The Bobbsey Twins
and Baby May
BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF “THE BOBBSEY TWINS SERIES,”
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
_The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May_
CONTENTS
I. A RAILROAD SMASH
II. MYSTERIOUS BELLS
III. BABY MAY
IV. WHAT THE POLICE FOUND
V. NAN WHISPERS IN SCHOOL
VI. THE RUNAWAY
VII. THE SNAP-CRACKER
VIII. THE OLD WOMAN AGAIN
IX. IN PURSUIT
X. LOST IN THE WOODS
XI. ADVENTURES OF THE NIGHT
XII. RESCUED
XIII. THE LAST DAY
XIV. A BIG SPLASH
XV. FREDDIE SEES SOMETHING
XVI. A LOST BABY
XVII. THE GREEN UMBRELLA
XVIII. KIDNAPPED
XIX. ON THE TRAIL
XX. AN EXCITING CHASE
XXI. IN THE DUCK POND
XXII. CAUGHT AT LAST
The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May
CHAPTER I
A RAILROAD SMASH
“Just look at it rain!” exclaimed Nan Bobbsey to her brother Bert, as
they were getting their coats, hats and umbrellas from the schoolroom
closet.
“Crickity grasshoppers, I should say so!” cried Bert, crowding to the
one window in the coatroom, already filled with boys and girls eager to
escape from school. “It’s bouncing up from the sidewalk something
awful!”
“Well, I know one thing,” announced Charlie Mason, pushing his face
against the windowglass until his nose looked flat. “The rain isn’t
going to bounce on my umbrella.”
“Why not?” asked Bert. “Aren’t you going to put your umbrella up in all
this storm?”
“Nope!” answered Charlie, with a laugh and a shake of his head.
“Why not?” asked Nan curiously.
“’Cause I didn’t bring an umbrella, that’s why!” chuckled the boy.
“You’ll get soaked!” said Danny Rugg. “I haven’t got a very big
umbrella, Charlie, but you can walk under it with me.”
“Thanks,” murmured Charlie.
“Danny’s getting real good, isn’t he, Bert?” asked Nan, as these two
dark-haired Bobbsey twins made their way out of the coatroom and toward
the main hall, which was filled with boys and girls eager to get home.
“Yes, Danny’s pretty good now,” agreed Bert. “And I’m glad of it. He
always used to be fighting and quarreling. Say, Nan, it’s raining like
cats and dogs!”
“Worse than that!” sighed Nan. “I hope Flossie and Freddie won’t get
soaked.”
“Didn’t they bring umbrellas?” Bert wanted to know. “If they didn’t—”
“Oh, yes, they brought their little ones. I saw mother call them back
and make them take them,” replied Nan Bobbsey. “But even a big umbrella
isn’t much good in this storm. The wind blows terribly! I’m going to
wait in the lower hall for Flossie and Freddie.”
“All right; I’ll wait with you,” offered Bert good-naturedly.
As the older Bobbsey twins stood there, watching the other boys and
girls pass out, the rain now and then blew in through the open door.
A gust of wind would send the door swinging back after some child had
tried to close it, and the water would streak across the floor, leaving
little puddles.
“It’s a regular flood!” laughed Bert, as he and his sister waited for
the smaller twins, who studied in another room, which had not yet been
dismissed.
“There’ll be a lot of puddles on the way home,” remarked Nan.
“Say, do you know what I’m going to do?” asked Bert, as he saw Danny
Rugg and Charlie Mason going out arm in arm, the better to fit under one
small umbrella.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take off my shoes and stockings, and I’ll wade home!”
declared Bert.
“Oh, you are not!” cried Nan.
“Yes, I am!”
“I’ll tell mother if you do!”
“Pooh! Won’t she see me anyhow, if I wade home? I tell you it’s better
to take off your shoes and stockings than to step in a lot of puddles
and get soaked.”
“Well, I’m not going to do that!” said Nan. “It’s too cold!”
“I’m going to. I don’t care for the cold,” decided Bert, and then and
there he sat down and took off his shoes and stockings, putting his
stockings in his shoes and hanging his shoes around his neck by the
laces.
“Now I’m all ready for a washout!” he cried.
“Here come Flossie and Freddie,” reported Nan. “Hurry, children,” she
begged them. “We want to get home before the storm grows any worse.”
“Oh, I’m going to take off my shoes and stockings!” cried Freddie, as he
saw what Bert had done.
“So’m I!” added Flossie, who always wanted to do what Freddie did.
“No! No!” cried Nan. “You mustn’t! There, see what you’ve started!” she
added to Bert. “I knew they’d want to do this when they saw you!”
“Well, I can’t help that,” chuckled Bert. “Let ’em if they want to, I
say!”
“No! No!” insisted Nan, as she saw the younger twins sitting down and
beginning to tug at their shoe laces. “You mustn’t! Mother wouldn’t like
you to go barefoot in this cold rain—it isn’t summer yet. Keep your
shoes on!”
“But Bert has his off, and I want to wade in the puddles!” wailed
Flossie.
“So do I!” echoed Freddie. “I want my shoes off!”
“I’ll be the ferryman and carry you over the puddles,” offered Bert, and
this solved the problem, much to Nan’s delight.
Flossie and Freddie kept on their shoes and stockings, and followed
their older brother and sister out into the storm. They were almost the
last to leave the school, on account of the little dispute.
Down pelted the rain so hard that, as Nan had said, the umbrellas were
of little use. The wind blew the wet drops under them. But the children
rather enjoyed it, and Flossie and Freddie squealed with delight when
Bert carried them across puddles at the gutters, the barefooted boy
wading boldly through the muddy water.
“Are you soaked, children?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, when they reached home.
“And Bert—barefooted!”
