A LOST BABY
Very much frightened and hardly knowing what he was doing, Freddie
sprang toward the hammock and started to take Baby May up in his arms.
It was almost more than he could do, for he did not know much about the
way to carry babies. But he made up his mind to keep Baby May safe.
Freddie gave one look back over his shoulder as he reached down to take
up the infant, and he saw that the old lady, whoever she was, did not
intend to come into the yard. She had put her hand on the gate as if to
open it, and then she seemed to change her mind.
She was muttering something to herself, but what it was Freddie could
not hear.
Again he cried:
“You can’t come in here! Go away! You can’t have Baby May!”
The old woman turned away without opening the gate, and walked off down
the street. Freddie’s heart stopped beating so fast.
Mrs. Bobbsey, alarmed by Freddie’s screams, came running out of the
house after having answered the telephone.
“Freddie, what is the matter?” his mother asked. “You shouldn’t take
Baby May up out of the hammock!” she went on. “You might drop her. Don’t
lift her up!”
By this time Freddie had ceased trying to lift Baby May. He let her sink
back on the soft blankets in the hammock and, then, turning to his
mother, he said:
“I was going to bring her into the house.”
“Why, Freddie Bobbsey! What in the world made you do that?” his mother
asked. “Didn’t I tell you never to try to carry May?”
“I didn’t want the old lady to get her!”
“What old lady?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, though she knew, almost without
asking, what person Freddie must mean.
“That same old lady,” Freddie replied. “The one with the green umbrella,
but she didn’t have a green umbrella this time. She had on a faded shawl
and—”
“Did she try to come in here and get May?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, now
almost as much excited as Freddie was. “Where is she? Where did she go?”
“She didn’t come in,” the little boy replied. “But she put her hand on
the gate and I yelled and—”
“Yes, I heard you,” gasped Mrs. Bobbsey. “But go on—what else happened,
Freddie?”
“Nothing, Mother. She just went away—down the street.”
Mrs. Bobbsey hastened to the gate and looked up and down the street, but
she saw no sign of the curious old woman.
“Are you sure you saw her, Freddie?” she inquired.
“Course I’m sure!” replied Flossie’s twin brother. “I saw her with my
own eyes, and so did Baby May! You can ask her!” He looked down at the
cooing child as if May could answer. But May only smiled up at Freddie,
and her smile was very sweet.
“I must telephone daddy about this,” decided Mrs. Bobbsey, after another
look up and down the street, without, however, seeing the strange woman.
“If she is back in Lakeport the police should know about it, so they can
try to find out to whom the baby belongs. I’ll telephone daddy.”
This she did, and Mr. Bobbsey grew rather excited when he heard the
news. He hurried home from the office at the lumber dock and at once
began a search of the neighborhood for the old woman. He inquired of the
neighbors and others, but, though some said they remembered seeing her,
they could not tell where she had gone.
Nor did the police have any better luck, for though two of them scurried
about town, looking for traces of the stranger, she could not be found.
“Well, this is very strange,” said Mr. Bobbsey that night, when Baby May
had gone to sleep and they were talking over matters after supper. “At
first I thought maybe Freddie might be mistaken.”
“You mean that he didn’t see any old lady at all?” asked Bert.
“Yes. I thought perhaps he might have—well, sort of dreamed it,” and
Mr. Bobbsey smiled at the little boy.
“I didn’t dream it!” cried Freddie, very positively. “I saw the old
woman, and so did Baby May. Anyhow, I don’t dream in the daytime with my
eyes open.”
“No, I suppose not,” agreed his father. “Well, since you saw her, and
since others saw her, there is no doubt but that some old lady started
to come into our yard. Whether she was the same one the children saw
just before Baby May was left on our doorstep—that is another
question.”
“I’m sure she was!” insisted Freddie. But of course he was a rather
small boy, and he might have been mistaken.
“Then the next thing to think about is,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “what did the
old woman want?”
“She wanted to take Baby May back!” said Nan promptly.
“I guess she’s sorry she gave her away,” added Bert.
“It’s hard to guess a reason for her strange acts,” observed Mr.
Bobbsey. “If she wanted to get rid of the baby, why, now, does she want
the child back?”
“I don’t want to lose Baby May,” said Mrs. Bobbsey softly. “I have grown
to love her too much. But of course if her real father and mother wanted
her I would be glad to give her up. But I don’t believe that old woman
is her mother. Do you, Daddy?” she asked her husband.
