The Bobbsey Twins Megapack

by Laura Lee Hope

  “Is this Lumberville?” asked Bert, who had noticed that the trees were not quite so thick now.

  “Lumberville—Lumber-ville!” called the porter, smiling back at the Bobbsey twins as he stood near their pile of baggage. “All out for Lumberville.”

  “That’s us!” cried Bert, with a laugh.

  Slowly the train came to a stop. Bert and Nan, standing near the window from which they had been looking all the morning, saw a small, rough building flash into view. Near it were flatcars piled high with lumber and logs. But there was no sign of a city or a town.

  “Come on!” called Daddy Bobbsey to his family.

  The porter carried out their baggage, and the children jumped down the car steps. They found themselves on the platform of a small station—a station that looked more like a shanty in the woods than a place for railroad trains to stop.

  “Good-bye! An’ good luck to yo’ all!” called the smiling porter, as he climbed up the car steps, carrying the rubber-covered stool he had put down for the passengers to alight on.

  Then the train puffed away and the Bobbsey twins, with their father and mother, and with their baggage around them, stood on the platform of the station which, as Bert could see, was marked “Lumberville.”

  “But where’s the place? Where’s the town? Where’s the men cutting down trees and all that?” Bert asked. He was beginning to feel disappointed.

  “Oh, this is only where the trains stop,” his father said. “Lumberville isn’t a city, or even a town. It’s just a settlement for the lumber-men. Our timber tract is about seven miles from here.”

  “Have we got to walk?” asked Nan, as she looked down at her dainty, new shoes which her mother had bought in Chicago.

  “No, we don’t have to walk. I think this is our automobile coming now,” replied Mr. Bobbsey, and he smiled at his wife.

  Bert and Nan heard a rumbling sound back of the rough, wooden railroad station. Flossie and Freddie were too busy watching and listening to some blue jays in a tree overhead to pay attention to much else. But as the rumbling sound grew louder Bert saw a big wagon approaching, drawn by two powerful horses.

  “Where’s the automobile?” asked the boy, with a look at his father.

  “I was just joking,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “The roads here are too rough for autos. Lumber wagons are about all that can get through.”

  “Are we going in that wagon?” Nan demanded.

  Before her father could answer the man driving the big horses called to them to stop, and when they did he spoke to Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Are you the folks I’m expected to take out to the Watson timber tract?” the driver asked.

  “Well, we are the Bobbseys,” said Bert’s father.

  “Then you’re the folks I want!” was the good-natured answer. “Just pile in and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll get your baggage in.”

  “I’d better help you,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “There’s quite a lot of it.”

  “Oh, we’re going to have a ride!” cried Freddie as he ran over to the lumber wagon, followed by Flossie, “This is better than an automobile.”

  “Well, it’s more sure, over the roads we’ve got to travel,” said the driver, who was carrying two valises while Mr. Bobbsey took two more to put in the wagon.

  “Pile in!” invited the driver again, and when the Bobbsey twins reached the wagon they found it was half-filled with pine tree branches, over which horse blankets had been spread.

  “Why, it’s as soft as a sleeping car!” exclaimed Nan. “Oh, how nice this is!” and she sank down with a sigh of contentment.

  Bert helped Flossie and Freddie in, and Mr. Bobbsey helped in his wife.

  “Got everything?” asked the driver, as he climbed up on his seat, which was made of two boards with springs between them.

  “Yes, we’re all ready,” Mr. Bobbsey answered.

  “Gid-dap!” called the man to his big, strong horses, and they started off.

  The Bobbsey twins soon knew why it was that no automobile could have traveled over the roads through the woods to the lumber camp. There were so many holes that the wagon lurched about as the boat had when the Bobbseys were on the deep blue sea.

  But rough as was the road, and tossed about as they were in the wagon, the Bobbsey twins were not hurt a bit, as the blankets spread over the spicy-smelling pine branches made a couch almost as soft as a feather bed for them.

  Through the same sort of forest they had seen from the car windows the children rode. The day was a sunny, pleasant one, and it was just warm enough to be comfortable.

