CHAPTER XXAN EXCITING CHASE
The Bobbsey twins stopped eating and looked one at the other. What could it mean—this hurried rush of some one up the steps? Then Flossie spoke.
“Maybe it’s the old woman bringing back Baby May,” she whispered.
“If it is, I’m going to catch her!” declared Freddie, getting ready to slip down from his chair.
“Sit still, children,” ordered Mrs. Bobbsey.
Bert acted as though, he, too, would like to see who it was, for, as yet, the caller was not in view. But a look from his father kept Bert in his seat. He looked at Nan in a disappointed manner.
“It’s Jim Denton,” announced Mr. Meekin, as he saw the hurrying visitor through the open door. “Come right in, Jim!” he called. “Had your supper? If you haven’t—”
“Oh, I ate long ago,” announced the caller, who was the constable, or chief policeman, for Pine Hill. “What’s all the excitement about?” he asked. “Have you had another horse stolen, Pete?”
“No, not a horse this time. It’s worse—a little baby,” said Mr. Meekin. “Didn’t they tell you at the post-office, where I telephoned to you?”
“No, they didn’t say what it was. Just said something was missing over here and for me to hurry. I did, as soon as I could get a bite to eat. But what do you mean—a baby taken? Is it lost?”
“Worse’n that, Jim,” said the farmer. “It’s a kidnapping case. You want to do your best on this!”
“I will,” promised the constable. “Tell me all about it.”
“I’ll let Mr. Bobbsey do that,” said Mr. Meekin. “It’s his baby; or at least he and his wife took care of it. And it was stolen out of the carriage, right in my yard, Jim, with folks on the side porch. Greatest mystery we ever had here! The children left the baby a moment and—”
“Say, I thought you were going to let Mr. Bobbsey tell the story,” remarked Jim, with a smile, as he looked at his watch. “If this is a kidnapping case the sooner we get on the trail and chase after the kidnapper the better.”
“That’s right. You tell him, Mr. Bobbsey,” begged Mr. Meekin. “I get so excited thinking about it that my tongue runs away with me.”
Then the story was told, the Bobbsey twins telling their share in the sorrowful affair of how Baby May was stolen right out of her carriage, when she was left alone but for a moment.
“Hum!” remarked Constable Jim Denton, when the story was finished. “It is very strange. I’ll take a look at the place.”
“You won’t find any clews there, because we looked,” said Bert, with a very grown-up air.
“Well, maybe, I won’t. But I’ll take a look, just the same,” replied the constable.
They all went with him while he looked over the place where the carriage had been left just before Baby May was stolen from it. As Bert had said, there was little in the way of clews, or anything to tell who the kidnapper was or which way she had gone.
That it was the strange woman with the faded shawl and the green umbrella, every one felt sure.
“I’ve heard something about that old woman hanging around these parts,” the constable said, “but I’ve never laid eyes on her. This time I hope I do.”
“I’m going to help in the search,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “My son and I will go off in our auto, but of course we’ll act under your orders, Mr. Denton, as you are in charge.”
“Well, I don’t know that I have any special orders,” the constable said slowly. “The main thing is to catch that old woman and get back the baby.”
“Oh, yes, I want Baby May back!” sighed Mrs. Bobbsey.
“And I want her, too,” said Flossie, with tears in her eyes.
“Have you an automobile, Mr. Denton?” asked the father of the Bobbsey twins.
“Well, some folks call it that, and then again they speak of it as a tin Lizzie,” chuckled the constable. “It gets me where I want to go and back again. Well, we’d better start if we’re going,” he added.
“That’s what I think,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey. “And as there is no telling which way this old woman has gone, one of us can go up the main road, and the other down the main road until we get some sort of clew.”
“A good idea,” said the constable. “It ought not to be hard to find this old woman. Traveling with a baby, as she is, some one is bound to take notice of her. It’ll be an easier case than your lost horse, Pete,” he said to Mr. Meekin.
“I’m sure I hope so,” said Mrs. Meekin, who had learned to love Baby May, as had every one else.
