FREDDIE IS CAUGHT
"Hark! Wasn't that Snoop?"
"Listen, everybody!"
Bert and Nan suddenly made these exclamations as they, with the rest of
the Bobbsey family, were sitting in the main tent after supper. The
lanterns had been lighted, the mosquito net drawn over the front door,
or flap of the tent, to keep out the bugs, and the camping family was
spending a quiet hour before going to bed.
Bert thought he heard, in the woods outside, a noise that sounded like
that made by the missing cat Snoop, and Nan, also, thought she heard the
same sound.
They all listened, Mr. Bobbsey looking up from his book, while Flossie
and Freddie ceased their play. Mrs. Bobbsey stopped her sewing.
"There it is again!" exclaimed Nan, as from the darkness outside the
tent there came a queer sound.
"What is it?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey. "It doesn't sound like Snoop."
"Maybe it's Snap!" exclaimed Freddie. "He used to howl like that."
"It did sound a bit like a dog's howl," admitted Bert. "May I go out and
see what it is, Daddy?"
"I'll take a look," said Mr. Bobbsey. He stepped to the flap of the tent
and listened. The queer sound came again, and he went outside, while
Bert went near the tent opening to listen. He, as well as his father,
then heard another noise--that made by some one walking across the
ground, stepping on and breaking small sticks.
"Who's there?" suddenly called Mr. Bobbsey, exactly, as Bert said
afterward, like a soldier sentinel on guard. "Who's there?"
"It's me--Sam," was the answer. "I done heard some queer noise, Mr.
Bobbsey, an' Dinah said as how I'd better git up and see what it was."
"Oh, all right, Sam. We heard it too. Listen again."
Sam stood still, and Mr. Bobbsey remained quietly outside the big tent.
Sam and his wife lived in a smaller tent not far away, and they usually
went to bed early, so Sam had had to get up when the queer noise
sounded.
Suddenly it came again, and this time Bert, who had stuck his head out
between the flaps of the tent, called:
"There it is!"
"Who! Who! Who!" came the sound, and as Mr. Bobbsey heard it he gave a
laugh.
"Nothing but an owl," he said. "I should have known it at first, only I
couldn't hear well in the tent. You may go back to bed, Sam, it's only
an owl."
"Only an owl, Mr. Bobbsey! Yas, I reckon as how it is; but I don't like
t' heah it jest de same."
"You don't? Why not, Sam?"
"'Cause as how dey most always ginnerally bring bad luck. I don't like
de sound ob dat owl's singin' no how!"
"He wasn't singing, Sam!" laughed Bert, after he had called to the rest
of the family inside the tent and told them the cause of the noise.
"Ha! Am dat yo', Bert?" asked the colored man. "Well, maybe an owl don't
sing like a canary bird, but dey makes a moanful soun', an' I don't like
it. It means bad luck, dat's what it means! An' you all'd better git t'
bed!"
"Oh, I'm not afraid, Sam. We thought it was Snoop mewing, or Snap
howling, maybe. You didn't see anything of our lost dog, did you?"
"Not a smitch. An' I suah would like t' hab him back."
"Ask him if he or Dinah saw Snoop," called Flossie.
Bert asked the colored man this, but Sam had seen nothing of the pet cat
either.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Freddie. "Both our pets gone--Snap and Snoop! I wish
they'd come back."
"Maybe they will," said his mother kindly. "It's time for you to go to
bed now, and maybe the morning will bring good news. Snap or Snoop may
be back by that time."
"That's what we've been thinking about poor Snap for a long while,"
grumbled Nan.
"Well, I'm afraid Snap _is_ lost for good," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "He never
stayed away so long before. But Snoop may be back in the morning. He may
have just wandered off. It isn't the first time he has been away all
night."
"Only once or twice," said Bert, who came back to the book he was
reading. "And both times it was because he got shut by accident in
places where he couldn't get out."
"Maybe that's what's happened this time," suggested Nan. "We ought to
look around the island."
"We will--to-morrow," declared Bert.
"And look in the cave Flossie and I found," urged Freddie. "Maybe Snoop
is there."
