FLOSSIE’S BEAR
Mr. Bobbsey, who had gone to the barn before Bert left the orchard
driving Tramper, now ran out of the building, somewhat alarmed and
fearing his son might be hurt. But Bert had been thrown a little
distance from the cart and had landed safely on a clump of soft grass
at the side of the lane, so he wasn’t hurt at all.
As for Tramper, he didn’t seem to mind it in the least. He just stood
still when he felt something wrong happening, and he let the cart go
over. In fact, he could not have stopped it had he wished.
“Bert, why in the world did you turn so sharply?” asked his father, as
he ran over to pick up the boy. But Bert did this for himself. “You
shouldn’t have made such a sudden turn,” went on Mr. Bobbsey.
“I know it--now,” Bert ruefully answered as he looked at the peaches
scattered over the ground. “But I turned so I wouldn’t run over a mud
turtle.”
“Well, of course that was a kind thing to do,” went on his father. “But
a slower turn might have saved the turtle and also saved the cart from
upsetting. However, it can’t be helped now.”
“Bert tipped over! Oh, Bert, you tipped right over, didn’t you?” gasped
Flossie.
“I sure did,” answered her brother, trying to smile.
“And you spilled the peaches, didn’t you?” went on Freddie. “Didn’t you
spill the peaches, Bert?”
“I guess anybody can see that,” Bert said.
“What will Mr. Watson say?” asked Flossie.
“I don’t know,” answered Bert. “But you two run into the barn now and
I’ll pick ’em up.”
“We’ll help,” kindly offered Flossie.
“’Course we will!” added her twin brother.
“It won’t take long with all of us helping,” put in Nan.
Mr. Bobbsey, with the help of some of the men who were sorting peaches
in the barn, turned the cart over on its wheels again, and then began
the work of tossing back into it the spilled peaches.
“No great harm done,” said the man in charge of the sorting. “These are
bruised peaches anyhow, and a few more knocks won’t make ’em any worse.
It’s a good thing you were driving Tramper instead of a livelier horse,
my boy,” he continued, “or he might have run away when he felt the cart
going over.”
“Yes, I’m glad Tramper stood still,” Bert rejoined. The horse had begun
to eat grass after the accident, as much as to say that it wasn’t his
fault and he didn’t care how long they took to load the cart again.
But at last the spilled fruit was gathered up and once more Bert
mounted the seat and took the reins. For Mr. Watson, arriving from a
distant orchard and hearing about the accident, had said that Bert was
to try again.
“You might as well learn now as any time not to turn a wagon too
suddenly,” he said kindly to the boy. “Get up and try again. I’ll
watch you and tell you if you turn too short.”
So Bert had a lesson in driving, and he was glad Mr. Watson had not
been angry because of the upset. But the farmer knew that young people
must have a chance to learn, and so he was patient.
“Whoa!” called Bert, as he drove Tramper into the barn with the load of
soft fruit and stopped the cart where Mr. Watson told him to. Then the
fruit was put into wooden bins and the sorting went on.
“Do you want to bring in another load?” asked the farmer.
“Do you think it safe to trust him?” inquired Mr. Bobbsey. “I don’t
want him to make a lot of work for you.”
“He can’t hurt the soft peaches much, anyhow,” the farmer went on, “and
there’s nothing like letting a boy know how to handle a horse. He’ll be
safer with Tramper than any other animal. Go on, Bert, drive back to
the orchard and get more peaches.”
“Could we ride with him?” begged Flossie.
“Oh, let’s!” called Freddie.
“Well, we’ll all go,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I used to know how to drive a
horse, and if Bert gets into any trouble I can help him out. But don’t
upset this load, son,” he warned with a laugh, as he put the small
twins into the cart, while he helped Nan up and then got in himself.
They sat on boards placed across the high sides of the cart.
“I’ll be very careful,” promised Bert.
The turtle, which had been the innocent cause of the other accident,
crawled off in the high grass around the barn. Bert started Tramper
back on the trip to the orchard, and this time he made the return with
a load of peaches in safety, driving proudly into the barn, almost as
well as one of the men could have done.
The barn and the orchard were now busy places, for Mr. Watson wanted to
get as much fruit to market as he could while the weather was good. He
expected to make two or more pickings, as more and more peaches were
ripened by the sun. And the earlier he could haul his fruit to market
the more money he would get.
“It’s the early fruit that sells best,” he said.
The sorting went on in the big barn, basket after basket of choice
yellow and red peaches being packed, covered, and set in a cool place,
ready to be taken the next day on the big truck to Hitchville. There
there was quite a large peach market, where buyers came from the big
cities miles away to bargain for the fruit.
“And we’re going there to-morrow!” sang Flossie that night, after a day
of fun, part of which was spent in the peach orchard.
“Are we going to take Baby May--I mean Baby Jenny?” asked Nan of Mrs.
Watson.
