The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “That’s right! I guess you was,” said Sam, “You come up de hill from down by de railroad tracks, an’ you done slipped back down ag’in almost! I jest caught you in time!”

  “Thank you,” said the man. “I really didn’t know what I was doing. All I wanted to do was to get away from the wreck, and I took the first path I saw. I must have got out of breath, for when I reached the top of the hill I couldn’t go any more, and I just slipped down.”

  “I saw you!” exclaimed Sam. “Maybe dat whack you got on top ob yo’ haid makes you feel funny.”

  “I rather think it does,” said the man. “But I’m feeling better now. When the crash came I jumped out of my seat—as soon as I could get up after being knocked down—and rushed out of the car. I must have been wandering around for some time. Then I saw this path leading up the hill and I took it.”

  “Why didn’t you put your hat on?” asked Bert, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, had been looking closely at the stranger.

  “My hat? That’s so, I did forget to put it on,” he said, and, for the first time, he seemed to remember that he was carrying his hat in his hand.

  “You might catch cold,” remarked Nan.

  “That’s right, little girl—so I might,” he said, and he smiled at her. He had a kind smile, had the man, though his face looked weary and sad.

  “Did you get much hurt in the wreck?” asked Bert.

  “No, I think not,” was the answer, and again he put his hand to his head. “It’s only a cut, I’m thankful to say. I’ll be all right in a little while. I’ll hold a little snow to it. That will wash the blood off, as well as water would.”

  With Sam’s help, he now managed to stand up. The colored man took up a handful of snow and gave it to the stranger, who held it to the cut on his head. The cold snow seemed to make him feel better, and when he had wiped away the blood he put on his hat, shook the snow from his overcoat, and looked at the banana which he had dropped in a drift.

  “Well, I do declare!” cried the stranger.

  “What’s de mattah?” asked Sam.

  “Why, all the while I thought that banana was my satchel,” was the answer. “I was eating it when the crash came—eating the banana I mean, not my satchel,” and he smiled at Bert and Nan, who smiled back at this little joke. Flossie and Freddie stood there looking on.

  “I was sitting in my seat, eating this banana,” went on the man, “when, all of a sudden, there was a terrible crash, and I was so shaken up, together with a lot of other passengers, that I fell out of my seat. That’s how my head was cut, I suppose. I thought I was grabbing up my satchel, so I could run out and be safe, but I must have kept hold of the banana instead.

  “I know I got my hat down from the rack overhead, where I had put it, and then out I rushed. My! it was a terrible sight, though I heard it said that nobody was killed, and I’m glad of that. But it was a terrific crash, and it made me feel dizzy. I evidently didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “I should think so, sah!” exclaimed Sam with a smile. “When a body takes a banana for a satchel he’s jest natchully out ob his mind I say!”

  “I didn’t seem to come to myself until I got up here on top of the hill,” went on the man “But I’m feeling better now. I’m not really hurt at all, except this cut on my head, and that’s only a scratch. I’m going down and get my satchel. I can see the car I was in. It isn’t smashed at all. I’ll go for my valise.”

  “I’ll go with you,” offered Sam. “You chilluns stay heah till I come back,” he went on. “Don’t move away. I got to he’p dis gen’man find his baggage.”

  “It will be a great help to me,” said the man.

  “I might get dizzy again and fall. It’s rather steep going down that hill. Will the children be all right if you leave them?”

  “Yes, we’ll stay right here,” promised Nan.

  “And we’ll look after Flossie and Freddie,” added Bert

  With this promise, Sam thought it would be all right to go down to the wreck and help the stranger look for the valise he had left near his seat in the car. While the two men were gone, the colored servant helping the other, the Bobbsey twins watched the railroad men starting to clear away the wreck. A big derrick had been brought up on another train, and with this the engines and cars that had left the tracks could be lifted back on to them.

  In a short time Sam came back with the man, and the colored helper at the Bobbsey home was carrying a large valise.

  “We found it all right,” said the stranger. “It was right near my seat. I might have stayed there, but I was so excited I didn’t know what I was doing. What place is this, anyhow?”

