Down the White House driveway rolled the carriage, drawn by the prancing horses. It was coming toward the iron gate near which, on the sidewalk, stood the Bobbsey twins, with their new friends, Billy and Nell Martin.
On the front seat of the carriage, which was an open one, in spite of the fact that the day was cool, though not very cold, sat two men. One drove the horses and the other sat up very straight and still.
"I should think he'd have an automobile," remarked Bert.
"He has," answered Billy. "He has an auto—two of 'em, I guess. But lots of times he rides around Washington in a carriage just as he's doing now."
"That's right," chimed in Nell. "Sometimes we see the President and his wife in a carriage, like now, and sometimes in a big auto."
By this time the carriage, containing the President of the United States, was passing through the gate. A crowd of curious persons, who had seen what was going on, as had the Bobbsey twins, came hurrying up to catch a glimpse of the head of the nation. The police officers and the men from the White House ground kept the crowd from coming too close to the President's carriage.
The Chief Executive, as he is often called, saw the crowd of people waiting to watch him pass. Some of the ladies in the crowd waved their hands, and others their handkerchiefs, while the men raised their hats.
Billy put his hand to his cap, saluting as the soldiers do, and Bert, seeing this, did the same thing. Nell and Nan, being girls, were not, of course, expected to salute. As for Flossie and Freddie they were too small to do anything but just stare with all their eyes.
As the President's carriage drove along he smiled, bowed, and raised his hat to those who stood there to greet him. The President's wife also smiled and bowed. And then something in the eager faces of the Bobbsey twins and their friends, Nell and Billy, attracted the notice of the President's wife.
She smiled at the eager, happy-looking children, waved her hand to them, and spoke to her husband. He turned to look at the Bobbseys and their friends, and he waved his hand, He seemed to like to have the children watching him.
And then Flossie, with a quick little motion kissed the tips of her chubby, rosy fingers and fluttered them eagerly toward the President's wife.
"I threw her a kiss!" exclaimed Flossie with a laugh.
"I'm gin' to throw one too," exclaimed Freddie. And he did.
The President's wife saw what the little Bobbsey twins had done, and, as quick as a flash, she kissed her hand back to Flossie and Freddie.
"Oh, isn't that sweet!" exclaimed a woman in the throng, and when, afterward, Nan told her mother what had happened, Mrs. Bobbsey said that when Flossie and Freddie grew up they would long remember their first sight of a President of the United States.
"Well, I guess that's all we can see now," remarked Billy, as the President's carriage rolled off down the street and the crowd that had gathered at the White House gate began moving on. The gates were closed, the policemen and guards turned away, and now the Bobbsey twins and their friends were ready for something else.
"Where do you want to go?" asked Billy of Bert.
"Oh, I don't know. 'Most anywhere, I guess."
"Could we go to see the Washington Monument?" asked Nan. "I've always wanted to see that, ever since I saw the picture of it in one of daddy's books at home."
"I don't believe we'd better go out there alone," said Nell. "It's quite a way from here. We'd better have our mothers or our fathers with us. But we can walk along the streets, and go in the big market, I guess."
"Let's do that!" agreed Billy. "There's heaps of good things to eat in the market," he added to Bert. "It makes you hungry to go through it."
"Then I don't want to go!" laughed Bert. "I'm hungry now."
"I know where we can get some nice hot chocolate," said Nell. "It's in a drug store, and mother lets Billy and me go there sometimes when we have enough money from our allowance."
"Oh, I'm going to treat!" cried Bert. "I have fifty cents, and mother said I could spend it any way I pleased. Come on and we'll have chocolate. It's my treat!"
"We may go, Mayn't we, Jane?" asked Nell, of the maid who had accompanied them.
"Oh, yes," was the smiling answer. "If you go to Parson's it will be all right."
And a little later six smiling, happy children, and a rosy, smiling maid were seated before a soda counter sipping sweet chocolate, and eating crisp crackers.