After arranging to telephone in as soon as he should have any news, Constable Jim Denton went off in his little automobile, going up the road, or toward the next town of Rosemount.
“Well, Bert, I guess we’d better start on our part of the chase,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his son.
“Do you think it safe to take Bert with you?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Why not?” asked her husband.
“Oh, Mother, I want to go!” pleaded Bert. “Crickity grasshoppers—”
“But your father may be on the road all night—or at least away all night, my dear.”
“I can stay up all night, Mother!” insisted Bert.
“He’ll be all right,” said Mr. Bobbsey, with a smile. “And I may need him to help me. We sha’n’t travel quite all night. If we get too far away to return by, say, eleven o’clock, we’ll stay at a hotel all night. Don’t worry, Mother!”
He kissed his wife good-bye, and kissed Nan, Flossie and Freddie.
“I’ll bring back Baby May!” said Bert firmly, as he, too, kissed his mother.
“I’m sure I hope so,” murmured Mrs. Bobbsey.
Mr. Bobbsey and Bert took the “down road,” as it was called, leading to the city of Millville, though the city itself was several miles away. However, there were small towns and villages in between, and it was thought that some news might be obtained in one of these of the old woman and Baby May.
“Maybe she might go off into the woods and camp there, like a gypsy,” suggested Bert, as he and his father started off in the automobile.
“No, I hardly think so,” replied Mr. Bobbsey. “A little baby like May would not fare very well if kept out all night in a camp in the woods—that is, unless the woman had a tent, and I don’t believe she has that.”
“But where has she been staying all the while she’s been spying on us and trying to get the baby back?” asked Bert.
“That’s what I can’t find out,” said his father. “She must have lived somewhere around here, and yet we can’t get a trace of her. If she boarded with any of the farmers we would have heard about it.”
“Maybe she found an old hut or cabin, and is staying in that,” said Bert.
“Perhaps,” his father admitted. “Well, we’ll inquire all along as we go, and we may find her.”
They stopped at the first house they passed after leaving the home of Mr. Meekin. But the people there had not seen a woman and baby going past. They asked all sorts of questions, wanting to know all about the kidnapping, but Mr. Bobbsey did not have time to say much. As soon as he found out they could tell him nothing he hurried on with Bert.
It was the same at the next half dozen houses they stopped at—no one had seen the kidnapper.
“But we must keep on with the search,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Of course,” agreed Bert. “I want to get back Baby May!”
CHAPTER XXIIN THE DUCK POND
Meanwhile, back in the house at Pine Hill, the other Bobbsey children and their mother waited anxiously for news from Bert and his father.
At first Nan was sure the two would come back in an hour after setting off, bringing back Baby May. But when the long hand of the clock had gone slowly all around the face twice, making two hours, Nan sighed and said:
“I guess it’s going to take longer than I thought.”
“I’m afraid so,” agreed her mother.
Flossie and Freddie, however, though just as anxious to get back Baby May as were Bert and Nan, did not think so much about the kidnapping of the little one. Flossie and Freddie liked to have fun all the while, and just waiting for some one to come back was not much fun.
“Let’s do something,” proposed Freddie, after a while.
“All right,” agreed Flossie. “What’ll we do?”
Freddie thought for a few moments. Then he said:
“Let’s go wading in the pond.”
“Oh-o-o-oo!” exclaimed Flossie, her eyes opening wide in surprise. “Mother said we mustn’t go there!” she added.
“That was yesterday,” said Freddie, with a shake of his curly head. “Yesterday it looked like it was going to rain, and she told us not to go to the pond. To-day it isn’t going to rain, so we can go to the pond and wade—with our shoes and stockings off,” he went on, after another thought.
“Are you sure?” asked Flossie.
“Course I’m sure,” answered Freddie. “Come on!”
Perhaps if Flossie had not wanted so much to go and wade in the pond she might have thought more of what her mother had said the day before. This was that neither she nor Freddie was to go in wading. But then Freddie might be right. Mrs. Bobbsey might not have wanted the children to play in the water when it was likely to rain.
