“What shall we do today?” Flossie asked at the breakfast table. “We can’t do any ’tective work.”
“Let’s play in the barn,” Harry suggested. “That’s always fun on a rainy day!”
“Oh, yes!” Flossie agreed. “We can play in the hay.”
When they got to the barn the Bobbsey children climbed to the mow.
“Let’s make a ‘shoot the chutes,’ ” Harry suggested.
“How do you do that?” Nan wanted to know.
“I’ll show you.”
Harry climbed down and looked around the barn until he found a wide plank. This he propped up with one end in the haymow and the other in the filled hay wagon which stood nearby. Then he stood back and looked at his work.
“That’s too steep,” he decided. “Bert, help me. We’ll move the wagon forward a bit.”
Together the boys pushed the old wagon up until the slant of the plank was more gradual.
“I’ll slide down first,” Harry said. He climbed up to the haymow. Then with his knees up under his chin, he crouched on the top of the board.
Pushing against the floor of the haymow, he started himself off. With a swoosh he slid down the board into the hay in the wagon!
“Jeepers!” Bert exclaimed. “That does look like fun!”
One after the other all the children tried the slide. The barn rang with their shouts and squeals.
“One more ride,” Harry said finally.
Each child took a turn, with Flossie coming last. The little girl whizzed down so fast that she made a somersault and landed with a whack against the side of the hay wagon.
“Oh, Flossie!” Nan cried out, jumping into the wagon. “Are you all right?”
Flossie began to cry. “I hurt.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere. I’m all bent up.”
Nan was fearful for a moment. She laid Flossie out flat on the hay and asked her to raise each arm and leg in turn. Flossie did so. Finally she smiled. “I guess I’m all unbent now.”
The children played hide-and-seek, then cowboy and Indian until lunch time. It was still raining hard. A little later Uncle Daniel was called to the telephone. Then he prepared to leave the house.
“This rain is likely to cause a lot of flooding,” he explained. “I’m going to a neighborhood meeting to see what we can do about it.”
After he had gone the children played in the house. When supper time came and went and Uncle Daniel had not returned, everyone grew worried.
“I wonder what’s keeping him,” Aunt Sarah said as she peered out the window. “Oh, here he comes now!” she exclaimed.
The children rushed to the door to meet him. He looked grave.
“I’m afraid the dam is going to break!” Uncle Daniel said grimly.
Aunt Sarah overheard him and gasped. “Why, the Burns house would be swept away!” she exclaimed.
Uncle Daniel nodded seriously.
“How dreadful!” Nan said. “The Burnses have moved out, of course.”
Uncle Daniel shook his head. “Mr. Burns was ready to move out if necessary, but Mrs. Bums doesn’t want to leave. She told me she has lived there a good many years. The dam hasn’t broken yet, and she doesn’t think it’s going to this time !”
“Oh, I hope she’s right,” Aunt Sarah said. “But can’t something be done to keep the dam from breaking?”
“I’m afraid not.” Uncle Daniel added wearily, “We may as well go to bed. There’s nothing more we can do tonight. The State Troopers are watching the dam and they’ll call if they need me in any rescue work.”
Everyone slept fitfully that night. No word came. By morning the rain had stopped but the sky was still gray as lead. After breakfast Uncle Daniel got ready to go up to the dam again.
“I’ll go with you,” Richard Bobbsey said.
The older boys and Nan begged to go along. After a short discussion, their parents agreed.
“Let’s go then,” Uncle Daniel urged. He and the others put on rain gear and left in the station wagon.
After they had gone Freddie whispered to Flossie, “Come down to the basement. I have an idea.”
“What is it?” Flossie asked as she followed her twin down the steps and into Harry’s workshop.
“We’ll build a Noah’s ark for your mice,” Freddie explained. “Then they can’t get drowned if we have a flood.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Flossie said.