  “Are we going to stop at a hotel?” asked Nan, when they had ridden for what seemed to her a long time.

  “No,” her father answered. “They don’t have hotels off here in the woods. We are going to stay in the lumber camp.”

  “And camp out?” asked Bert.

  “Yes, it will be like camping out.”

  “Oh, that’s dandy!” exclaimed the boy.

  And as he said that there sounded, as if from the woods just ahead of them, a loud shrieking sound. Flossie at once turned to her mother, and clasped Mrs. Bobbsey by the arm. Freddie turned to his father, and looked up at him.

  “What was that?” asked Nan.

  “Sounded like a wild animal,” replied Bert, in a hushed voice.

  “That’s the sawmill!” said the driver of the lumber wagon, with a laugh. “We’re coming to your place,” he added. “That’s the sawmill you heard. The saw must have struck a hard knot in a log and it let out a screech. There’s the sawmill!”

  CHAPTER XIV

  The Big Tree

  The Bobbsey twins saw, just ahead of them, a stream of water sparkling in the sun. They also saw a place that had been cleared of trees, which had been cut down, making a vacant place in the woods. And in this clearing, or vacant place, near the small river, were a number of rough-looking buildings. It was from one of these “shacks,” as Bert afterward called them, that the screeching sound came. And puffs of steam coming from a pipe sticking out of the roof of this shack showed that there was an engine there.

  “Is this the lumber camp that I am to own?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she looked ahead and saw the buildings, the piles of logs, and the stacks of boards.

  “This is the place,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “It is bigger than I thought. We will have to get some one to look after it for you, Mother. You and I can’t be running out here to see that the men cut down the trees right, and make them into boards. Yes, we shall have to get some one to help us.”

  “Couldn’t I help?” asked Bert. “Maybe I’d rather be a lumberman than a cowboy.”

  “You’ll have to grow some before you’ll be of much use around a lumber camp,” said the driver of the wagon. “It’s hard work chopping down trees.”

  “Do you ever have a fire here?” Freddie demanded suddenly.

  “Sometimes, my little man,” the driver answered. “Why? Do you like to see fires? I don’t, myself, for they burn up a lot of good lumber.”

  “I don’t like to see fires, but I like fire engines,” said Freddie. “And I have a fire engine at home, and it squirts real water. But I couldn’t bring it with me ’cause it was too heavy to carry. But if there was a fire here maybe I could watch the engines—I mean the big ones.”

  “We don’t have fire engines in lumber camps,” said the driver, whose name was Harvey Hallock. “When it starts to burn we just have to let her burn. But I guess—”

  However, no one heard what he said, for at that moment the saw must have come to another hard knot in a log, for there was that same loud screeching sound like a wild animal yelling.

  Nan covered her ears with her hands, but Bert and Freddie and Flossie seemed to like the noise.

  “Mercy me!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, “I hope that doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Well, I might as well tell you it does,” said Mr. Hallock. “We keep the sawmill going all day, but of course we shut down at night. It won’t keep you a
wake, anyhow.”

  “That’s good,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a laugh. “I don’t believe I’d want to own a lumber saw if it kept me awake with a noise like that.”

  Certainly this sawmill in the midst of the big lumber tract was very different from the small one in Mr. Bobbsey’s place at Lakeport. The children often watched the men sawing up boards at the yard their father owned, but the work there was nothing like this.

  The saw cut through the hard knot and the screeching sound came to an end, at least for a time.

  “This is where you folks are going to stay,” said Mr. Hallock, as he stopped his team in front of a building, at the sight of which Bert and Nan gave shouts of joy.

  “It’s a regular log cabin! Oh, it’s a regular log cabin!” cried Bert, as he saw where they were to live during their stay in the lumber camp.

  “So this is to be our cabin, is it?” said Mr. Bobbsey as he got down and helped his wife, while the driver lifted out the children and then the baggage.

  “Yes, the boys fixed this up for you,” answered Mr. Hallock. “We hope you’ll like it.”