Now the sun was shining and the water of the pond sparkled in the bright light. The pond was out of sight of the house. It was a place where a brook widened out, making a swimming space for the ducks. Flossie and Freddie had been allowed to sail toy boats on it, but had not been allowed to go in wading.
“It’s too muddy,” Mrs. Bobbsey had said.
But now the two little Bobbsey twins made their way down to this pond, no one in the house seeing them.
“I’ll get my shoes and stockings off before you do!” cried Freddie, sitting down on the ground near the water.
“You will not! I can beat you!” cried Flossie.
She did, but she tore one of her stockings while taking it off in such a hurry.
“I beat! I beat!” she cried, dancing up and down.
“But you tore your stocking!” cried Freddie, pointing to the hole.
“I don’t care—it was an old stocking,” replied Flossie.
“Well, anyhow, I’ll get in wading first!” shouted Freddie. He made a dash toward the water, Flossie following closely after him.
“Oh! Oh!” suddenly cried the little girl.
Freddie turned and saw that she had fallen down.
“Did you hurt yourself, Flossie?” asked her brother kindly.
“N-n-no; not mu-mu-much!” she stammered. “Is my—now, is my nose red?” she asked, raising her head from the ground, where she still lay.
Freddie ran forward and dipped one foot in the water of the pond.
“That’s to show I beat and got in first,” he said. Then he went back to Flossie who was still stretched out on the ground. He wanted to be kind to his sister, but a race was a race. “Your nose is a little red,” he went on.
“Is it bleeding?” Flossie wanted to know, about ready to cry.
“No, it isn’t bleeding,” Freddie answered.
“Then I guess it’s all right,” Flossie went on. “Please help me up, Freddie.”
Freddie did this, and the two barefooted Bobbsey twins, hand in hand, walked toward the pond. Freddie did not care now if Flossie got in ahead of him, for he had wet his feet first.
However, Flossie was a bit timid, so she stood on the edge of the pond and said:
“Wade in again, Freddie, and tell me if it’s very deep and if it’s cold.”
“It isn’t deep and it isn’t cold,” declared Freddie. “I’ll show you, Flossie!”
He waded boldly out into the pond, splashing about and getting the bottoms of his little trousers wet. He turned toward Flossie, to tell her to come on out, but, suddenly, a queer look came over the little boy’s face.
“Oh, Flossie!” he cried. “Something’s got me by the toe! Oh, I guess it’s a mud turkle! Go call mother!”
Flossie paused for a moment on the edge of the pond.
“Go on! Go on!” cried Freddie, dancing about with one foot out of the water. The other seemed stuck in the mud. “Go on. Call mother! Tell her a mud turkle has me by the toe!”
“I don’t see any turkle,” remarked Flossie. Both she and Freddie called it “turkle,” instead of turtle.
“Well, the turkle is here all right!” Freddie exclaimed. “He has me by the toe! Maybe it’s a snapping turkle ’stid of a mud turkle! But go call mother!”
Away ran Flossie, and she was soon gasping to her mother:
“It’s got him by the toe! It’s got him by the toe!”
“What has who by the toe?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“The turkle has Freddie by the toe,” explained Flossie. “Come on, Mother!”
“Where is Freddie?” asked his mother.
“Down in the duck pond,” answered Flossie.
“Didn’t I tell you not to go wading there?” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. But she did not wait for Flossie to answer. On hurried the mother of the Bobbsey twins, Flossie keeping alongside of her.
“Freddie said it was all right to go in wading to-day, ’cause it was yesterday you said we couldn’t go in,” remarked Flossie.
“Oh, my goodness!” gasped Mrs. Bobbsey. “Such children!”
By this time she was within sight of the pond where Freddie stood near the edge. He was crying and was splashed from head to foot with muddy water.
“Oh, Freddie! Are you hurt, child?” called his mother.
“The—the turkle’s—got hold of my toe yet and he won’t let go!” Freddie sobbed.
There was a plank on the edge of the pond, and, pushing this out into the water, Mrs. Bobbsey stepped on it until she could reach the little boy without getting her own feet wet. She put her arms around Freddie and lifted him from the water. That is, she tried to lift him, but at first he did not come.
“He’s stuck in the mud!” shouted Flossie.
