CHAPTER XVIA 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!”
CHAPTER XVIITHE GREEN UMBRELLA
Certainly it was very strange—this vanishing of Baby May, carriage and all. What could it mean?
“Oh! Oh!” sobbed Flossie. “What will mother say? It wasn’t my fault, was it?” she asked, remembering the time she had left the baby carriage for a moment and it had so nearly rolled under the runaway horses hitched to the coal wagon.
“No, dear, of course it wasn’t your fault,” replied Nan soothingly. “But where can the baby be? We weren’t gone so very long. Bert, are you sure you aren’t playing a joke on us?”
“Course I’m not playing a joke!” ejaculated Bert earnestly. “I wouldn’t play a joke like this!”
And Nan believed him.
“It’s that old woman—I know ’tis!” declared Freddie.
“Let’s look around,” suggested Nan eagerly. “If the old woman did take May away she can’t have got very far. Let’s look around!”
Standing on top of the little hill, the Bobbsey twins began to look about them for a possible sight of the old woman hurrying away and wheeling Baby May. But they saw no one.
Suddenly Freddie slipped on the pine needles and began sliding down the hill. It was what he and Flossie had done before, to have fun, but now Freddie’s slipping was an accident.
“Oh!” he cried as he felt himself going. “Oh, I’m skidding!”
He had heard his father say this while driving the automobile on a wet and slippery pavement.
Freddie slid all the way down to the bottom of the hill. He came to a stop near a clump of bushes—bushes covered with thick, green leaves.
And then, all of a sudden, while Flossie, Bert and Nan stood on the top of the hill, hardly knowing whether or not to laugh at Freddie, and when they were wondering what dreadful thing might have happened to Baby May, Freddie gave a loud cry.
It was not a cry as if he were hurt. It was, rather, a cry of joy. Then the little fellow yelled:
“I’ve found her! I’ve found Baby May! Here’s her carriage in the bushes! I’ve found her!”
You can imagine how swiftly Bert raced down that hill. Nan tried to follow as fast as her twin brother, but she slipped and slid on the pine needles—she “skidded” just as Freddie had done. As for Flossie, she started to run, but she tripped and fell on her face. Then she, too, slid down the remainder of the way on the brown needles.
In this way all four of the Bobbsey twins reached the bottom of the hill. Bert was the first to get to where Freddie sat, pointing his chubby forefinger.
“Where is it?” demanded Bert. “Where’s the carriage and Baby May?”
“Right in there!” Freddie answered.
Bert saw the carriage, almost completely hidden behind a screen of green leaves. At the same time Nan and Flossie saw it.
“Oh,” murmured Nan. “Oh, maybe she isn’t in the carriage! Maybe the old woman took May out and pushed the carriage down the hill!”
“We’ll soon see!” exclaimed Bert.
He dashed into the bushes, pulled aside the branches that almost covered the carriage, and cried:
“She’s all right! She’s here fast asleep!”
As he spoke, his loud voice awakened the baby, who cooed and gurgled so that the others heard her.
“I’ll wheel her out,” said Bert, and a moment later Baby May was surrounded by the Bobbsey twins. Everything was all right now—the lost baby had been found.
“Oh, Baby May! Baby May!” cried Nan, gathering the infant up in her arms. “Oh, if that old woman had taken you what would I have done?”
“Maybe the old woman did try to take her,” suggested Bert. “She may have come as far as this down the hill, and then she heard us coming and she hid the carriage here.”
“Maybe,” agreed Nan. And then, as she remembered how she and the two smaller twins had slipped down the pine needle hill she added: “And maybe the carriage rolled down by itself, Bert. I put the brake on, but sometimes it doesn’t hold.”
“Yes, maybe it did happen that way,” Bert admitted. “The carriage could have rolled down the hill, and it could have rolled in behind the bushes and we wouldn’t see it until we went down close and looked—as Freddie did. I guess maybe the carriage did roll down by itself. It could slide easy on the pine needles, and it wouldn’t wake up Baby May.”
Having caught no sight of the strange old woman, the children finally decided it must all have been an accident.
The brakes did not hold very well, as Nan said, and some movement of the baby in her sleep might have started the carriage to rolling. Down the hill it could easily coast and push its way in through the screen of green leaves, the branches springing back into place, thus hiding the carriage from view until Freddie happened to see it.
“Well, I’m glad everything is all right,” announced Nan, as they started back for the boarding house. “I wouldn’t want to go home without Baby May.”
“Nor I,” said Flossie.
