KIDNAPPED
For a moment Bert hardly knew whether or not to believe what Freddie
said. Of course he knew that his little brother would not tell an
untruth, but Freddie might be mistaken. So Bert made up his mind to ask
him again what he had said. The fish which had been nibbling at Bert’s
bait seemed not to like it, and swam away.
“What did you say you saw, Freddie?” asked the older boy.
“I saw—now—I saw that green umbrella!” whispered Freddie, getting up
from his seat on the bank and walking over to Bert. “The green umbrella
went past in the road—the same kind of a green umbrella the little old
woman had when afterward we found the baby on our steps.”
Freddie seemed very sure about this. He was not fooling—Bert could tell
that. And the little boy seemed somewhat frightened. Otherwise he would
not have whispered and have come over so close to his older brother.
“Maybe you saw a tree waving in the wind—a tree with green leaves on
it, Freddie,” suggested Bert, to try him. “Or it might have been a bush
that you saw.”
“No, sir!” insisted Freddie stoutly. “It was a green umbrella.”
“Did you see the little old woman, Freddie?”
“No, I didn’t see her. But I saw her umbrella—a green one.”
“Well, we’ll take a look down the road,” decided Bert. “I guess we have
enough fish, anyhow, and we might as well go home. We can look and see
if the old woman is there.”
“If she is, you won’t let her take me, will you, Bert?”
“Of course not! Don’t be silly!”
“But she’s a kidnapper—Nan said she was.”
“Well, maybe she did kidnap Baby May and then leave her with us; but she
wouldn’t take a big boy like you.”
“If she did,” declared Freddie, winding up his line, “I’d bite her and
I’d kick her and I’d scratch her.”
“Well, I guess that wouldn’t be any too much for a kidnapper,” laughed
Bert. “But I don’t believe we’ll see any one, Freddie.”
When the two brothers had crossed the field of clover and reached the
highway, there was neither a green umbrella nor an old woman in
sight—nothing but the dusty road.
“She isn’t here,” said Bert. “I didn’t think there would be anybody.”
“But I did see a green umbrella,” insisted Freddie. “Maybe if you looked
in the dust you could see her feet marks like when you and the other
fellows make believe trail Indians and wild game. Take a look, Bert.”
“Well, we can look, but I don’t believe we’ll find anything,” the older
boy answered.
But when he saw the plain marks of a woman’s shoes in the dust at the
side of the road, Bert had to admit that there might have been some
woman along there. The footprints came on to the highway at a place
where a narrow path wound back into the woods, and they showed that the
woman, whoever she was, had come out of the clump of trees and had
walked along the dusty road.
“There! What’d I tell you?” exclaimed Freddie. “Wasn’t an old woman
along here with a green umbrella? I saw it!”
“Some woman has been here—that’s plain enough,” Bert had to say. “But I
can’t tell by these marks how old she was, and nobody could tell if she
had a green umbrella or not.”
“If she had an umbrella, and she kept sticking the end down in the dirt
like daddy sticks his cane on Sundays, then you could tell,” said
Freddie.
“Yes,” admitted Bert, “then you could tell. But I don’t see any umbrella
marks.”
Neither could Freddie, but he was sure he had seen the green umbrella
passing along the highway. But it had been held up, and the old woman
was probably using it as a sunshade; so Freddie had to admit that it
could not have made marks in the dust.
The boys followed the trail of the woman’s footsteps in the dust as far
as they could see them. Then the woman, whoever she was, had stepped
from the side of the highway, where the dust was thickest, into the
hard, middle part, where there were many wheel marks, both of
automobiles and wagons, and also the prints of horses’ feet.
“We’ve lost ’em!” announced Bert, as the footprints vanished. “No use
trailing her any farther.”
“Can’t you tell which way she went?” asked Freddie.
“No,” his brother replied. “Maybe she turned around and walked back, or
maybe she kept on, and, if she did, she might have turned off on any
cross road. No use following her any farther, Freddie.”
“All right. But we’ll tell daddy and mother, sha’n’t we?”
“Oh, sure!” Bert agreed.
The boys trudged back to the house with their strings of fish.
“Oh, what fine luck you had!” cried Nan, as she met them.
“And we had an adventure, too!” burst out Freddie. “I saw the old woman
kidnapper—I mean, I didn’t _zactly_ see her, but I saw her green
umbrella and—and—”
But he had to stop, for he was out of breath.
“What does he mean, Bert?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, with a quick look at her
older son.
“Well, he surely thinks he saw the green umbrella,” Bert explained, and
then he went on with the story.
Mr. Bobbsey looked a bit serious when, later, he heard all about it.
“What do you think?” his wife asked him.
“Of course that strange old woman may have followed us here, and she may
be anxious to get Baby May back,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Though how she
found us I don’t know. And I can’t imagine why she is so mysterious. If
she wanted the baby, why did she desert her in a storm on our steps? And
if she gave her away, why, now, does she want her back?”
“It’s all very mysteriousness, isn’t it?” asked Nan, and when Bert
laughed at her for saying the big word wrong she wrinkled up her nose at
him, which was as near as Nan ever came to “making a face.”
“Yes, it is strange,” her father said, and he did not even smile at
Nan’s error. “I think I must make some more inquiries around here.
Surely if there is a mysterious woman going about and carrying a green
umbrella, some one ought to see her. Meanwhile, you had better take
extra good care of Baby May.”