“It’s my foot! The turkle has hold of it!” screamed Freddie.
“It must be a very large turtle!” gasped Mrs. Bobbsey. But she did not really believe that a turtle had hold of the little boy’s foot, though he certainly was held fast.
She gave another pull, and this time Freddie came up in her arms. Something was dangling from one foot. At the sight of it Flossie, on the bank, set up a shout.
“Oh, it isn’t a turkle after all!” cried the little girl. “It’s a big jug!”
And so it was. Freddie, wading about in the pond, had stuck his big toe in the mouth of a brown jug that some one had thrown into the duck pond. The jug had stuck to the little boy’s foot, and to him it seemed exactly as if a “turkle” had him.
As Mrs. Bobbsey raised Freddie up in her arms, the jug fell from his toe and splashed back into the pond.
“There goes your turtle,” said his mother. “My! what a time you’ve had! You shouldn’t have gone in wading, Flossie and Freddie!”
“I told him you said not to,” remarked the little girl.
“But I didn’t think you meant to-day,” observed Freddie, as he sat down on the grass and looked carefully at his big toe. Aside from being red, like Flossie’s nose, it was not cut or hurt.
“I didn’t want you to go in wading any time in this pond,” said the children’s mother. “There is broken glass in it and pieces of tin on which you might cut your feet. That’s why I wanted you to stay out.”
“Oh!” murmured Freddie. “I thought it was ’cause you didn’t want us to get wet.”
“Don’t go in again!” warned Mrs. Bobbsey, and thinking Freddie had been frightened enough she did not punish him any more.
“I—I tore my stocking a little,” confessed Flossie, wanting to have all the unpleasant things over with at once.
“That’s too bad,” said her mother. “You should have minded me. Well, put on your shoes and we’ll go back to the house.”
One might have thought this would be the last of the adventures of Flossie and Freddie for that day, but it was not. Just before sunset they went out in the barn to play in the hay. They slid on the sweet-smelling dried grass for a time, coasting down from the mow to the barn floor.
Then Flossie had an idea.
“Let’s hunt where the hens lay their eggs and bring in some,” proposed the little girl.
“That’ll be fun,” agreed Freddie.
They crawled about in the hay, looking here and there for nests with white eggs in them. Suddenly Flossie gave a cry as she felt herself slipping on the smooth hay into a hole.
“What’s the matter?” asked Freddie, who was in another part of the barn. “Did you find a nest?”
Flossie answered “yes,” for she had found a nest. She had slid right into one containing nearly a dozen eggs. She had sat down on them, smashing the eggs and covering herself with broken shells and sticky whites and yellows.
“Oh, you’d better call mother!” sighed Flossie, when she saw what had happened.
“This is worser than when the jug-turkle caught me by the toe!” shouted Freddie, as he dashed for the house.
“Oh, my goodness, what will happen next?” sighed Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw the woeful sight of Flossie, very dirty, sitting in the nest, for right there the little girl had stayed, waiting for her mother to come to her. She took the little girl into the house to clean her, and when Flossie had on dry clothes her mother said:
“Now you and Freddie stay on the porch until bedtime.”
“Do you think Daddy and Bert will come back soon?” asked Freddie.
“Perhaps,” said their mother. “At any rate, I hope so.”
CHAPTER XXIICAUGHT AT LAST
Meanwhile Bert and his father were keeping on with the search for Baby May. Once they saw an old woman going along the road ahead of them, carrying a sack over her back.
“Oh, maybe she has Baby May in that bag!” cried Bert.
His father hardly thought so, but speeded up the auto until they reached the old woman.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“Have you a baby in that sack?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“Goodness, no! I should hope not,” answered the woman, with a laugh. “I’ve got potatoes in here. Why would I be carrying a baby?”
Then Mr. Bobbsey explained that he and Bert were looking for a kidnapper and they inquired of the “potato woman,” as they called her, whether she had seen anything of Baby May.
“No, I haven’t,” she answered. “I’ve just been after these potatoes, that’s all.”
As the bag was heavy, Mr. Bobbsey gave the woman and her potatoes a ride to the woman’s house.