It was not easy for Nan and Bert to tell their mother what had happened, but they knew they must. They feared she would blame them for being careless, but all Mrs. Bobbsey said was:
“You must be a little more careful. If you knew the brakes on the carriage didn’t hold, Nan, you should have blocked the wheels with a stone or a piece of wood. But I’ll have daddy fix the brakes.” And the next day Mr. Bobbsey tightened the brakes so they would hold better.
Mr. Bobbsey also went to the hill and looked at the place where it was supposed the carriage had rolled down by itself.
“Yes, it could have happened that way,” he said to his wife. “But I must make sure the old woman is not sneaking around here. She may have followed us.”
“But we didn’t tell any of the neighbors where we were going!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “Just on that account we didn’t tell them—so if the old woman came back and inquired of the neighbors where we had gone, they couldn’t say.”
“All the same she may have found out and have come here,” returned Mr. Bobbsey. “I’ll make some inquiries.”
But as no one around Pine Hill had seen the stranger, the father of the Bobbsey twins began to feel a little easier in his mind.
“Probably it was just an accident,” he said.
The summer days at Pine Hill were happy ones for the Bobbsey twins. They played about in the woods and fields, and Mrs. Bobbsey sometimes went with them, taking Baby May in her carriage. Flossie and Nan had their dolls to play with, and many a little party they made up under the apple trees. There was a big swing, too, in the orchard, and there the twins had fun all day long.
Bert had become very fond of fishing since coming to Pine Hill. There were several small streams in the country round about, and from them he had pulled several good-sized fish that Mrs. Meekin cooked for him.
One day Bert took Freddie off on a fishing trip to a place about a mile from their boarding house. Freddie had a little pole of his own, and Bert promised to bait the hook for him, as Freddie, otherwise, might get it stuck in his fingers.
The boys sat down on the bank of the stream under a shady buttonwood tree, and tossed their baited hooks into the water. Fastened on their lines were bits of cork, painted green.
“When you see your cork bobber go under the water,” said Bert to Freddie, “you want to pull in quick.”
“Why?” asked Freddie curiously.
“ ’Cause why,” answered Bert. “ ’Cause when your green bobber goes under it means there’s a fish on the hook, and you want to pull it in before it gets off.”
“Oh,” answered Freddie. Then, after a moment, suddenly he cried: “There she goes!” and he jerked up his pole. On the end of his line was a large, wiggling fish.
“Oh, you caught a good one!” cried Bert.
He took Freddie’s fish off the hook, and then Bert caught one himself. The boys were having good luck with their fishing. Presently Freddie stood up to “stretch his legs,” as he called it. He gave a sudden start and, looking at Bert, exclaimed:
“I just saw it again, Bert! I just saw it!”
“Saw what?” Bert asked, not paying much attention to his brother, for he felt a nibble at his bait. “What did you just see, Freddie?”
“The green umbrella!” whispered the little fellow. “I just saw a green umbrella going along the road,” and he pointed to the highway which passed not far from the stream where the two were fishing. “It was a green umbrella, just like that kidnapper woman carried, Bert!”
CHAPTER XVIIIKIDNAPPED
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’tzactlysee 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!”
CHAPTER XIXON THE TRAIL
Flossie, Freddie and Nan were sobbing now. Their tears fell thick and fast and they wailed aloud.
“Children! Children! Be quiet!” ordered Mrs. Bobbsey. “What does it all mean? Baby May can’t have been taken. The carriage has been in plain sight all the while. She’s probably under the covers, Nan! Don’t be silly!”
“I’m not si-si-silly, Mother! Baby May’s gone! I—I felt under the covers and she—she isn’t there.”
“I—I can’t feel her to-toes!” sobbed Flossie, her hand in the lower end of the carriage.
By this time Mrs. Bobbsey herself had made sure there was no baby in the carriage. She took out all the coverings.
“She must have tumbled out and crawled away,” she said. “She can’t be gone! Look in the grass and bushes, children!”
“Wouldn’t she cry if she fell out?” Freddie wanted to know. He had stopped crying when his mother came along.
“She might not cry if she fell on soft leaves and didn’t hurt herself,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “Look carefully, children!”
But all the looking in the world would not have found Baby May just then, and it did not take Mrs. Bobbsey long to make certain that the infant was not around the carriage.
“Well, the worst has happened,” she said, and there was the sound of tears in her own voice. “Baby May didn’t fall out. She was taken away!”
“I said she was kidnapped!” declared Nan. “Soon as I didn’t see her in the carriage and didn’t feel her, I knew she was kidnapped! Oh, Mother! what are we going to do? Poor Baby May!”
“I—I want her back!” sobbed Flossie.
“It was that old woman—that old woman with the green umbrella!” exclaimed Freddie. “She took May off, I know she did!”
