DINNER FOR TWO
Freddie Bobbsey, called away from looking at the magazine pictures on
the news stand, came running over when he heard Flossie shout.
"What's the matter?" asked the little boy. "Did something else fall on
you, Flossie, like the sheets flopping over your head?"
"No, nothing falled on me!" exclaimed Flossie. "But look! Look at my
basket! It's wriggling!"
"There's something in it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, while her husband
quickly hurried away from the man to whom he was talking, and prepared
to see what the matter was. "There's something in your basket,
Flossie! Did you put anything in?"
"No, Mother!" answered the little girl. "I Just put in the things you
gave me. And just before I came away I took off the cover to put in
some cookies Dinah handed me."
"I think I can guess what happened," said Mr. Bobbsey. "While the
cover was off the basket something jumped in, Flossie."
"Oh, I see what it is! A little black squirrel!" cried Nan.
"Squirrels aren't black!" Bert said. There were some squirrels in the
trees near the Bobbsey house, but all Bert had ever seen were gray or
reddish brown.
"It's something furry, anyhow," Nan went on. "I can see it through the
cracks in the basket."
And just then, to the surprise of every one looking on, including the
Bobbsey twins, of course, the cover of the basket was raised by
whatever was wriggling inside, and something larger than a squirrel,
but black and furry, looked out.
"Gee!" exclaimed Bert.
"Oh, it's Snoop!" cried Nan.
"It's our cat!" added Freddie.
"In my basket!" exclaimed Flossie. "How did you get there, Snoop?" she
asked, as Bert took the cat up in his arms, while the other passengers
at the station laughed.
"Perhaps Snoop felt lonesome when he knew you were going to leave
him," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "And when you took off the cover of your
basket, Flossie, to put in the cookies Dinah gave you, Snoop must have
seen his chance and crawled in."
"He kept still all the way in the auto, so we wouldn't know he was
there," added Nan.
"Maybe he thought we'd take him with us," said Bert. "Did you, Snoop?"
he asked. But the big black cat, who must have found it rather hard
work to curl up in the basket, snuggled close to Bert, who was always
kind to animals.
Just then the whistle of the train was heard down the track.
"Dear me! what shall we do?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "We can't possibly
take Snoop with us, and we can't leave him here at the depot."
"Harry will take Snoop back home in the auto," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"Yes, give him to me--I'll be careful of him," promised the young man
from the lumberyard office, and Bert carried his pet over to the
waiting automobile.
Snoop mewed a little as Bert put the big, black cat into Harry's arms.
"Good-bye, Snoop!" Bert said, patting his pet on the head.
"Come, Bert, hurry!" called his father.
Then, as the train pulled into the station, Bert ran back and caught
up his valise. The other Bobbsey twins took up their things, Flossie
put back on her basket the cover the cat had knocked off in getting
out, and soon they were all on the train.
"All aboard!" called the conductor, and, as the engine whistled and
the cars began to move, Bert and Nan looked from the windows of their
seats and had a last glimpse of Snoop being held in Harry's arms, as
he sat in the automobile.
Flossie and Freddie forgot all about their cat, dog, and nearly
everything in Lakeport in their joy at going out West. For they were
really started on their way now, after several little upsets and
troubles, such as the clothes line coming down on Flossie, and the cat
hiding himself away in the basket.
"Well, now I can sit back and rest," said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a sigh of
relief. "I know the children are all here, and they can't get lost for
a while, at least, and I don't see what mischief they can get into
here."
Now, indeed, the children were all right for a time. Freddie sat with
his father, next to the window, and Flossie was in the seat with her
mother pressing her little nose close against the glass, so she would
not miss seeing anything, as the train flew along.
Bert and Nan were sitting together, Nan being next to the window. Bert
had, very politely, let his sister have that place, though he wanted
it himself. However, before the first part of the journey was over
there was a seat vacant on the other side of the car, and Bert took
that. Then he, too, had a window.
Bert and Nan noticed, as the train passed Mr. Bobbsey's lumberyard,
Mr. Hickson standing amid a pile of boards. The old man did not see
the children, of course, for the train was going rather swiftly, but
they saw him.
"I wish we could help him find his two sons," said Nan to Bert.
"Yes, I wish we could," Bert answered. "But it's so long ago maybe Mr.
Hickson wouldn't know his boys even if he saw them again."
"He'd know their names, wouldn't he?" Nan asked.
"Yes, I s'pose he would," Bert replied.
Then the older Bobbsey twins forgot about Mr. Hickson in the joys and
novelty of traveling.
The Bobbseys were going to travel in this train only as far as a
junction station. There they would change to a through train for
Chicago, and in that big western city they would again make a change.
On this through train Mr. Bobbsey had had reserved for him a drawing
room. That is part of the sleeping car built off from the rest at one
end.