  “This is Lakeport,” answered Bert. “The station’s down the track a little way. Your train hadn’t got to it yet.”

  “No, the other train got in the way,” said the man with a smile. “Well, accidents will happen, I suppose. So this is Lakeport! Well, this is the very place I was coming to, but I didn’t expect to reach it amid so much excitement.”

  “You were coming here?” repeated Nan.

  “To Lakeport, yes. I want to find a Mr. Richard Bobbsey. Maybe you children can tell me where he lives.”

  The Bobbsey twins looked so surprised on hearing this that the man gazed at them in astonishment.

  “Do you know Mr. Bobbsey?” he asked. “I hope he hasn’t moved away from here. I want to see him most particularly. Do you know him?”

  “Does dey know him!” exclaimed Sam, his eyes opening wide. “Does dey know him? Well I should say dey does!”

  “He’s our father!” exclaimed Nan and Bert together.

  “Mr. Bobbsey your father! Well, I do declare!” cried the strange man, and he smiled at the children. They were beginning to like him very much. “Just think of that now!” he went on. “My railroad train gets in a wreck right near Lakeport, where I want to get off, and first I know I run into Mr. Bobbsey’s children! Well, well! To think of that!”

  “Here comes daddy now!” cried Flossie, pointing to a figure walking over the snow toward them.

  “Oh, Daddy, I saw the train wreck!” yelled Freddie. “And I saw the firemans, I did, but they didn’t have any engines, and I—I—I saw—” But Freddie was too much out of breath from running to meet his father to tell any more just then.

  It was indeed Mr. Bobbsey who had come along just then. He had come home earlier than usual from the lumberyard office, and his wife had told him that the children had gone down the street with Sam to look at the railroad wreck.

  “I’ll go down and bring them back,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “I heard about the wreck. It isn’t as bad as at first they thought it was. No one was killed.”

  “I’m glad of that,” replied his wife. “I told Sam to bring the children back if it was too bad.”

  So it had come about that Mr. Bobbsey reached the top of the cut, down in which the railroad wreck was, just as the strange man was asking the Bobbsey children about their father.

  “Well, little fireman and little fat fairy,” asked Mr. Bobbsey of Flossie and Freddie, “did you see all there was to see?”

  “I saw the engines all smashed together,” answered Flossie.

  “And I saw a fireman help get a lady out of a car,” added Freddie.

  “Is this Mr. Bobbsey?” asked the voice of the man, as he stepped forward and stood near the children’s father.

  “Yes, that is my name,” was the answer. “Did you wish to see me?”

  “I came all the way to Lakeport for that,” the stranger went on; “but I didn’t mean to come in just this exciting way.”

  “Were you in the wreck?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Oh, yes, he was in it, and he thought a banana was his satchel!” exclaimed Flossie, “Wasn’t that funny, Daddy?”

  Mr. Bobbsey did not quite know what to make of this.

  “Your little girl is quite right,” said the man. “I was so excited, from being in the wreck, where I got a cut on the head, that I rushed from th
e car carrying a banana instead of my valise.

  “However, I’m all right now, and Sam here, as the children call him, was good enough to help me get back my satchel,” went on the man. “I was just telling the children that I came here to find Mr. Bobbsey, when, to my great surprise, they let me know that he is their father, and along you came.”

  “Yes, these are my youngsters,” said Mr. Bobbsey, smiling at Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie. “Sam Johnson helps us look after them, and his wife, Dinah, cooks for us. But what did you want to see me about?” and he looked at the man.

  “Don’t you remember me?” came the question.

  Mr. Bobbsey looked more closely at the stranger. He did not recognize him.

  “Hickson is my name,” said the man.

  “Hiram Hickson. I used to know you when—”

  “Oh, now I remember! Now I know you!” cried Mr. Bobbsey. “Hiram Hickson! Of course! I remember you well now! Well, well! This is a surprise! How did you come—”

  But just then a loud shouting in the railroad cut below caused Mr. Bobbsey to stop speaking.