“No,” he replied, “I don’t. I think there is some mystery here that we
don’t understand. Though I can’t see why we haven’t heard some news in
some of the papers about a missing or kidnapped baby. It certainly is
very strange. But I have decided on one thing. We shall have no more
scares such as Freddie had to-day.”
“How are you going to stop it?” asked Bert.
“We will go away for a time,” answered Mr. Bobbsey.
“Go away!” echoed the Bobbsey twins.
“Yes. On a little vacation trip,” went on Mr. Bobbsey. “We will go to
the country where the old woman can’t find us.”
“Oh, to the country!” cried Nan, in delight.
“To Meadow Brook?” asked Bert.
“No, we can hardly go as far away as Meadow Brook,” said his father.
“Though, no doubt, Uncle Daniel would be glad to see us. But I heard
to-day of a nice boarding house in a small country town not far away,
and we will go there for a vacation trip.”
“Oh, goodie!” cried Flossie.
“Have they got cows?” Freddie demanded.
“I guess so,” his father answered. “So, Mother, you had better get ready
to go and take Baby May with you,” he added.
“If they have cows they must have horses,” was Freddie’s comment. “And
if they have horses I’m going to go horseback riding.”
“Why must they have horses if they have cows?” Flossie wanted to know.
“Oh, ’cause they always do. When they take the milk to the station they
have to carry the cans in a wagon, don’t they? And horses have to pull
the wagon, don’t they?”
“I’ll ride in the wagon. I don’t want to go on a horse’s back,” said
Flossie.
There were busy times during the next few days, and then came a short
but delightful trip to Pine Hill, a little country town where a farmer
and his wife took a few boarders during the summer.
The Bobbsey family about filled the place, and there were only two other
people as boarders, two old ladies. Mr. and Mrs. Meekin, who kept the
boarding house, welcomed the Bobbsey twins, their parents and Baby May.
“Oh, what a sweet child!” exclaimed Mrs. Meekin. “How old is she?”
“I don’t know exactly,” replied Mrs. Bobbsey.
“You don’t?” cried the two old lady boarders, in surprise.
“No. You see May isn’t my child. She is a foundling left on our
doorstep,” explained Mrs. Bobbsey. She thought it best to tell the true
story of Baby May. If she did not, one of the twins would be sure to do
so.
Another reason for giving out the fact about Baby May was that Mrs.
Bobbsey wanted all in the house to know about the strange old woman in
the faded shawl, so, if by any chance she should appear at Pine Hill,
the alarm would be given promptly.
“She is a dear, sweet baby, whoever owns her,” said Miss Himson, one of
the old lady boarders.
“Indeed she is!” agreed Miss Jackson, the other old lady boarder.
Happy were the days the Bobbsey twins spent at Pine Hill. Not only were
there cows, to Freddie’s delight, but there were sheep and horses,
besides ducks and chickens.
Freddie never tired of watching the ducks swim, and once he fell into a
mud puddle as he tried to fasten a long string to one of the ducks. The
string was tied to a boat Freddie had made, and he wanted the duck to
pull it. My, you should have seen Freddie after he fell into the duck
pond! Oh, so muddy and wet!
But the Bobbsey twins had lots of fun, and Baby May grew fat and
rosy-cheeked in those days spent in the fresh air of the country.
One day Nan was allowed to wheel the baby in her carriage to a little
clump of woods not far from the house. Bert, Flossie and Freddie also
went along, and the children took a lunch with them.
The twins had a regular picnic under the trees in the cool, shady grove,
and played games, having a lovely time. Baby May went to sleep in her
carriage on top of a little hill, covered with slippery pine needles,
down which Freddie and Flossie slid. The needles made the hill almost as
slippery as snow or ice would have done.
After a while Bert wandered away to see if he could find a place to
fish, for he had brought a hook and line and some bait with him. Flossie
and Freddie begged Nan to go with them to look for wild flowers.
“All right, I’ll go a little way,” agreed Nan. “I guess Baby May will be
all right asleep in her carriage.”
The two girls and Freddie were gone rather longer than they meant to be,
and when they returned to the grove where they had left May in the
carriage, the carriage and the baby were gone.
“Oh! Oh!” gasped Nan. “Where is May?”
“Maybe Bert came back and wheeled her around ’cause she was crying,”
suggested Flossie.
“Oh, maybe! I hope so!” murmured Nan.
But when Bert came back a little later, having found no place to fish,
he said he had not wheeled away Baby May.
“Then where is she?” gasped Nan, her heart fluttering strangely.
“She—she’s lost!” cried Flossie, and then, as the dreadful thought
became clearer to her she sobbed: “Baby May is lost!”