  “I’m sure I shall,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she looked inside the log cabin, for it really was that, the sides being made of logs piled one on the other, the ends being notched so they would not slip out.

  “Isn’t it cute!” exclaimed Nan, as she followed her mother inside the cabin. “It has tables and chairs and a cupboard and everything!”

  “And it’s all made of wood!” cried Bert. “Say, the Boy Scouts would like this all right.”

  “I believe they would,” agreed his father. “As for everything being made of wood, it generally is in a lumber camp. Now we must get settled. Where can I find the foreman?” he asked of the driver of the wagon who had brought the Bobbseys over from the railroad station.

  “He’s outside somewhere in the woods,” was the answer. “I’ll find him and tell him you’re here. I’ll send the cook over to see if he can get you anything to eat. Are you hungry?” he asked the children.

  “I am!” admitted Bert.

  “And so am I!”

  “And I!” echoed Flossie and Freddie.

  “Well, that’s the way to be!” said Mr. Hallock. “Children wouldn’t be children unless they were hungry. We’ve got plenty to eat here, such as it is. Not much pie and cake, perhaps, but other things.”

  “We don’t want pie and cake when we’re camping in the woods,” declared Bert. “We didn’t have it at Blueberry Island—that is, not every day.”

  “All right! I guess you’ll get along!” laughed the driver, as he went off through the trees to find the cook and some of the men of the lumber camp.

  Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were looking about the log cabin that was to be their home for about a week, and the children were playing about outside, watching some squirrels and chipmunks that were frisking about in the trees, when a voice called:

  “Well, I see you got here all right!”

  Mr. Bobbsey and his wife, who were putting some of their baggage in one of the inner rooms, came to the outside door. They saw a big bearded man, wearing heavy boots, with his trousers tucked in the tops of them, smiling at them.

  “Are you the foreman?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.

  “No, I’m Tom Jackson, his helper,” was the answer. “Mr. Dayton will be over in a few minutes. He’s seeing about some big trees that are being cut down.”

  “I don’t want to take him away from his work,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

  “Oh, he’s coming over, anyhow, to see how you stood the trip out to this rough place,” said Mr. Jackson. “Of course it isn’t as rough as it is in the winter time, when we do most of our tree-cutting, but it’s rough enough, even now.”

  “We are used to roughing it,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile. “We like it, and the children think there is no better fun than camping out.”

  “Well, that’s what this is—camping out,” said the foreman’s helper. “But here comes the cook, and he looks as if he had something for you to eat.”

  A little bald-headed man, with a white apron draped in front of him, was coming along a woodland path with some covered dishes on a tray held on one hand, while in the other he carried what seemed to be a coffee pot.

  “Just brought you folks some sandwiches and a pot of tea,” he said, as he set the things down on the table in the log cabin. “This is tea even if it’s made in the coffee pot. But I washed it out good first,” he said to Mrs. Bobbsey. “Mostly the lumber men like coffee, though in winter they’re fond of a hot cup of tea. I give ’em both, and generally I have a teapot, but I can’t find it just this minute. I brought some fried cakes for the children, too.”

  “I thought he said there wasn’t any cake in a lumber camp,” said Bert, looking out toward the driver who was going off with his team.

  “Well, generally I don’t get much time to make fried cakes,” said the little bald-headed man who acted as cook. “But I made some specially for you youngsters today,” and he lifted off the cover of one dish and showed some crisp, brown doughnuts, which he called “fried cakes.”

  “Oh, I want some!” cried Freddie.

  “So do I!” echoed Flossie.

  “There’s enough for all of you,” remarked the cook. “Now, then, Mrs. Bobbsey, you’ll have a cup of tea, I know,” and he poured out a hot, steaming cup that smelled very good.

  Mr. Bobbsey ate some of the sandwiches and had a cup of tea, and, after they had taken the edge off their hunger on the doughnuts, the children also ate some of the bread and meat.

