BERT HAS AN UPSET
With a thud Freddie crashed down. But instead of hitting the hard
ground, he fell into a box of soft peaches, and it was like falling on
a load of hay--almost. In fact, some of the peaches were so soft that
Freddie was smeared with the pulp and his face and clothes were stained
with the juice.
“Oh, Freddie Bobbsey!” cried his mother, who had come up in time to see
her little boy fall.
“I--now--I couldn’t help it, Mother! Really I couldn’t!” protested
Freddie, as he tried to climb out of the box of soft peaches.
“I know you couldn’t help it, my dear,” his mother said, as she and
Bert helped him to climb over the edge of the box. “But you should
never lean too far to one side when you are up on a ladder. Oh,
Freddie, you are a sad sight!” she sighed as she looked at his soiled
garments. “And Mr. Watson’s peaches! Oh, dear!”
“Freddie looks like a peach short-cake,” remarked Nan.
“More like a long-cake,” declared Bert. “He’s got peach pulp all over
him.”
“Well, they’re my old clothes, anyhow,” said Freddie, as if that helped
some, which it probably did.
“Did you get any peach in your mouth?” asked Flossie.
Freddie moved his tongue around over his teeth to make sure.
“No, I guess I didn’t,” he answered. “But I’ll go up to the house and
wash, Mother, and put on other clothes, and then I can help pick more
peaches, can’t I?”
“I guess you’d better stay on the ground or on a box which isn’t so
high as the ladder, and then you won’t fall next time,” suggested Mr.
Watson, with a laugh.
“Did he do any damage?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, who came up from another
part of the orchard in time to see Nan leading her small brother back
to the house to help him change his clothes.
“No damage at all. He fell in the soft peaches that are going to the
factory where they will be made into peach butter,” answered the
farmer. “For canned peaches, either in halves or slices, the canning
factory, of course, uses only good, sound fruit. But the soft ones,
when they aren’t actually rotten, can be made up into peach butter, and
very good it is, too. No, Freddie didn’t do any harm.”
The work of gathering the peaches was in full swing now, for it was the
time to gather the best of the crop and sell while the prices were high.
“Where do you sell your fruit?” asked Mr. Bobbsey of the farmer when
Freddie had returned to the orchard.
“Over in Hitchville,” was the answer. “There’s a peach market there,
where the wholesale buyers come and buy them by the truck load. I’ll
have about two loads ready to go in to-morrow.”
“Could we go with you and see how they sell peaches?” asked Bert, who
hoped, when he grew up, to become a business man like his father.
“Yes, you children can ride on the truck if you like,” the farmer
said. “But you’d be more comfortable going in your own car. The trucks
are big and heavy and aren’t easy riding.”
“I’ll take the whole family over in my car,” Mr. Bobbsey said.
“And it will give me a chance to do a little shopping at the Hitchville
stores,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “I need some things for the children.”
So the trip was planned for the following day, by which time many
peaches would be picked by the orchard workers. After a while the
Bobbsey twins became tired of “helping,” as they called it, and they
had eaten all the peaches that were good for them, so they turned to
look for something new to amuse them.
“Why don’t you go up in the barn and watch them sorting the peaches?”
suggested their mother. “That will be fun.”
“Oh, let’s!” exclaimed Flossie. “And we can roll on the hay.”
But just then Bert saw a small cart drawn by an old and slow-going
horse being driven into the orchard by Zeek. Bert at once had an idea.
“What’s that cart for, Mr. Watson?” the boy asked.
“We use that to cart the soft peaches in, as it doesn’t do much harm if
they get shaken up and bruised a bit more,” the farmer answered. “We
have to be more careful with the sound fruit, and I send that up to the
barn on my small auto truck. But we don’t much care what happens to the
soft peaches.”
“Do you think--now--maybe--if I was careful--I could drive the cart
back to the barn?” asked Bert eagerly. “I’d love to drive the horse,
and I know how, for I did it once when we were at Meadow Brook. Could
I, please, Mr. Watson?”