“Thank you,” she said, as she got down. “I hope you find that kidnapper and the baby.”
“We may get some news of her in the morning,” said Mr. Bobbsey, for it was now getting on toward night.
The two in the automobile kept on to the next town where Mr. Bobbsey had decided to stay all night. There was little use in going farther, and they could get no news of the strange woman by inquiring at the post-office and the stores.
Bert and his father went to the one hotel in the place, and from there they telephoned back to Mrs. Bobbsey at Pine Hill, telling her their plans.
“I don’t suppose you have any news, have you?” asked Mr. Bobbsey of his wife over the wire. “Did Jim Denton get any clews?”
“Yes,” she answered. “He found some persons who had seen the old woman, carrying a bundle, going down the road. That was the baby, I’m sure. But Jim lost trace of the woman. Very likely she got a ride in some auto. But he’s going to keep right on with the search.”
“If she went down his part of the road, then there isn’t much use in our keeping on this way,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Bert and I will return in the morning.”
So it was decided. Bert was rather sorry his adventure had come to such an end, for he hoped they might get some trace of the strange woman in the direction he and his father had taken, but it was not to be.
In the morning Mr. Bobbsey and Bert went back to Pine Hill, reaching there about ten o’clock. Soon after they arrived they had a telephone message from Mr. Denton.
“The old woman was seen around the town of Cardley,” the constable said. “You’d better go over there, and I’ll meet you. I don’t know her and I might make a mistake and pick out the wrong one.”
“I’ll know that old woman again, if I see her!” exclaimed Bert.
“And I’ll know Baby May,” added his father.
“Oh, can’t I go with you?” begged Nan, as her father and brother were about to start off again.
“You might take her with you,” suggested Mrs. Bobbsey. “If you do get Baby May back Nan can take care of her.”
So Nan was allowed to go. Flossie and Freddie cried and begged to go also, but this was not permitted. However, their mother promised to take them on a picnic to pass the time until the others should return.
Constable Jim Denton proved to be a good detective. He had finally got trace of the old woman carrying the baby, and he found that, as had been thought, she had been given a ride—a “lift,” the constable called it—by a kind farmer.
“He left her in Cardley, and she said she was going to stay there all night,” Mr. Denton explained.
Mr. Bobbsey made good speed to Cardley and found the constable there waiting for him.
“Where is the old woman?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, as he met the constable at the village hotel.
“She’s stopping at a farmhouse just outside the town,” he said. “I located her, but I didn’t want to make any move to arrest her, for fear she’d get excited and maybe hurt the baby, or steal off again. She’s pretty well tired out, from what I hear, and I guess it will be an easy matter to catch her.”
“Is Baby May all right?” Nan asked anxiously.
“Oh, bless your heart, yes!” replied Mr. Denton. “I guess the old woman took good care of the baby.”
They all went out to the farmhouse in Mr. Bobbsey’s automobile, as the constable said his little car had a flat tire. As they approached the place Nan and Bert saw, standing out in the front yard, a figure they well knew.
It was that of the strange old woman they had first seen passing their house and later sneaking around Pine Hill. As soon as the woman, who was without her shawl now and who did not have an umbrella, saw them, she made a dash toward the house.
But Jim Denton was too quick for her. Leaping from the automobile while it was still moving, he caught her by the arm and cried:
“No, you don’t! We have you now! You can’t get away with the baby again!”
The old woman did not struggle. Indeed, now that she was caught, she seemed very calm and not at all queer.
“Very well,” she said. “I am not going to run away. You will find everything all right. I have a very good claim to this baby.”
“That you’ll have to explain to the police,” said Mr. Bobbsey, in a stern voice. “Where is Baby May?”
“Her name isn’t May. It’s Jenny,” returned the old woman, with a faint smile. “Jenny Watson. If you’ll come in I’ll explain everything.”
Wonderingly the two Bobbsey twins followed their father, the constable and the old woman into the farmhouse. The old woman suddenly burst into tears as she was about to open the door of a room.
“I hope nothing has happened to Baby May,” said Mr. Bobbsey, for he and his wife had grown to love the baby very much.