On arriving at the junction the Bobbseys left the train they had been
on since leaving Lakeport and got on the through train, which drew
into the junction almost as soon as they did. They went into the
little room at the end of the sleeping coach which Mr. Bobbsey had had
reserved for them. In there the twins had plenty of room to look from
the windows, as no other passengers were in with them.
"It's just like being in our own big automobile," said Nan, and so it
was. The children liked it very much.
The trip to Chicago would take a day and a night, and Flossie and
Freddie, as well as Bert and Nan, were interested in going to sleep on
a train in the queer little beds the porter makes up from what are
seats in the daytime.
It was not the first time the children had traveled in a sleeping car,
but they were always interested. It did seem queer to them to be
traveling along in their sleep.
"Almost like a dream," Nan said, and I think she was quite right.
"Where's my basket?" Flossie asked, after they had ridden on for about
an hour.
"Do you want to see if Snap is in it this time?" her father jokingly
inquired.
"Snap's too big to get in my basket," Flossie answered. "He's a big
dog. But I want to get some of the cookies Dinah gave me. I'm hungry."
"So'm I!" cried Freddie, who had been looking from the window. "I want
a cookie too!"
"Dinah gave me some for you," Flossie said, and, when her basket had
been handed down from the brass rack over the seat, she searched
around in it until she had found what she was looking for--a bag of
molasses and sugar cookies.
"Oh, Dinah does make such good cookies!" said Flossie, with her mouth
half full, though, really, to be polite, I suppose, she should not
have talked that way.
"Shall we get any cookies out on the cattle ranch?" asked Nan. "If we
don't, Flossie and Freddie will miss them."
"Oh, they have cooks on ranches, same as they do in lumber camps,"
Bert declared. "I saw a picture once of a Chinese cook on a cattle
ranch."
"Can a Chinaman cook?" asked Nan, in surprise. "I thought they could
only iron shirts and collars."
"Some Chinese are very good cooks," explained Mr. Bobbsey. "And Bert
is right when he says that on some ranches in the West a Chinese man
does the cooking. I don't know whether we shall find one where we are
going or not."
"Are we going to the lumber tract first, or to the ranch?" asked Bert.
"To where the big trees grow," answered his father. "The tract your
mother is going to own is near a place called Lumberville. It is
several hundred miles north and west of Chicago. We will stop off
there, and go on later to the ranch. That is near a place called
Cowdon."
"What funny names," laughed Bert. "Lumberville and Cowdon. You would
think they were named after the trees and the cows."
"I think they were," his father said. "Out West they take names that
mean something, and Lumberville and Cowdon just describe the places
they are named after."
While Flossie and Freddie were looking from the window of the coach in
which they were riding, while Bert and Nan were telling one another
what good times they would have on the ranch and in the lumber camp,
and while Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were discussing matters about the trip,
there came a knock on the door.
Mr. Bobbsey opened it and a lady came in, saying:
"I am so glad to see you! I am traveling to Chicago all alone, and I
saw you get on as I looked from my window in the next car. I came back
to speak to you."
"Why, it's Mrs. Powendon!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey as she saw a lady
whom she had first met at a Red Cross meeting. Mrs. Powendon lived in
a village near Lakeport, and often came over to see Mr. and Mrs.
Bobbsey and other friends. "I am very glad you saw us and came in to
see us," went on Mrs. Bobbsey. "Do sit down! So you are going to
Chicago?"
"Yes. But what takes you away from Lakeport?"
"I don't suppose you heard the news, but an old uncle of mine, whom I
had not seen for years, died and left me a western lumber tract and a
cattle ranch. Mr. Bobbsey and I are on our way there now to look after
matters, and we had to take the children with us."
"And I suppose they were very sorry about that," said Mrs. Powendon
with a smile, as she looked at Nan and Bert.
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bert "Indeed we weren't sorry! We're going to have
fine times!"
Then Mrs. Powendon sat down and began talking to Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey,
while Nan and Bert looked at magazines their father had bought for
them from the train boy.
No one paid much attention to Flossie and Freddie, and it was not
until some little time later that Mrs. Bobbsey, looking around the
drawing room, exclaimed:
"Where are they?"
"Who?" asked her husband.
"Flossie and Freddie. They aren't here!"
That was very evident. There was no place in the little room for them
to hide, and yet the children could not be seen.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, "can they have fallen off the train?"
"Of course not!" answered her husband "They must just have gone
outside in the car. I'll look."
Mr. Bobbsey was about to open the door when a knock came on it, and,
as the door swung back, the face of a colored porter looked in. The
man wore a white jacket.
"'Scuse me, sah," he said, talking just as Sam Johnson did, "but did
you-all only want dinnah for two?"
"Dinner for two? What do you mean?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
"Why, dey's two li'l children in de dinin' car. Dey says as how dey
belongs back yeah, an' dey's done gone an' ordered dinnah for
two--jest fo' der own selves--jest two! I was wonderin' ef you-all
folks wasn't goin' to eat!"