After that Billy and Nell took the Bobbsey twins to the market, which is really quite a wonderful place in Washington, and where, as Billy said, it really makes one hungry to see the many good things spread about and displayed on the stands.
"I think we've been gone long enough now," said the maid at last. "We had better go back."
So, after looking around a little longer at the part of the market where flowers were sold and where old negro women sold queer roots, barks, and herbs, the Bobbsey twins and their friends started slowly back toward the Martin house.
On the way they passed a store where china and glass dishes were sold, and there were many cups, saucers and plates in one of the windows.
"Wait a minute!" cried Bert, as Billy was about to pass on. "I want to look here!"
"What for?" Billy asked. "You don't need any dishes!"
"I want to see if Miss Pompret's sugar bowl and cream pitcher are here,"Bert answered. "If Nan or I can find them we'll get a lot of money, andI could spend my part while I was here."
"Why Bert Bobbsey!" cried Nan, "you couldn't find Miss Pompret's things here—in a store like this. They only sell new china, and hers would be secondhand!"
"I know it," admitted Bert. "But there might be a sugar bowl and pitcher just like hers here, even if they were new."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Nan. "There couldn't be any dishes like MissPompret's. She said there wasn't another set in this whole country."
"Well, I don't see 'em here, anyhow!" exclaimed Bert, after he had looked over the china in the window. "I guess her things will never be found."
"No, I guess not," agreed Billy, to whom, and his sister, Nan told the story of the reward of one hundred dollars offered by Miss Pompret for the return of her wonderful sugar bowl and cream pitcher, while Bert was looking at the window display.
"Well, did you have a good time?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, when her twins came trooping back.
"Yes. And we saw the President!" cried Nan.
And then they told all about it.
The Bobbseys spent the rest of the day visiting their friends, the Martins, and returned to their hotel in the evening. They planned to have other pleasure going about the city to see the sights the next day and the day following.
"Could we ever go into the house where the President lives?" asked Nan of her father that night.
"Yes, we can visit the White House or, rather, one room in it," said Mr. Bobbsey. "What they call the 'East Room' is the one in which visitors are allowed. Perhaps we may go there tomorrow, if Mr. Martin and I can finish some business we are working on."
After breakfast the next morning the Bobbsey twins were glad to hear their father say that he would take them to the White House; and, a little later, in company with other visitors, they were allowed to enter the home of the President, and walk about the big room on the east side of the White House.
"I'm going to sit down on one of the chairs," said Nan. "Maybe it will be one that the President once sat on."
"Very likely it will be," laughed Mrs. Bobbsey, as Nan picked out a place into which she "wiggled." From the chair she smiled at her brothers and sister, and they, too, took turns sitting in the same chair.
Bert found a pin on the thick green carpet in the room. The carpet was almost as thick and green as the moss in the woods, and how Bert ever saw the tiny pin I don't know. But he had very sharp eyes.
"What are you going to do with it?" asked his father.
"Just keep it," the boy answered. "Maybe it's a pin the President's wife once used in her clothes."
"Oh, you think it's a souvenir!" laughed Mrs. Bobbsey, as Bert stuck the pin in the edge of his coat. And for a long time he kept that common, ordinary pin, and he used to show it to his boy friends, and tell them where he found it.
"The White House President's pin," he used to call it.
"And now," said Mr. Bobbsey, as they came from the White House, "I think we'll have time to see the Monument before lunch."
"That's good!" exclaimed Nan. "And shall we go up inside it?"
"I think so," her father replied.
Washington Monument, as a good many of you know, is not a solid shaft of stone. It is built of great granite blocks, as a building is built, and is, in fact, a building, for it has several little rooms in the base; rooms where men can stay who watch the big pointed shaft of stone, and other rooms where are kept the engines that run the elevator.
The bottom part of Washington Monument is square, and on one side is a doorway. Above the base the shaft itself stretches up over five hundred feet in height, and the top part is pointed, like the pyramids of the desert. The monument shaft is hollow, and there is a stairway inside, winding around the elevator shaft. Some people walk up the stairs to get to the top of the monument, where they can look out of small windows over the city of Washington and the Potomac River. But most persons prefer to go up and down in the elevator, though it is slow and, if there are many visitors they have to await their turns.