“Oh, no, Jenny is all right. She is asleep, I think,” said the old woman. “But I feel so bad over all that has happened. It wasn’t exactly my fault—I couldn’t help it. But if I had not gotten the baby back! Oh, it would have been terrible!” She wiped away her tears.
“Don’t feel bad,” said Mr. Bobbsey kindly. “Of course I don’t understand it at all—why you should abandon the baby and then kidnap her—but—”
“Hush!” whispered the old lady, putting her finger to her lips as she stepped into the darkened room. Softly she raised the curtain, and there on a bed Nan and the others saw the baby sweetly sleeping.
“Oh, the little darling!” murmured Nan. “I’m so glad we have her back!”
“Well, my dear,” whispered the old woman, “I’m afraid I can’t let you have her back. You see she has a father and mother of her own, and they will want their baby.”
“Then you aren’t the mother?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, more and more puzzled over the matter.
“No, I am not Jenny’s mother,” was the answer. “If you will come into the next room, where we can talk without waking baby, I’ll tell you the story. It is a very strange one.”
“Well,” said Mr. Bobbsey, when they were all seated in a pleasant room of the farmhouse where, the old woman said, she had engaged board for herself and the baby, “we are now ready for the story. And then I must telephone to my wife that the baby is all right.”
“Your wife took very good care of Jenny, and I want to thank her when I see her,” said the old woman. “Now I will be as short as I can.
“My name,” she said, “is Sarah Martin. I have been a widow for a number of years. Several months ago my cousin, Mrs. Henry Watson, came to me and said her husband had to go to South America on a business trip, and she felt that she ought to go with him, as he was not in very good health.
“They did not think it would be safe to take the baby to South America with them, so I agreed to look after little Jenny—that’s her real name—Jenny Watson.”
“We called her May Washington Bobbsey,” said Bert.
“We did that,” explained his father, “because we found her on the first day of May, and we understood from the railroad men that you had given a name that sounded like Washington.”
“Wassingham was my name before I was married,” explained Mrs. Martin. “Very likely I gave that name when I was out of my mind—partly crazy, I guess I must have been—and they understood me to say Washington.”
“Was that on account of the baby?” asked the constable.
“No, not exactly. But the fact that I had lost Jenny made me feel worse,” replied Mrs. Martin. “Well, as I was telling you, my cousin and her husband went to South America and left Jenny with me. They were to be gone about six months, and they are now on their way home. If I hadn’t been able to get Jenny for them before they arrived, I don’t know what I would have done!
“Everything went along nicely for the first month. I kept Jenny with me in my home at Blakeville, and she grew and thrived. Then, one day, when I was cleaning a closet, some dishes fell on my head. I was knocked unconscious, and when I was able to get up I had a queer feeling. I wasn’t myself. I seemed to have forgotten my name, and all I could remember about the baby was a feeling that I ought to get rid of her.
“So, not really knowing what I was doing, I put her in a basket, wrapped a shawl around myself, and, taking a green umbrella, I set out. I had only one idea in mind—to leave the baby at some house where there were other children. I must have felt that in such a place she would be well taken care of.
“I took the train from my home to your town, though I don’t remember anything about getting off the train. I do remember, though, tramping around in the rain. I saw some children’s faces at a window, and I made up my mind that would be a good house at which to leave the baby.”
“That was our house,” murmured Nan.
“Yes, dearie, that must have been your house,” said Mrs. Martin. “Well, once I had picked out the house, I lingered around until after dark, and then, making sure the baby was well protected in the basket, I left her on your doorstep and, ringing the bell, slipped off in the rain and darkness. I hid myself and watched to see if the door would be opened, and when it wasn’t, I went softly up again and rang the bell a second time.”
“We thought it was the lightning making the bell ring,” explained Bert, “for we couldn’t see any one on the steps.”
“No, I slipped away as soon as I rang the bell, and I suppose you didn’t notice the basket in the darkness,” said Mrs. Martin. “But after I had rung the bell the second time I felt sure you would take in the baby, so I slipped away for good.