“No,” was the answer. “She will be better off at home. I have told your
father that Jenny and I are sorry to decline his nice invitation to
go along. But when she gets as big as you I expect she will help her
father gather the peaches,” she added, as she cuddled the baby in her
arms.
The next day was a fine one, the sun shining down from a sky of blue
with white clouds floating here and there like sailing ships.
“Well, everything looks well for a big peach crop,” said Mr. Watson, as
the truck was started off on the road to Hitchville.
As the truck would have to travel more slowly than the faster pleasure
car, Mr. Bobbsey would not leave Cloverbank for several minutes yet.
At the end of this time the Bobbsey twins and their father and mother
were on the highway, over which they had come a few days before in the
driving rain storm.
“You take the children out to the peach market, and I’ll do some
shopping,” Mrs. Bobbsey told her husband. “You can stop for me on the
way home.”
The peach market was in a big open lot near a railroad siding, on which
stood many freight cars. Even before the children reached the place
they could smell the sweet perfume of the peaches.
And such a busy place as the peach market was! At first Bert and
the others could make little of it. There were so many motor and
horse-drawn trucks, so many men shouting back and forth, so many
freight cars with an engine puffing up every now and then to haul them
away--there was so much confusion that the Bobbsey twins did not know
what it was all about.
A man would jump up on a box or a barrel and shout something. Other men
would shout something back at him. Then they would wave their hands,
they would write down something on pieces of paper, and move away.
Then the same thing would happen in another place.
“What are they doing?” Nan asked her father.
“Selling loads of peaches by auction to the highest bidder,” was the
answer. “There is Mr. Watson--watch him.”
The children saw their farmer friend standing up on the seat of his
big motor truck, which was piled high with baskets of peaches, some of
which the children had picked. About Mr. Watson’s truck were gathered a
number of men, some of whom were lifting the edges of the covers over
the baskets to look in at the kind of peaches grown at Cloverbank.
Then followed much talk and shouting, until at last Mr. Watson was
heard to exclaim:
“Sold! Where do you want them?”
“Take them to that car!” directed a man, hurriedly writing something on
a piece of paper and giving it to the farmer.
“Mr. Watson has just sold his load of peaches,” explained Mr. Bobbsey.
“Several buyers offered different prices for them, after seeing what
fine fruit he had, and Mr. Watson sold to the man who would give him
the most money. He will now put his peaches into a freight car and
later they will be hauled by the engine to some distant city. There
they will go to what is called a wholesale dealer. He has bought them
here, through his agent or a commission man, as he is called. The
wholesale man will sell them to stores and the stores will sell them
to people who want a quart or a single basket. That is how the peach
business is carried on.”
“When I grow up,” said Freddie, as he looked at all that was going on,
“I guess I’ll be a peach-man instead of a fireman!”
“Oh, so you’ve changed your mind, have you?” laughed his father. Ever
since he was a small lad Freddie had said, many times, that he was
going to be a fireman. No toy pleased him more than a little engine or
a hook and ladder truck. But now he seemed to have a different idea.
“Well, we’ll see--when you grow up,” laughed his father.
They had lost sight of Mr. Watson now, but guessed, as was the fact,
that he had gone to unload his truck load of peaches into the box car.
Soon they saw him again, his truck empty, and he waved his hand to
them and called:
“Back now for another load!”
“Good luck to you!” wished Mr. Bobbsey.
After remaining a little while longer to view the busy scenes in the
peach market the Bobbsey twins were taken back to Hitchville, where
they met their mother, who had finished her shopping.
“Well, did you have a good time?” she asked.
“Fine!” answered Bert.
“And I was going to be a peach-man. But I guess I’ll be a fireman like
I always was,” Freddie told her.
“Perhaps that will be best,” his mother agreed, with a laugh.
Back to Cloverbank drove Mr. Bobbsey and his family, and there they
found the picking and sorting of peaches still going on.
“Let’s watch ’em sort peaches in the barn,” suggested Bert.
The work was now going on faster, for Mr. Watson wanted to take
advantage of the good weather and the high prices fruit was bringing.
After a while Flossie and Freddie, in the spirit of investigation,
wandered down to a lower floor of the big barn.
“What place is this, do you s’pose, Freddie?” asked the little girl, as
she pointed to a small door in the side wall.
“I don’t know,” Freddie answered. “Maybe it’s a sort of icebox, where
Mr. Watson keeps peaches over night.”
“Maybe,” Flossie said. “I’m going to look in and see.”
She tried to open the door, but it stuck, and she called to Freddie to
help her. Together the children managed to open it, the workers in the
barn paying little attention to the twins, for there was no work going
on near this door. No sooner was the door opened, allowing Flossie to
enter a little way, than she gave a scream and cried:
“Oh, there’s a bear here! Look at the bear! Oh, Freddie!”
She darted back so quickly that she knocked Freddie down.