If the Bobbseys had walked up inside the monument they would have seen the stones contributed by the different states and territories. Each state sent on a certain kind of stone when the monument was being built, and these stones are built into the great shaft.
As it happened, there was not a very large crowd visiting the monument the day the Bobbseys were there, so they did not have long to wait for their turn in the elevator.
"This isn't fast like the Woolworth Building elevators were," remarkedBert as they felt themselves being hoisted up.
"No," agreed his father. "But this does very well. This is not a business building, and there is no special hurry in getting to the top."
But at last they reached the end of their journey and stepped out of the elevator cage into a little room. There were windows on the sides, and from there the children could look out.
"It's awful high up," said Nan, as she peeped out.
"Not as high as the Woolworth Building," stated Bert, who had jotted down the figures in a little book he carried.
Flossie and Freddie had gone around to the other side of the elevator shaft with their mother, to look from the windows nearest the river, and, a moment later, Mr. Bobbsey, Nan and Bert heard a cry of:
"Oh, Flossie! Flossie! Look out! There it goes!"
MR. BOBBSEY, who was standing near Bert and Nan, turned quickly as he heard his wife call and ran around to her side.
"What's the matter?" he called. "Has Flossie fallen?"
But one look was enough to show him that the two little Bobbsey twins and their mother were all right. But Flossie was without her hat, and she had been wearing a pretty one with little pink roses on it.
"What happened?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, while one of the men who stay inside the Monument at the top, to see that no accidents happen, came around to inquire if he could be of any help.
"It's Flossie's hat," explained Mrs. Bobbsey. "She was taking it off, as she said the rubber band hurt her, when a puff of wind came along—-" "And it just blowed my hat right away!" cried Flossie. "It just blowed it right out of my hand, and it went out of the window, my hat did! And now I haven't any more hat, and I'll—I'll—an'—an'—"
Flossie burst into tears.
"Never mind, little fat fairy!" her father comforted her, as he put his arms around her. "Daddy will get you another hat."
"But I want that one!" sobbed Flossie. "It has such pretty roses on it, an' I liked 'em, even if they didn't smell!"
"I guess the little girl's hat will be all right when you get down on the ground," said the monument man. "Many people lose their hats up here, and unless it's a man's stiff one, or unless it's raining or snowing, little harm comes to them. I guess your little girl's hat just fluttered to the ground like a bird, and you can pick it up again."
"Do you think so?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Oh, you'll get her hat back again, ma'am, I'm sure," the man said. "There's lots of boys and young men who stay around the monument, hoping for a chance to earn a stray dime or so by showing visitors around or carrying something. One of them probably saw the hat flutter out of the window, and somebody will pick it up."
"Well, let's go down and see," suggested Mr. Bobbsey. "I think we have had all the view we want."
"Don't cry, Flossie," whispered Nan consolingly, as she took her little sister by the hand. "We'll get your hat back again."
"And the roses, too?" Flossie asked.
"Yes, the roses and everything," her mother told her.
"If I were a big, grown-up fireman, I could climb down and get Flossie's hat," said Freddie. "That's what firemans do. They climb up and down big places and get things—and people," the little boy added after a moment of thought.
"Well, I don't want my little fireman climbing down WashingtonMonument," said Mr. Bobbsey. "It's safer to go down in the elevator."
And, a little later, the Bobbsey twins and their father and mother were back on the ground again. Once outside the big stone shaft, they saw a boy come running up with Flossie's hat in his hand.
"Oh, look! Look!" cried the little girl. "There it is! There it is!"
"Is this your hat?" the small boy wanted to know. "I saw it blow out of the window, and I chased it and chased it. I was afraid maybe it would blow into the river."
"It was very nice of you," said Mr. Bobbsey, and he gave the boy twenty-five cents, which pleased that small chap very much.