For the next hour the small twins were very busy with hammers and nails. When their little ark was finished the twins ran out to the barn for the mice. When they returned through the basement door, they noticed Snoop sleeping peacefully in one comer of the room. But now the cat leaped to his feet. The next moment he had knocked the cage from Freddie’s hand. The door opened, and the mice ran out!
Such a commotion ! The mice scurried from the basement room and up the stairs, Snoop after them. When they reached the kitchen where Dinah was making cookies she gave one look, screamed, and threw up her hands.
“Flossie ! I told you not to bring those mice into the house !” she cried. “Hold Snoop !”
Freddie managed to pick up his struggling pet. Dinah grabbed a broom and swept the little mice out the back door. Then she collapsed into a chair, fanning herself with her apron.
“You’ve sent the animals out into the flood !” Flossie cried. “We were going to save them with our ark !”
Dinah chuckled. “I saved them from Snoop and I guess that’s better !”
All this while the older children had been having an exciting adventure of their own. When they reached the vicinity of the dam, they found the banks of the pond lined with curious onlookers. Peter Burns was among them. He told the Bobbseys that his wife had finally consented to go to a neighbor’s house which was on higher ground.
“I got my stock out too,” he continued. “But I had to leave the chickens. Their house was already flooded and I couldn’t get to them,” he said sadly.
“That’s a shame,” Bert declared.
Just then several State Troopers came along. “Everybody get out of here at once !” one of them called. “The dam is bulging and will go at any minute ! Get back up the road out of danger !”
CHAPTER XV
LITTLE DETECTIVES
THE Bobbseys withdrew with the others to a spot some distance up above the dam and waited. In a few minutes there came a heavy crash.
“What was that?” Nan asked fearfully.
“It might have been the dam cracking,” said Uncle Daniel tensely.
Harry quickly climbed a tree nearby and peered down the pond. “It doesn’t seem to be the dam,” he reported. “There’s been no rush of water.”
The next minute they heard a shout from the State Troopers who had remained nearer the lower end of the pond.
“A giant tree has fallen across the dam,” one shouted. “It may have saved the day!”
“Okay for us to come back?” Uncle Daniel shouted.
“Yes.”
The Bobbseys ran back. They gazed at the old elm tree which now lay against the great wall of stone.
“The tree roots must have been weakened by the flood,” Uncle Daniel explained. “And the tree fell in just the right place to brace the dam.”
Although a disaster had been averted, there was still a great deal of land under water. That afternoon Tom and Bud stopped in at the Bobbsey farm. They were wearing high rubber boots.
“We’re going down to look at the flood,” Tom explained. “You fellows want to come along?”
Bert and Harry accepted at once and ran to get their boots too. The four started out toward town. At a turn in the road they came to a stop. The road was covered deep with water !
“I wish we had a boat,” Tom remarked. He looked across the field to the pond. “Hey! There’s one !” It was tied to a tree at the water’s edge.
“It belongs to Mr. Harold,” Bud explained. “Let’s ask if we may use it.”
The four boys
sloshed across the field to the house and received permission.
“You fellows get in, and I’ll push off,” said Harry.
They rowed along for a while, then suddenly realized they were in a field. The water was still deep enough and the boat went along easily.
“This is something!” Bert exclaimed. “Imagine rowing over a field!”
The landscape looked so different in the flood that in a few minutes the boys were not sure where they were.
Suddenly Tom called out, “Look! Isn’t that Mr. Burns’s chicken house?” He pointed to a wooden structure bobbing along on the current.
“It sure is!” Harry agreed. “It must have floated off its foundation!”
“And the chickens are still in it!” Bud said in amazement.
“Maybe we can save it,” Harry said, rowing faster. “There must be fifty chickens in there!”
The frightened chickens were squawking loudly as they tried to keep their footing in the tossing house.
“If we only had a rope,” Tom lamented, “we could pull it in.”
Bert had an idea. He opened the bait box in one end of the boat. Within lay a coiled line.