“I certainly will do that!” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
For the next few days Baby May was not wheeled in her carriage very far
from the house. Or, if she was, either Mr. or Mrs. Bobbsey went with the
children who took May out for an airing. Neither Flossie nor Freddie,
together or singly, were allowed to wheel Baby May now, unless Bert or
Nan went along.
“We can’t take any chances,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Of course May isn’t our
baby, but I love her as much as though she were, and I don’t intend that
some one who has no right to her shall take her away from us.”
So Baby May was given extra care. She seemed to have gotten all over her
illness and laughed and cooed and “talked” for she could now say a few
words, though of course she could not put them together in a sentence.
She smiled and made her blue eyes sparkle, until Nan, hugging and
kissing her, declared she was the “dearest, sweetest and loveliest baby
in all the world.” And of course she was—just as every baby is to those
who love children.
Meanwhile Mr. Bobbsey rode about in his automobile, sometimes taking Nan
and Bert with him, and he made inquiries of all whom he met about the
mysterious old woman with the green umbrella.
At first he could learn no news. No one seemed to have seen her. But one
day, when Mr. Bobbsey and Nan and Bert stopped at a lonely farmhouse so
the children could get a drink of water, he got a “clew,” as he called
it. Afterward he told Bert and Nan that a “clew” on a ship was something
to which a rope may be fastened.
“And when you are searching for some one or something, a clew is a bit
of information to which you may fasten other news and so, after a while,
get enough clews to lead you to what you are looking for,” said Mr.
Bobbsey.
“Let’s see now—a queer old woman with a green umbrella,” musingly
repeated a farmer of whom Mr. Bobbsey asked this question. “Yes, I did
see such a person. She came to our door four or five days ago and asked
for a drink of milk. My wife gave her a glass. I’ll call her. She can
tell you more than I can.”
Mrs. Kenton said that she had seen the queer old woman.
“She carried a faded green umbrella, and she wore a faded shawl,” she
said to Mr. Bobbsey. “She acted queer, too, and kept putting her hand to
her head as if it hurt her. I asked her if it ached and if she didn’t
want a cup of tea to cure it. But she said it wasn’t exactly an ache,
but a sort of buzzing. It was getting better she told me, after she had
taken the milk.”
“Did she say anything about having lost a baby or of having left one on
the steps of our house?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“Good land! Left a baby on your steps! No, she didn’t say anything about
that!” exclaimed Mrs. Kenton. “Do tell! Land sakes!”
“I am anxious to know why she is acting so strangely around here,” went
on Mr. Bobbsey. “Do you know where she lives?”
This the Kentons did not know. The old woman had departed, green
umbrella, faded shawl and all, after resting herself and drinking the
milk.
“Well, at least we have proved that she is real,” said Mr. Bobbsey to
Bert and Nan, on their way home. “She isn’t imaginary.”
“Do you think Freddie saw her?” asked Nan.
“He may have,” admitted her father. “I wish I knew what to do about it.
I don’t want to keep Baby May away from her parents, but I don’t want
this queer old woman to have her.”
Mrs. Bobbsey was a bit excited when she heard the news her husband
brought.
“Here, Nan,” she said to her daughter, “you take Baby May out in the
side yard under the trees with Flossie and Freddie. I want to talk to
your father undisturbed for a little while.”
Bert had gone with Mr. Meekin to help with the evening “chores,” and
this left Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey free to talk when Nan had taken Baby May
and the smaller twins out in the yard.
“What do you think we had better do?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband.
“I don’t like this shadow of a strange woman always hovering over us and
the baby.”
“Neither do I. Suppose we go to some other place, and go in such a
way—perhaps at night—that she can’t find us?”
“I think that would be a good plan. She must have inquired of the
neighbors back in Lakeport and so have traced us.”
“I suppose so; though I thought we had kept it quiet. But we don’t want
to spoil the children’s summer. I’ll look for another place.”
The sound of footsteps on the side porch was heard and, looking out,
Mrs. Bobbsey saw Nan coming in, followed by Freddie and Flossie.
“You shouldn’t come in and leave Baby May out there all alone!” warned
Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Oh, she’s all right,” said Nan. “She’s sound asleep, and I can see the
carriage from here, and Flossie and Freddie wanted something to eat.”
“It’s too near supper time,” said their mother. “You must wait, my
dears,” she told the smaller twins. “Don’t spoil your appetites.”
“I can’t spoil mine—it’s too big,” chuckled Freddie. “I just wanted a
cookie.”
“So do I,” said Flossie.
Their mother finally allowed them a cookie apiece, for she found out
that supper would be a bit late, as Mrs. Meekin wanted to finish
skimming the milk as she was going to churn the next day.
Then Nan decided she wanted a cookie for herself, so it was perhaps five
or ten minutes before the children went back to where they had left Baby
May in the carriage.
But, all the while, the carriage was in plain sight from the porch. Even
Mr. Bobbsey could watch it, so nothing was feared.
Nan and Flossie and Freddie, munching their molasses cookies, went back
to where they had left Baby May, Nan gently raised the coverings to see
if May was still asleep.
“Oh! Oh!” she gasped.
“What is it?” Flossie wanted to know.
“Is a bee stinging Baby May?” asked Freddie.
“Oh! Oh, no!” cried Nan, and she was very pale. “Baby May—she—she
isn’t here! She’s gone!”
From the porch Mrs. Bobbsey was watching. She realized that something
was wrong, and she ran down to the carriage about which Nan, Flossie and
Freddie stood.
“What is it, Nan?” she asked quickly. “Has anything happened?”
“Baby—Baby May!” sobbed Nan, “She’s gone! She’s been kidnapped!”