Flossie's hat was a little dusty, but the pink roses were not soiled, and soon she was wearing it again. Then, smiling and happy, she was ready to go with the others to the next sight-seeing place.
"Where now?" asked Bert, as they started away from the little hill on which the Monument stands.
"I think we'll go to the Smithsonian Museum," said his father. "There are a few things I want to see, though you children may not be very much interested. Then I want to take your mother to the art gallery and after that—well, we'll see what happens next," and he smiled at the Bobbsey twins.
"I know it will be something nice!" exclaimed Nan.
"I hope it's something good to eat!" murmured Bert. "I'm hungry!"
"I'd like to see a fire!" cried Freddie. "Do they ever have fires inWashington, Daddy?"
"Oh, yes, big ones, sometimes. But we really don't want to see any, because a fire means danger and trouble for people."
"And wettings, too," put in Flossie. "Sometimes when Freddie plays fire he gets me wet."
"Well, I'm goin' to be a fireman when I grow up," declared Freddie. "And I wish I had my little fire engine now, 'cause I don't like it not to have any fun."
"We'll have some fun this afternoon," his father promised him.
Just as Mr. Bobbsey had expected, the children were not much amused in the art gallery or the museum. But Mrs. Bobbsey liked these places, and, after all, as Nan said, they wanted their mother to have a good time on this Washington trip.
After lunch they went again to call on the Martins, as Mr. Bobbsey had to see the father of Billy and Nell on business.
"And where are we going to have some fun?" Bert asked, as they journeyed away from their hotel toward the Martin house.
"You'll see," his father promised. The children tried to guess what it might be, but they could not be sure of anything.
It did not take Mr. Bobbsey long to get through with his business withMr. Martin and then the father of the twins said to Mrs. Martin:
"Can you let Billy and Nell come with us on a little trip?"
"To be sure. But where are you going?" Mrs. Martin replied.
"I thought we'd take one of the big sight-seeing autos and ride about the city, and perhaps outside a little way," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Nell and Billy can tell us the best way to go."
"Oh, yes! I can do that'" cried Billy. "I often take rides that way with my uncle when he comes to Washington. Come on, Nell! We'll get ready."
"May we really go?" asked Nell, of her mother.
"Yes, indeed!" was the answer.
So, a little later, the Bobbsey twins, with Billy and Nell and Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, were on one of the big automobiles. It was not too cold to ride outside, as they were all bundled up warm.
Through the different parts of the city the sight-seeing car went, a man on it telling the persons aboard about the different places of interest as they were passed. In a little while the machine rumbled out into the quieter streets, where the houses were rather far apart.
Then the automobile came to a stop, and some one asked:
"What's so wonderful to see here?"
"Nothing," the driver of the car answered. "But I have to get some water for the radiator. We won't be here very long. Those who want to, can get out and walk around."
"Yes, I'll be glad to stretch by legs," said one man with a laugh. He was sitting next to Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, and they began talking to him. Nan and Bert were talking to Billy and Nell, and, for the time being, no one paid much attention to Flossie and Freddie, who were in a rear seat.
Suddenly Flossie called to her little brother;
"Oh, look! There's a cat! It's just like our Snoop!"
Freddie looked to where Flossie pointed with her chubby finger.
"No, that isn't like our Snoop," said the little boy, shaking his head.
"Yes, 'tis too!" declared his sister. "I'm going to get down and look at it. I like a cat, and I didn't see one close by for a long time."
"Neither did I," agreed Freddie. "If that one isn't like our Snoop, it's a nice cat, anyhow."
The cat, which seemed to be a stray one, was walking toward the car, its tail held high in the air "like a fishing pole."
Flossie and Freddie were in the rear seat, as I have said, and no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Their father and mother were busy talking to the man who had gotten down to "stretch his legs," and Nan and Bert, with Billy and Nell, were busy talking.
"Let's get down," proposed Flossie.
"All right," agreed Freddie.
In another moment the two smaller Bobbsey twins had left their seat, climbed down the rear steps of the sight-seeing automobile, and were running toward the stray cat, which seemed to wait for them to come and pet it.