“What happened for several weeks after that, I don’t remember. But finally some one noticed that I was acting queerly, and I was taken to a hospital, and there I was cured. Then when I remembered what I had done—taken Baby Jenny away and deserted her—I went nearly crazy again. I tried to remember where I had left her, but for a long time I couldn’t. Then, when I did get to your house, I watched my chance to take the baby away again.”
“Why didn’t you come in and tell us your story?” asked Mr. Bobbsey. “We would have given you back the baby had we known.”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t believe me,” answered Mrs. Martin. “So I watched my chance. I managed to find out that you had gone to Pine Hill, and I followed you there. Then I kept on waiting for an opportunity to take back the baby, as I had a right to do. At last, yesterday, my chance came. I saw Baby Jenny asleep in her carriage, I slipped up and took her out. Then I slipped away, hiding in the woods until after dark, and getting a ride until I reached this place.
“I thought everything would be all right and that I could restore the baby to her parents, who are expected home in a few days. But when I saw you coming I feared you would take her away from me again, so I rushed in here. Then I decided to tell you the whole story. I knew I had a right to the baby, now that my mind is well again.”
“Of course you have a right to the baby until her parents come,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “It has been a queer mix-up all around, and I am very sorry for you. Have you written to Mr. and Mrs. Watson?”
“I didn’t write and tell them I had lost the baby,” answered Mrs. Martin. “I didn’t dare do that. But I had a cablegram from them asking how Jenny was, and to-day I sent them a message, saying she was well. For indeed she is. Your wife took very good care of her. Oh, I am so sorry for all the trouble I have caused,” and the old woman wept again.
“You couldn’t help it,” said Mr. Bobbsey kindly. “Perhaps you had better come back and stay with my wife until Mr. and Mrs. Watson arrive from South America. Bring Baby Jenny and stay with us.”
“Oh, yes, please do!” begged Nan. “We won’t know what to do without Baby May—I mean Baby Jenny!” she quickly corrected herself.
“All right, I’ll do that,” said Mrs. Martin.
The children were very excited and began making plans for taking care of the infant. They were to get good practise for their next adventure to be known as “The Bobbsey Twins Keeping House.”
Before going to the farm, they telephoned the news to Mrs. Bobbsey at Pine Hill, and there was a happy meeting when, once more, the baby was with those who had cared for the little foundling.
“You poor woman! How you must have suffered,” said Mrs. Bobbsey to Mrs. Martin, after having heard the story.
“You will never know how terrible it was when I realized that I had given the baby away—left her on a strange doorstep. And then I couldn’t remember for a long while where it was!” said Mrs. Martin. “But now it has all ended happily.”
And so it had, for a few days later the ship bearing Mr. and Mrs. Watson came in from South America, and the parents made a quick trip out to Pine Hill, where the mother gathered into her arms the baby who had gone through so many strange adventures.
No one blamed Mrs. Martin, for it was an accident, though undoubtedly if she had come to the Bobbseys and explained everything, instead of trying to kidnap the baby, it would have been much better. But, as she said, she hardly knew what she was doing.
“Well, I wish we could keep the baby,” said Nan. “But maybe something else will happen pretty soon.”
“Maybe,” agreed Bert. “Anyhow, it was exciting while it lasted.” And the other Bobbsey twins agreed with this.
THE END
THEBOBBSEY TWINS BOOKSbyLaura Lee Hope
THE
BOBBSEY TWINS BOOKS
byLaura Lee Hope
These are books that charm boys and girls between the ages of three and ten. Many of the adventures of these famous twins are comical in the extreme, and all the accidents and incidents that ordinarily happen to youthful personages happen to these many-sided little mortals.
The Bobbsey Twins
GROSSET & DUNLAP
THEHONEY BUNCH BOOKSbyHelen Louise Thorndyke
THE
HONEY BUNCH BOOKS
byHelen Louise Thorndyke
Honey Bunch is a dainty, thoughtful little girl, and to know her is to take her to your heart at once. Little girls everywhere will want to discover what interesting experiences she is having wherever she goes.
HONEY BUNCH:
GROSSET & DUNLAP