  “Look out! Look out!” came the cry, and people began rushing away from the cars, some of which were almost overturned, while others were completely on their side. “Look out!” cried the warning voice again.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Old Man’s Story

  Mr. Bobbsey caught Flossie and Freddie up in his arms and started to run with them. At the same time Sam Johnson pulled Nan to one side, catching hold of her hand, and the strange man, who had said he was Hiram Hickson, took hold of Bert.

  “We’d better get out of harm’s way!” said Mr. Hickson.

  As the Bobbsey twins were thus hurried out of any possible danger the two older children looked back over their shoulders, down to where the railroad wreck was strewed about along the tracks. They saw the railroad men and other persons running away after the warning shout had been given, and Bert and Nan wondered what was going to happen.

  They saw a big puff of steam shoot out from one of the engines that was partly overturned, and then came a loud noise, as of an explosion.

  A few moments later, however, the cloud of steam was blown away by the wind, the noise stopped, and the people no longer ran away.

  “I guess the danger is over,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as he stopped and set Flossie and Freddie down on the ground a little way back from the edge of the cliff, from which they had been looking at the train wreck. “In fact,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “I don’t believe we would have been hurt if we had stayed where we were. But when I heard that shouting I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

  “That’s right,” returned Mr. Hickson, who had let go of Bert. “You never know what is going to happen in a railroad wreck. I didn’t have any idea, when I was riding so easily in my seat, that, a minute later, I’d be thrown out with my head cut and a banana in my hand.”

  “What happened down there, Daddy?” asked Nan.

  “There must have been a blow-out, or an explosion, in the locomotive,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “The fire got too hot after the wreck, and the steam burst out at one side of the boiler. But no one seems to be hurt, and I’m glad of that. The wreck was bad enough.”

  The railroad men and others who had run out of danger when some one, who saw the boiler about to explode, had given the warning, now came back. They started again to clear the tracks so that waiting trains could pass.

  “Well, I don’t believe there’s much more to see,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “We’d better be getting back home, children, or your mother will worry about you.”

  “Can’t I stay and see the firemen just a little longer?” begged Freddie.

  “I don’t believe they are going to do much more,” answered his father. “Their work is nearly done. All the people who were hurt have been taken away.”

  This was true. The scene of the wreck was now being cleared, and in a little while the damaged engine and cars would be hauled away to the shops to be mended.

  “Did you get everything belonging to you, Mr. Hickson?” asked Mr. Bobbsey of the man who had been slightly hurt in the wreck.

  “Yes, I have my satchel,” he answered. “And as I was going to get out at the Lakeport station I’m right at the place where I was going, even if there had been no wreck.”

  “And so you were coming to see me, were you?” asked Mr. Bobbsey. “Well, I don’t know what your plans are, but I would be very glad to have you come to supper with me.”

  “Maybe your wife mightn’t like it,” said Mr. Hickson. “She might not be ready for company, and I’d better tell you that I’m quite hungry.”

  “So’m I!” exclaimed Freddie. “I’m hungry, and I eat a lot. But Dinah—she’s our cook—has lots to eat in her kitchen!”

  “Well, then maybe she’d have enough for me,” replied Mr. Hickson, with a laugh. “If you’re sure it won’t put your wife out I’ll come,” he said to Mr. Bobbsey. “I want to see you, anyhow, and have a talk with you. I want to ask your advice.”

  “Very well, come along, then,” returned the children’s father.

  “We can talk after supper,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, as the little party walked along the Lakeport street away from the railroad wreck. “That is, if you feel able, Mr. Hickson.”

  “Oh, I’m beginning to feel all right again,” said Mr. Hickson. “I was pretty well shaken up and knocked around when the cars stopped so suddenly, and I was a bit dazed, so I didn’t know what I was doing—taking a banana for my satchel, for instance!” And he smiled at Flossie and Freddie, who laughed as they remembered how strange this had seemed to them.