"Nice pussy! Come and let me rub you!" said Freddie softly, as he held out his hand toward the stray cat.
"Yes, come here, Snoop!" added Flossie, as she walked along with her brother.
"'Tisn't Snoop, and you mustn't call him that name," ordered Freddie.
"Well, he looks like Snoop," declared Flossie.
"But if that isn't his name he won't like to be called by it, no more than if I called you Susie when your name's Flossie," went on the little boy.
"Do you s'pose cats know their names?" asked Flossie.
"Course they do!" exclaimed her brother. "Don't our Snoop know his name when I call him, same as our dog Snap does?"
"Oh, well, but our cat is a very, very, smart cat!"
"Maybe this one is, too," Freddie said. "Anyhow, we'll just call him 'Puss' or 'Kittie,' and he'll like that, 'cause that's a name for any cat."
"That's so," agreed Flossie.
So calling to the stray cat in their soft, little voices, and holding out their hands to pet the animal, Flossie and Freddie walked farther away from the sight-seeing car, and soon they were petting the cat that, indeed, did look a bit like Snoop.
They stroked the soft back of the cat, rubbed its ears, and the animal rubbed up against their legs and purred. Then, suddenly, the cat heard a dog barking somewhere, and ran down toward the side entrance of a large, handsome house.
"Oh, come on!" cried Freddie to his sister, as he saw the cat running away. "Maybe there's some little cats back here, and we could get one to take home with us! Come on, Flossie!"
Flossie was willing enough to go, and in a moment they were in the rear yard of one of the big houses, and out of sight from the street where the auto stood, while the man was putting water in the radiator.
The cat, once over its fright about the barking dog, seemed quieter now, and let the two little Bobbsey twins pet it again. Freddie saw a little box-like house in one corner of the yard and cried:
"I'm going to look here, Flossie! Maybe there's kittens in it!"
"Oh, let me see!" exclaimed the little girl. Forgetting, for a time, the stray cat they had started to pet, she and her brother ran over to the little box-like house.
"Better look out!" exclaimed Flossie, as they drew near.
"Why?" asked Freddie.
"'Cause maybe there's a strange dog in that box."
"If there was a dog in this yard I guess this cat wouldn't have come in here," replied Freddie. "The cat ran when the other dog barked, and there can't be a dog here, else the cat wouldn't come in."
"I wonder what's there?" murmured Flossie.
"We'll soon find out," her brother said, as he bent over the little house, which was made of some boxes nailed together. There was a tiny window, with a piece of glass in it, and a small door.
Freddie began to open the little door, and he was not very much afraid, for now the cat was purring and rubbing around his legs, and the little boy felt sure that there could be no dog, or anything else scary, in the box-house, or else the cat would not have come so close.
"Maybe there isn't anything in there," suggested Flossie.
"Oh, there's got to be SOMETHING!" declared Freddie. "It's a place for chickens, maybe."
"It's too little for chickens," said Flossie.
"Well, maybe it's a place for——"
That is as far as Freddie got in his talk, for, just then, a voice called from somewhere behind the children:
"Hi there! What do you want?"
"Oh!"
Freddie and Flossie both called out in surprise as they turned. They saw, standing on the back steps of the big house, a boy about as big as Bert.
"We came in after this cat," said Freddie, and he pointed to the stray pussy that was rubbing against his legs.
"Is it your cat?" the boy wanted to know.
Flossie shook her head.
"We just followed after him," she said. "He was out on the street, and we saw him, and we got down to rub him, and he heard a dog bark, and he ran in here, and we ran after him."
"Oh, I see," and the boy on the back steps smiled in a friendly way. "So it isn't your cat."
"No," answered Freddie, "Is it yours?"
The boy shook his head.
"I never saw the cat before," he answered. "It's a nice one, though, and maybe I'll keep it if you don't want it."
"Oh, we don't want it!" Freddie said quickly. "We have a cat of our own at home. His name is Snoop."