“Let’s try this,” Bert said as he made a loop in one end. “Pull up as close as you can to the chicken house, Harry.”
His cousin rowed as quietly as he could, but the little waves caused by the rowboat kept pushing the henhouse away.
“All right. I think I can get it now,” Bert observed.
He threw the line toward the house. But it fell short. He threw it again and again. The third time the loop caught on a corner of the floating coop.
“Good boy!” Tom called. “Now row slowly, Harry, so the house won’t tip over.”
The chickens cackled and squawked as their house was towed through the water. Finally, a short distance from the Bums house, the rowboat struck bottom.
The boys scrambled out and managed to pull the chicken house onto dry land. Mr. Burns, who had returned home and was watching through the kitchen window, ran down to meet them.
“How can I ever thank you boys?” he said gratefully. “I had given those chickens up for lost!”
As the boys rowed off, Bert said, “I wonder how the Fresh Air Camp stood up under all the rain?”
Aunt Sarah Bobbsey wondered the same thing. After breakfast the next morning, she telephoned Mrs. Manily. Then she reported to the others, “The camp was flooded ! I told Mrs. Manily we’d be right over to see how we could help her.”
The two Bobbsey men had business in town and could not go at once. So Aunt Sarah, the twins’ mother, and the children went. When they reached the camp a sorry sight met their eyes. The ground was covered with mud, most of the tents were down and the railing of the cabin porch was hung with mattresses put there to dry. Altogether the place had a desolate air.
Mrs. Manily came out to greet them. “Could Skipper stay with us till the mud’s gone?” Freddie asked immediately.
The director smiled. “Well, one night, anyway,” she said.
The Bobbseys learned that many of the children’s clothes had floated away and part of the food supply.
“I’m sure we can collect clothes for you,” Nan spoke up.
“And we’ll bring over vegetables,” Aunt Sarah offered.
Bert said, “Harry, how about catching some fish for the campers?”
“You bet.”
The next few hours were busy ones for everybody. While the campers helped shovel away the mud and tidy the place, Nan and her mother went from farm to farm and store to store getting new outfits for the boys and girls. Bert had donated his prize certificate for Nan to use. They collected a good quantity, as everyone was eager to assist the Fresh Air children.
Later Aunt Sarah drove over with meat, vegetables, fruit, and clothes for them. Bert and Harry added several fish.
“You are really lifesavers,” Mrs. Manily declared happily.
In the meantime Flossie and Freddie had been entertaining Skipper with a ride in the pony cart. Finally they put Rocket into the barn.
“Let’s go up in the haymow,” Skipper suggested. “That’s where I was when Bert found me.”
“Okay,” Freddie agreed, and the three children climbed up the ladder.
They ran and jumped in the deep hay for awhile, then Skipper suddenly stood still, a strange expression on his face.
“What’s the matter?” Flossie asked.
Skipper put a finger to his lips and crept over to the large opening at the end of the mow. The twins followed. When they peered from the open door they saw two men standing on the ground beneath them talking in low tones.
His lips close to the twins’ ears, Skipper whispered, “I’m sure those are the men I heard talking when I was hiding here before!”
Freddie’s blue eyes opened wide. “You mean Mitch and Clint?”
Skipper nodded.
“Let’s get them!” Freddie cried. Quickly the children climbed down the ladder and ran from the barn.
But the men evidently heard them, because when Freddie and Skipper reached the part of the barnyard under the haymow door, the men were gone. The children searched everywhere, but could not find Mitch and Clint.
“We’d better tell Dinah and Martha,” Flossie said.
The children ran to the house and told them.
“You’ll call a policeman?” Freddie asked.
Martha phoned State Police Headquarters, and soon two troopers came to investigate. The children felt very important upon being questioned. The officers made an examination of the grounds and said Mitch and Clint had walked from the barn to a truck on the road and gone off.