“It’s a good thing I am,” said Bert, “else my shoes would be spoiled. I
had to carry Flossie and Freddie over a lot of puddles. Their feet
aren’t so awful wet.”
“You poor dears! I ought to have had you take your rubbers as well as
your umbrellas,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “I thought we had had enough of
April showers.”
“Maybe this is the last one, seeing to-day’s the last of April,”
remarked Nan, walking toward the kitchen to put her dripping umbrella in
the sink.
“Your feet are soaking wet—I can hear them,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Yes, they are a little wet,” admitted Nan, looking down at them. “I
jumped over most of the puddles, and Bert lifted me across one big one,
but I guess I got a little wet, anyhow.”
“A _little_ wet! I should say you _did_!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “Now
all of you put on dry things!”
When this had been done, and the Bobbsey twins, safe and dry, looked out
of the window, at the pelting rain, they were very glad to be sheltered
and in their comfortable home.
“Oh, look at the funny old lady!” exclaimed Freddie, who was kneeling on
a chair near a front window. “She looks like Mother Goose!”
“But she hasn’t got a goose!” added Flossie.
“She has a green umbrella,” returned Freddie. “It’s a big one, too.
Mother, why don’t you get me a big green umbrella like hers?” he asked.
“I’m afraid the wind would blow you away with it,” laughed Mrs. Bobbsey,
as, with Bert and Nan, she looked out at the person Flossie and Freddie
were speaking of. “Poor old lady!” murmured Mrs. Bobbsey.
The old woman making her way up the street amid the storm, carrying on
one arm a large, square market basket covered with a black cloth, as if
to keep whatever was inside dry from the pelting rain, did, indeed, seem
a strange figure.
As she walked along, holding her large, green umbrella over her head,
she glanced now, and then from beneath it at the houses she passed. She
caught sight of the four Bobbsey twins at the window of their home, and
halted a minute, gazing intently at them.
“Oh, do you s’pose she’s coming here?” gasped Nan.
“No, I think not,” replied Mrs. Bobbsey. Then the old woman walked
slowly on, still peering curiously at the house.
“Isn’t she odd?” murmured Nan to Bert. “I wonder what she has in that
basket, and what she is looking for.”
“Maybe she sells things,” suggested Bert. “Well, I know what I’m going
to do if mother won’t let me go out and play boat.” He had asked to be
allowed to do this, but Mrs. Bobbsey had said no.
“What you going to do?” asked Freddie.
“I’m going to make an elevated railroad,” declared Bert.
“Oh, can you?” cried Freddie. “And may I help?”
“May I ride on it?” questioned Flossie.
Nan remained at the window, looking at the queer old woman as she
vanished down the street in the mist from the rain. Though Nan did not
know it, this same old woman was soon to play a strange part in the
lives of the Bobbsey twins.
“How you going to make an elevated railroad?” asked Freddie.
“I’ll show you,” answered Bert. “No, Flossie, you can’t ride on it,” he
added, as his smaller sister again made her request. “It’s only the toy
railroad put up on some chairs.”
“Oh, that’ll be fun!” cried Freddie. “I’ll help!”
He began dragging chairs away from the dining-room table, while Bert got
from the closet, where it was kept, a toy train of cars that ran by
electricity on a sectional track. Instead of putting the track together
on the floor, as he usually did, Bert had decided to raise it in the
air, supporting it on chairs and boards, thus making an elevated
railroad.
“Be careful now, children,” warned Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw what they
were doing. “Don’t get hurt.”
“No’m, we won’t!” they chorused.
Bert had taken Dinah’s two ironing boards, the large one and the small
one, and with some other boards and boxes from the cellar and by the use
of chairs, had made a place to put together his tracks.
“You can see ’em a lot better when they’re up high this way,” said
Freddie, as the track was nearly completed.
“I wish I could ride on it. I like to ride on elevated railroads,”
sighed Flossie. “I rided on one when I was in New York once,” she added.
“Well, you can’t ride on this!” replied Bert. “You’d break it all up if
you did. Hand me that curved track, Freddie, and then I guess it’s all
done.”
The last section of track was put in place, Bert connected the battery,
set the engine and cars on the rail, turned the switch, and the elevated
railroad was in operation.
“Whee, this is fun!” shouted Freddie.
“It’s awfully cute!” said Nan.
“Could I give my little celluloid doll a ride?” asked Flossie. “She’s so
light a fly could carry her on its back, Bert.”
“Yes, give the doll a ride,” Bert said, and with smiles of delight
Flossie set her on top of one of the toy cars.
The Bobbsey twins made up a game to play with the elevated railroad:
They pretended they were sending loads of different things one to the
other. Bits of paper were oranges and burned matches did very well for
bunches of bananas.
“My, it’s raining harder than ever!” exclaimed Bert, as he went to the
window to look out.
“Do you see the old lady with the green umbrella?” asked Nan.
“No,” her brother answered. “She’s gone. Hi, Freddie, what you doing?”
he asked, as he saw the little fellow crawling under the large ironing
board laid across the seats of two chairs.
“I’m playing I’m under the railroad bridge,” said Freddie.
“Oh, I’m coming under, too!” cried Flossie, and she crawled to where
Freddie sat under the ironing board.
“Be careful!” warned Bert. “Don’t jiggle that board or you’ll upset the
whole railroad! You’d better come out from under there.”
He reached to get hold of Freddie’s arm to drag him forth. Just then a
loud clap of thunder sounded.
“Oh!” screamed Flossie, and she made a dash, tumbling over.
Bang! down came the ironing board, elevated railroad, toy engine, cars
and everything, on the heads of the smaller Bobbsey twins. At that
moment another terrific clap of thunder fairly shook the house, and Nan
cried out in terror and Bert, too, uttered an exclamation of fear.