“I’m beginning to believe so,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “We must do something at once. Call your father, Nan—oh, never mind. Here he comes now!”
Mr. Bobbsey had gone in the house after Nan and the children had departed with their cookies, and now he came out on the porch again. Seeing his wife and the children gathered around the carriage he seemed to guess that something was wrong.
“Has anything happened?” he asked, as he hurried across the grass. “Did May fall out? Why, where is she?” he asked, seeing Nan wheeling the empty carriage.
“Oh, Richard!” sobbed Mrs. Bobbsey, “the little one is gone—kidnapped!”
“No! It isn’t possible! Under our very eyes! How could it happen?” Mr. Bobbsey asked.
“I don’t know,” his wife said. “But she’s gone. The old woman must have sneaked up between the time the children left the carriage to get the cookies and the time they went back.”
“Then she must have been hiding around here, waiting for just such a chance,” declared Mr. Bobbsey. “This is too much! I must notify the police at once. An alarm must be sent out and we must get on the trail of this person. I believe she is crazy! She ought not to be allowed at large with a baby!”
“Will she—will she hurt Baby May?” asked Flossie, alarmed by her father’s excitement.
Then, as his wife made him a signal to be more careful, so as not to frighten the children, Mr. Bobbsey said:
“Oh, no, I don’t believe the old woman will hurt May. She must love her a great deal to want to take her away. But anybody who will leave an infant on the steps in a thunder storm shouldn’t be allowed to have charge of children. I’ll get the police after her at once.”
It was one thing to speak about getting the police to work, but it was quite another thing to do this. In the quiet little hamlet of Pine Hill there were no regular police officers—only a constable or two and a justice of the peace.
“But Jim Denton is pretty smart,” said Mr. Meekin, when he and his wife had been told of the terrible happening. “I had a horse stolen once, and Jim got it back for me in less than a week. I’ll telephone him.”
“Say, Dad, can’t you and I take the trail after this old woman ourselves?” asked Bert, in a whisper of his father, while Mr. Meekin was at the telephone, calling up the constable.
“Yes, I intend to do what I can,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “I’ll take the auto and ride along every road I think the old woman must have taken. And you may go with me, Bert.”
“Oh, do you think that will be wise?” asked his wife, overhearing what was said.
“Yes,” her husband answered. “Bert will be a help to me. We may have to be gone all night.”
Bert’s eyes sparkled with pleasure as his father said this. It might be a great adventure!
“Bert, you must take good care of yourself,” said his mother anxiously. “I wouldn’t have anything happen to you for the world!”
“Oh, I’ll be all right, don’t worry,” returned the son, with all the confidence of a growing boy.
“But that woman may not be as nice as you think. For all we know, she may be crazy and liable to do any wicked thing,” remarked Mrs. Meekin.
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” declared Bert sturdily.
“Jim’ll be right over in his car,” said Mr. Meekin, as he hung up the telephone. “And while we’re waiting, let’s look the ground over and see what happened.”
“And you must have supper—I’ll get it ready right away,” said Mrs. Meekin. “Land sakes! To think of such things happening! My goodness!”
She bustled off to get the meal, which was almost ready, and Mr. Bobbsey, with Bert and Mr. Meekin, went to the place where the carriage had been left for just a few minutes alone with Baby May in it. And yet those few minutes were enough for the kidnapping to have taken place.
That it was a kidnapping—and done by the strange old woman in the faded shawl and with the green umbrella—all were now certain. Of course no one had seen her, but everything pointed to her.
“She just waited her chance and then sneaked up,” said Bert.
That seemed to have been the manner of it. The back of the carriage was turned toward the house, to keep the sun out of May’s eyes as she lay asleep. It would have been an easy matter for the old woman—or any one else—to have sneaked up and taken the baby. She could lift the child, asleep as she was, out of the carriage under the cover of the hood, and the children and Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey on the porch could not see this take place.
“Well, I can’t see anything here,” said Mr. Meekin, looking all around the carriage.
“Nor I,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey.
“Let’s take a look up and down the road,” suggested Bert.
But nothing was in sight—no one in view. This was not strange, as there were trees and bushes on either side of the highway, and it would have been an easy matter for the kidnapper to have concealed herself in these for a moment, or longer, and then to have taken some hidden path.
“Well, we must get on the trail at once,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “You have the police, or whoever does such things, send out a general alarm, Mr. Meekin. Bert and I will start off in our car, and when Jim Denton comes, he can do his part.”
“Jim’s pretty good,” repeated Mr. Meekin. “He got back my horse.”
Mrs. Meekin had supper ready in a “jiffy,” as she called it. The meal was not quite over when some one was heard running up the side porch. It was some one in a hurry, that was very plain.