  While their father and mother were talking to the assistant foreman and the cook, who said his name was Jed Prenty, the four Bobbsey twins wandered outside the log cabin. It stood on the edge of a clearing in the forest, and not far away there were other log buildings, most of them larger than the one where the Bobbseys were to live. These other buildings were where the lumbermen slept and ate, and one was where Jed Prenty did his cooking. In another building, farther off, the horses were stabled.

  “Let’s take a walk in the woods,” said Bert to Nan. “I want to see ’em cut down trees.”

  “So do I,” she said. “We can take Flossie and Freddie with us. We won’t go far.”

  “Are there any cowboys here?” Freddie wanted to know.

  “Not any, I guess,” laughed Bert. “We’ll find them when we get to Cowdon, where mother’s ranch is.”

  Before they knew it the Bobbsey twins had walked quite a little way along a path into the woods. They heard the sound of axes being used to chop down trees, and they were eager to see the lumbermen at work.

  “Oh, look at this big tree!” called Freddie to Bert. “Some one cut it almost down!” He and Flossie had, for the moment, wandered away from Bert and Nan, though they were still within sight. At Freddie’s call Bert looked up and toward his small brother.

  Bert saw the two small Bobbsey twins standing beside a big tree which, as Freddie had said, was partly cut down. Just then came a puff of wind. The big tree slowly swayed and began to fall over. And Flossie and Freddie were standing near it, right where it would crash down on them!

  CHAPTER XV

  Bill Dayton

  “Look out there! Look out!”

  Bert and Nan Bobbsey, standing near a big stump, heard some one shout this to Flossie and Freddie as the two small Bobbsey twins looked up at the great tree which was slowly falling toward them. And then Bert and Nan added their voices to the shout which came from they knew not whom.

  “Oh, Flossie! Run! Run!” cried Nan.

  “Come here, Freddie! Come here!” yelled Bert.

  The two small children did not really know they were in danger. There was so much to see in the woods, and they were so interested in watching the big tree fall, that they did not know it might fall right on them and crush them.

  “Oh, what shall we do? What shall we do?” sobbed Nan, for she was crying now, for fear her little brother and sister would be hurt.

  “I’ll get ’em!�
� exclaimed Bert.

  He started to run toward Flossie and Freddie, but he never could have reached them in time to snatch them out of the way of the falling tree.

  However, there was some one else in the forest who knew just what to do and when to do it. There was another cry from some unseen man.

  “Stand still! Don’t move!” he shouted.

  Then there was a crackling in the underbrush, and some one rushed out at Flossie and Freddie, who were standing under the tree looking up at the tottering trunk which was slowly falling toward them.

  If the two little children had been alone in the woods they might have thought that the crackling and crashing in the underbrush was made by a bear breaking his way toward them. But they were not thinking of bears, just then.

  In another instant Bert and Nan saw a man, dressed as were nearly all the “lumberjacks,” spring down a little hill and rush at Flossie and Freddie. As for the two small Bobbsey twins themselves, they had no time to see anything very clearly. The first they knew they were caught up in the man’s arms, Freddie on one side and Flossie on the other. That big, strong lumberman just tucked Freddie under his left arm and Flossie under his right and then he gave a jump and a leap that carried them all out of danger.

  And only just in time, too! For no sooner had the lumberman picked up the two children and leaped off the path with them into a little cleared space than down crashed the big tree!

  It made a sound like the boom of a big gun, or like the pounding of the giant waves in a storm at the seashore, where once the Bobbsey twins had spent a vacation.

  Down crashed the big tree, breaking off smaller trees and bushes that were in its way. Down it fell, raising a big cloud of dust, and Flossie and Freddie, still held in the arms of the big man, saw it fall. But they were far enough away to escape getting hurt, though some pieces of bark and a shower of leaves scattered over them. The lumbermen had snatched them out of danger just in time.

  “Oh! Oh! They’re all right! They’re saved!” gasped Nan, no longer crying now that she saw Flossie and Freddie were not hurt.

  “Whew! That was pretty near a bad accident,” said Bert, who had stopped running toward his brother and sister when he saw that the lumberman was going to get them.