"We'll look," promised his brother.
When Flossie and Freddie were taken to their cots by their mother,
Flossie, when she had finished her regular prayers, added:
"An' please don't let 'em take Whisker."
"What do you mean by that, Flossie?" asked her mother.
"I mean I was prayin' that they shouldn't take our goat," said the
little girl.
"I want to pray that, too!" cried Freddie, who had hopped into bed. "Why
didn't you tell me you were going to pray that, Flossie?"
"'Cause it just popped into my head. But you stay in bed, an' I'll pray
it for you," and she added: "Please, Freddie says the same thing!"
Then she covered herself up and almost before Mrs. Bobbsey had left the
sides of the cots both children were fast asleep.
"Poor little tykes!" said the mother softly. "They do miss their pets
so! I hope the cat and dog can be found, and Helen's doll, too. It's
strange that so many things are missing. I wonder who Flossie meant by
'they,' I must ask her."
And the next morning the little girl, when reminded of her petition the
night before and asked who she thought might take the goat, said:
"They is the gypsies, of course! They take everything! Blueberry Tom
said so. And I didn't want them to get Whisker too."
"Who in the world is Blueberry Tom?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"He's the boy who was so hungry," explained Freddie. "He came to the
island to pick early blueberries only there wasn't any."
"Oh, now I remember," Mrs. Bobbsey said with a laugh. "Well, I don't
believe there are any gypsies on this island to take anything. Snoop
must have just wandered off."
"Then we'll find him!" exclaimed Nan.
During the next few days a search was made for the missing black cat.
The twins, sometimes riding in their goat wagon, and again going on
foot, went over a good part of the island, calling for Snoop. But he did
not answer. Sam, too, wandered about getting firewood, and also calling
for the lost pet. Mr. Bobbsey made inquiries of the boatmen and the man
who kept the soda-water stand, but none of them had seen the children's
pet.
Bert printed, with a lead pencil, paper signs, offering a reward for any
news of Snoop, and these were tacked up on trees about the island so the
blueberry pickers might see them. But though many read them, none had
seen Snoop, and, of course, Snap was missing before the Bobbseys came
to camp, so, naturally, he would not be on the island.
But in spite of the missing Snap and Snoop, the Bobbsey twins had lots
of fun in camp. During the day they played all sorts of games, went on
long walks with their father and mother, or for trips on the lake.
Sometimes they even rowed to other islands, not far from Blueberry
Island, and there ate their lunch.
The fishing was good, and Freddie and Bert often brought home a nice
mess for dinner or supper. Whisker, the big white goat, was a jolly pet.
He was as gentle as a dog and never seemed to get tired of pulling the
twins in the wagon, though the roads of the island were not as smooth as
those in Lakeport.
But though the twins had fun, they never gave over thinking that, some
day, they would find Snap and Snoop again.
"And maybe Helen's doll, too," said Flossie. "We'll hunt for her some
more."
"But it's easier to hunt for Snoop," said Freddie, "'cause he can holler
back when you holler at him."
"How can a cat holler?" asked his sister.
"Well, he can go 'miaou,' can't he?" Freddie asked, "an' ain't that
hollerin'?"
"I--I guess so," Flossie answered. "Oh, Freddie, I know what let's do!"
she cried suddenly.
"What? Make mud pies again? I'm tired of 'em. 'Sides, Momsie just put
clean things on us."
"No, not make mud pies--I'm tired of that, too. Let's go off by
ourselves and hunt Snoop. You know every time we've gone very far from
camp we've had to go with Nan and Bert; and you know when you hunt cats
you ought to be quiet, an' two can be more quiet than three or four."
"That's right," agreed Freddie, after thinking it over.
"Then let's just us two go," went on Flossie. "We won't get lost."
"Nope, course not," said Freddie. "I can go all over the island, and I
won't let you be lost. Snoop knows us better than he does Nan and Bert
anyhow, 'cause we play with him more."
"And if we find him," went on Flossie, "and he's too tired to walk home
we'll carry him. I'll carry his head part an' you can carry his tail."
"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 a queer 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!"