“There won’t be any danger driving this horse,” chuckled Zeek, as he
brought the animal to a stop near the box of soft peaches into which
Freddie had toppled. “He’ll stand without hitching any minute of the
day or night.”
“Do you think it would be all right for Bert to take in a load?” asked
Mr. Watson of his hired man.
“Oh, sure!” was the answer.
“I’ll be very careful!” promised the small boy.
“Well, wait until I load the truck and you can take charge,” suggested
Zeek, one of whose duties was to transport the soft peaches to the barn
and later to the canning factory after they had been sorted.
Meanwhile Nan had taken Freddie and Flossie to the big barn where a
number of men were engaged in the work of carefully sorting the best
peaches into several grades.
“Well, all right,” said Mr. Watson, as he moved on to visit another of
his orchards. “I’ll leave this to you and Zeek, my boy.”
Delighted at doing what seemed to be real work, as it was, in a way,
Bert helped Zeek put into baskets the best of the soft peaches from
the box of discarded ones. Some were so soft that it would not be wise
to take them to the barn. These very soft ones and some that had been
crushed or broken by falls were put in another box and later fed to the
pigs and chickens.
When the small cart was loaded Zeek told Bert how to drive to reach the
barn and also told the boy what to do when he got there.
“Aren’t you going to ride with me?” asked Bert, for he thought the
hired man would at least be with him on the cart.
“No, I’m not going,” was the reply. “Land sakes, I guess you can manage
a load of soft peaches all right, ’specially when Tramper is hitched to
the cart.”
“Yes, I guess I can,” Bert assented. “Is the horse named Tramper?” he
inquired.
“That’s his name,” replied Zeek, with a laugh. “I named him that
myself,” he added.
“Won’t Nan and the others be surprised when they see me driving up all
alone?” exclaimed Bert, with a happy laugh as he climbed up to the seat
of the cart and looked at the pile of soft peaches behind him.
“Well, don’t give ’em too much of a surprise,” advised Zeek.
“Do you mean Tramper might run away?” the boy asked.
“Oh, no danger of that!” chuckled the hired man. “But don’t upset the
cart before you get to the barn. After you get there it doesn’t matter
much what happens.”
“Oh, I won’t upset!” promised Bert. “I know how to drive.”
For a time all went well. There was a level road leading into and out
of the orchard, and along this Bert guided the steady old horse. On
either side were men and women up on ladders picking the peaches, and
Bert felt that they were all looking at him as he went along.
“Go on there, Tramper!” he called to the horse. But the patient old
animal did not pay much attention to anything. He never went a bit
faster for all Bert’s talk.
The lad guided the horse and cart safely out on the main road, and
along that to the lane which led to the barn where the sorting was
going on.
As Bert hoped, Nan and the smaller twins were in the doorway and saw
him coming.
“Oh, look at Bert!” cried Flossie.
“He’s driving a real horse!” added Freddie.
“So he is!” exclaimed Nan.
Bert “began to put on airs,” then, as his father said later. But just
as he was urging the horse up the little slope that led into the barn,
Bert saw a turtle crawling across the lane in front of him. The wheels
of the cart would almost surely pass over the turtle’s shell, crushing
it.
“Look out there, Mr. Mud Turtle!” cried Bert. But the turtle, like all
of its kind, was a slow mover. It did not get out of the way.
[Illustration: OVER WENT LITTLE BOY AND ALL.
_The Bobbsey Twins at Cloverbank._ _Page 124_
]
Bert pulled sharply on the left rein to turn the horse and swerve the
cart. But he pulled too hard. The horse turned too suddenly, and the
cart began to tilt to one side.
“Oh, Bert!” screamed Nan, who was watching.
Then, before he could swing the animal the other way, over went the
cart, Bert, peaches, and all in a grand upset.