soon they were being made, by Nan’s use of soap and water in the bath room, to look a little less like mud pies. While Bert got out the express wagon, Snap, the big dog, saw his little master, and jumped about, barking in joy.
“I don’t care if that is a lion on the back of Miss Pompret’s dishes,” murmured Bert, as he put a piece of carpet in the wagon for Flossie and Freddie to sit on, “it looks just like you, Snap. And I wonder if I could ever find that milk pitcher and sugar bowl and get that hundred dollars. I don’t guess I could, but I’d like to awful much. No, I mustn’t say ‘awful,’ but I’d like to a terrible lot. A hundred dollars is a pack of money!”
Down the street Nan and Bert pulled Flossie and Freddie in the little express wagon, with Snap running on ahead and barking in delight. This was the best part of the day for him—when the children came home from school. Flossie and Freddie came first, and then Nan and Bert, and then the fun started.
“Now don’t run too fast!” exclaimed Flossie, as the express wagon began to bounce over the uneven sidewalk.
“Oh, yes, let’s go real fast!” cried Freddie. “Let’s go as fast as the fire engines go.”
“We can’t run as fast as that, Freddie,” declared Nan, who was almost out of breath. “We’ll just run regular.”
And then she and Bert pulled the younger twins around for a little ride in the express wagon before they did the errand on which they had been sent.
“I had a letter from Mr. Martin today,” said Mr. Bobbsey at the supper table that evening. “He asked to be remembered to you,” he said to Mrs. Bobbsey. “And Billy and Nell sent their love to you children.”
“They got safely back to Washington, did they?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Yes,” her husband answered. “And they said they had had a very nice visit here. They are anxious to have us come to Washington to see them.”
“Can we go?” asked Nan.
“Well, perhaps, some day,” said her father.
“I’d like to go now,” murmured Bert. “Maybe we might see that tramp in Washington, and get back Miss Pompret’s dishes.”
“Rare china,” muttered Nan, half under her breath.
“What tramp is that, and what about Miss Pompret’s dishes?” asked Daddy Bobbsey, as he took his cup of tea from Dinah.
Then he had to hear the story of that afternoon’s visit of Nan and Bert.
“Oh, I guess Miss Pompret will never see her two china pieces again,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “If the tramp took them he must have sold them, if he didn’t smash them. So don’t think of that hundred dollars, Bert and Nan.”
“But couldn’t we go to Washington, anyhow?” Bert wanted to know.
“Well, not right away, I’m afraid,” his father answered. “You have to go to school, you know.”
But a few days after that something happened. About eleven o’clock in the morning Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie came trooping home. Into the house they burst with shouts of laughter.
“What’s the matter? What is it? Has anything happened?” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “Why are you home from school at such a time of day?”
“There isn’t any school,” explained Nan.
“No school?” questioned her mother.
“And there won’t be any for a month, I guess!” added Bert. “Hurray!”
“What do you mean?” asked his surprised mother. “No school for a month?”
“No, Mother,” added Nan “The steam boiler is broken and they can’t heat our room. It got so cold the teacher sent us home.”
“An’ we came home, too’” added Flossie. “We couldn’t stay in our school ’cause our fingers were so cold!”
“Was any one hurt when the boiler burst?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“No,” Bert said. “It didn’t exactly burst very hard, I guess.”
But Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to know just what the trouble was, so she called up the principal of the school on the telephone, and from him learned that the heating boiler of the school had broken, not exactly burst, and that it could no longer heat the rooms.
“It will probably be a month before we can get a new boiler, and until then there will be no more sc
hool,” he said. “The children will have another vacation.”
“A vacation so near Christmas,” murmured Mrs. Bobbsey. “I wonder what I can do with my twins?”
Just then the telephone rang, and Mrs. Bobbsey listened. It was Mr. Bobbsey telephoning. He had heard of some accident at the school, and he called up his house, from the lumberyard, to make sure his little fat fairy and fireman, as well as Nan and Bert, were all right.
“Yes, they’re home safe,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But there will be no school for a month.”
“Good!” exclaimed Daddy Bobbsey. “That will just suit me and the children, too. I’ll be home in a little while, and I have some wonderful news for them!”
“Oh, I wonder what it can be!” exclaimed Nan, when her mother told her what Daddy Bobbsey had said.
CHAPTER VII
On A Trip
The Bobbsey twins could hardly wait for their daddy to come home after their mother had told them what he said over the telephone.
“Tell me again, Mother, just what he told you!” begged Nan.
“Well, he said he was just as glad as you children were, that there was to be no more school for a month,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “Though, of course, he was sorry that the steam boiler had broken. And then he said he had some wonderful news to tell us all.”
“Oh, I know what it is!” cried Bert.
“What?” asked Nan.
“He’s found the tramp that took Miss Pompret’s dishes,” went on Bert, “and he’s got them back—daddy has—and he’s going to get the hundred dollars! That’s it!”
“Oh, I hardly think so,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile. “I don’t believe daddy has caught any tramp.”
“They do sometimes sleep in the lumberyard,” remarked Bert.
“Yes, I know,” agreed his mother. “But, even if daddy had caught a tramp, it would hardly be the same man who took Miss Pompret’s rare pieces of china—the pitcher and sugar bowl. And if it had been anything like that, daddy would have told me over the telephone.”
“But what could the wonderful news be?” asked Nan.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 137