  “Yes, I’m all right now, Dick,” went on the old man, and Bert and Nan wondered how it was that this stranger called their father by the name their mother used in speaking to her husband.

  Mr. Bobbsey saw that Bert and Nan were wondering about this, and he explained by saying that he and Mr. Hickson had known each other for many years.

  “We used to know one another,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his children. “But it’s been a good many years since I have seen him.”

  “Yes, it has been a good many years,” said Mr. Hickson, in rather a sad voice. “And they haven’t been altogether happy years for me, either; I can tell you that, Dick.”

  “I’m sorry to hear you say so,” replied Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Were you in lots of railroad wrecks, and did the firemans have to come and get you out?” asked Freddie. To him railroad wrecks seemed very bad things, indeed, though having the firemen come was something he always liked to watch.

  “No, this is the only railroad wreck I have ever been in,” said Mr. Hickson. “I don’t want to be in another, either. No, my bad luck didn’t have anything to do with wrecks or firemen. I’ll tell you my story after supper,” he said to Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Will you tell us a story, too?” begged Flossie.

  “I’m afraid my kind of story isn’t the kind you want to hear,” said the man, smiling rather sadly.

  “Daddy will tell you a story, little fat fairy!” said Mr. Bobbsey as he gently pinched the chubby cheek of his little girl. “I’ll tell you and my little fireman a story after supper.”

  Flossie and Freddie clapped their hands and danced along the sidewalk in glee at hearing this.

  The little party was soon at the Bobbsey home, and you can imagine how surprised Mrs. Bobbsey was when she saw, not only her husband, the children, and Sam coming in the gate, but a strange man. She must have shown the surprise she felt, for Mr. Bobbsey said:

  “Mary, you remember Hiram Hickson, don’t you? He and I used to know each other when I was a boy in Cedarville.”

  “Why, of course I remember you!” said the children’s mother. “Though I don’t know that I should have known you if I had met you in the street.”

  “No, I’ve changed a lot, I suppose,” said the old man.

  “And you have been in the wreck! You are hurt!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “Shall I get a doctor?”

&
nbsp; “Oh, I’m not hurt anything to speak of,” said the man. “Just shaken up a bit and scratched. I’ll be all right once I get a cup of tea.”

  After supper Flossie and Freddie, as had been promised, were taken up on their father’s lap, and they listened to one of daddy’s wonderful make-believe stories.

  “Please put a fairy in it!” Flossie had begged.

  “And I want a fireman in it!” exclaimed Freddie.

  “Very well then, I’ll tell about a fairy fireman who used to put out fires by squirting magical water on them from a morning glory flower,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

  This pleased both the little children, and when they had listened to the very end, with eyes that were almost closed in sleep, they were taken off to bed.

  “Now, if you’ll come with me to the library I’ll let you tell me your story,” said Mr. Bobbsey to Hiram Hickson.

  Bert and Nan, who did not have to go to bed as early as did Flossie and Freddie, rather hoped they might sit up and hear the strange man’s story. But in this they were disappointed.

  However, Mr. Bobbsey let them hear, the next morning, the reason why Mr. Hickson had traveled to Lakeport.

  “He really was coming to see me,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “He wants work, he says, and, as he knows something of the lumber trade and as he knew I had a lumberyard, he came to me.”

  “But hasn’t he any folks of his own?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey who, like the children, was listening to her husband.

  “He has two sons, but he doesn’t know where they are,” answered Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Did they get hurt in railroad wrecks?” asked Freddie.

  “No, I don’t believe so,” replied his father. “It is rather a sad story. Hiram Hickson is a strange man. He is kind, but he is odd, and once, many years ago, while his two boys were living with him, there was a quarrel. Mr. Hickson says, now, that it was his fault. Anyhow, his two boys ran away, and he has never seen them since.”

  “Doesn’t he know where they are?” asked Bert.

  “No, he hasn’t the least idea. At first he didn’t try to find them, for he was angry with them, and he thinks they were angry with him. But, as the years passed, and he felt that he had not done exactly right toward his boys, he began to wish he could find them.