“I wish I’d caught them,” said Freddie. “I’ll bet they were going to steal a cow.”
The troopers smiled and one advised, “You’d better leave catching them to people older than you.”
After the officers had gone, Skipper and the small twins felt let down. They sat on the porch just thinking and looking into space.
Then suddenly Freddie said, “I know something little people can do to solve a mystery!”
“What?” Flossie and Skipper asked.
“After everybody’s asleep tonight, except us, why don’t we tiptoe downstairs and hide and wait for the person who plays the piano?”
“You mean the ghost?” Flossie asked.
“It can’t be a ghost,” Freddie told her. “Don’t you remember Dinah said he made marks on the keys?”
“Yes,” Flossie agreed. “All right. Let’s do it. But we ought to keep it a secret.”
“Sure. Now don’t go to sleep, Flossie.”
“I won’t. But if I do, wake me up. And I hope the piano player comes.”
Freddie was so afraid he would fall asleep that he decided to put something into his bed to keep him awake. “One of those burrs like Mark put under the pony’s saddle would do it,” he told himself and ran off to find the prickly pod.
That night it was almost impossible for the twins to remain awake. Skipper fell asleep at once on an extra cot which had been brought into the boys’ room.
Flossie dozed. But suddenly she became aware of someone shaking her. “Get up!” Freddie was whispering in her ear. He was standing alongside her.
Rubbing her eyes, Flossie stepped out of bed. Freddie helped his twin put on her bathrobe and slippers. Then the two went into the hall. Bright moonlight streamed through the windows and it was easy for them to find their way down the stairs to the first floor.
There was not a sound in the house. But just as the twins reached the lower hallway, they heard a note played on the piano !
CHAPTER XVI
A FUNNY GHOST
FLOSSIE and Freddie, holding hands excitedly and feeling a little scared, tiptoed across the hall to the door of the living room. By this time the pianist was playing an off-key scale. The moonlight fell directly on him.
“Snoop !” cried the small twins together.
At their shout the cat jumped down and scooted off to
ward the kitchen. Flossie and Freddie burst into laughter. Tears rolled down Flossie’s cheeks and Freddie rocked back and forth on the floor.
The commotion had awakened everyone upstairs except Skipper. One by one they came hurrying down. Uncle Daniel snapped on the light. All were amazed to see the small twins there, giggling so hard they could not talk at first.
Finally Flossie said, “We caught the piano ghost!”
“What!” the others asked.
“I’ll get him,” Freddie offered. He ran to the kitchen, scooped up Snoop from his box and raced back. “Here he is I”
Nan and Bert looked at each other and winked. Then Nan nodded and said, “Snoop should have been in the show as a piano-playing cat!”
Everyone laughed now, but finally the small twins quieted down. The piano was closed and everyone went back to bed. The next morning at breakfast the story was told to Skipper, Dinah, and Martha.
“Well, I’m sure glad that mystery was solved,” said Dinah with a chuckle. “I was gettin’ tired of wipin’ off that ghost’s marks on the piano keys!”
Presently Bert turned toward Nan and Harry. “Say, are we going to let Flossie and Freddie get ahead of us in solving mysteries?”
“No.”
“Then let’s try to find Major,” Bert urged. “We know he hasn’t been sold, and the men who stole him are still around, so the bull must be, too.”
“Any suggestions where to look?” Nan asked.
“The woods,” Harry replied promptly. “There are lots of woods around here, with neat hiding places.”
Uncle Daniel spoke up. “A good place to start might be Hopkins Woods. I have to see Mr. Trimble on business this morning. That’s near it Suppose you three come along.”
“Maybe Mr. Hopkins has seen Clint and Mitch,” Bert suggested, “and we can pick up a clue.”
When they were getting ready for the trip, Aunt Sarah said, “Daniel, would you mind taking Skipper back to camp? They’ll be expecting him.”
“Get your things, little man,” Uncle Daniel said with a smile.
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