"And we have a dog, too," added Flossie. "But his name is Snap. And we have Dinah and Sam. Only they aren't a cat or a dog," she went on. "Dinah is our cook and Sam's her husband."
"Where do you live?" the boy asked.
"Oh, away off," explained Freddie. "We live in Lakeport, and we go to school."
"Only now there isn't any school," went on Flossie. "We can't have a fire 'cause something broke, and we came to Washington."
"Have you come here to live?" the strange boy questioned.
"No, only to visit," explained Freddie. "My father has to see Mr.Martin. Do you know Mr. Martin?"
The strange boy shook his head.
"I guess he doesn't live around here," he remarked. "I've lived here all my life; but there's nobody named Martin on this block. Where did you come from?"
"Offen the auto," explained Freddie. "We were riding on the auto withBilly Martin and Nell, and our father and mother and Nan and Bert and——"
"Say, there are a lot of you!" cried the boy with a laugh.
"It was a big auto," explained Flossie. "But the man had to stop and give it some water, so we got down to pet the cat. It's a nice cat."
"Yes, it's a nice cat all right," agreed the strange boy, and he came down the steps and began to rub the animal. "I like cats," he went on to the children. "What's your names?"
"Flossie and Freddie Bobbsey," answered Freddie. "What's yours?"
"Tom Walker," was the answer. "I guess I know where you came from. It's one of those big, sight-seeing autos. They often go through this street, but I never saw one stop before. You'd better look to see that it doesn't go off and leave you."
"Oh, the man said we could get down," returned Freddie. "And one man is going to stretch his legs. I'd like to see a man stretch his legs." he went on. "I wonder how far he can stretch them?"
"Not very far, I guess," remarked Tom Walker. "But I'm glad to see you, anyhow. I've been sick, and I had to stay home from school, but I'm better now, and I'm going back to-morrow. But I haven't had any one to play with, and I'm glad you came in—you and the cat."
"'Tisn't our cat!" Flossie hastily explained.
"Oh, I know!" agreed the boy. "But he came in with you."
"We thought maybe there were kittens in that box," and Freddie pointed to the one he had been about to open.
"Oh, that was the place where I used to keep my rabbits," said Tom. "I haven't any now, but maybe I'll get some more; so I left the little house in the yard. I like rabbits."
"So do I!" declared Freddie.
"And their nose goes sniff-snuff so funny!" laughed Flossie. "Rabbits eat a lot of cabbage," she said. "If I had something to eat now I would like it."
"Say, I can get some cookies!" cried Tom. "Wait, I'll go in the house after some. You wait here!"
"We'll wait!" said Freddie.
Into the house bounded Tom, and to the cook in the kitchen he called:
"Oh, please give me some cookies. There's a stray cat in our yard and some stray children, and I want to give 'em something to eat, and——"
"My goodness, boy, how you do rattle on!" cried the cook. "What do you mean about stray cats and stray children?"
Freddie and Flossie walked slowly up the yard, away from the empty rabbit house, and stood at the foot of the back steps up which Tom Walker had hurried to ask the cook for something to eat for the "stray children." The little Bobbsey twins had not heard what the cook said to Tom after he had asked for something to eat. But the cook repeated her question.
"What do you mean by stray cats and stray children?"
"There are the stray children out in the yard now," answered Tom. "They strayed away from some place, just as that dog I kept for a while once did. There was a stray cat, too, but I don't see it now."
"Stray children, is it?" cried the jolly cook. "Oh, look at the little darlin's!" she exclaimed, as she saw the small Bobbsey twins standing out in the yard, waiting for Tom to come back. Freddie and Flossie certainly did look very sweet and pretty with their new winter coats and caps on, though it was not very cold. It was not as cold in Washington as in Lakeport.
"Do you think he'll bring us anything to eat?" asked Freddie of Flossie, as they stood there waiting.
"I hope he does," the little girl answered. "I'm hungry."
"So'm I!" Freddie admitted. "I guess that cat was, too. Where did he go?"
The cat answered himself, as though he knew he was being talked about. He came out from under the back steps, rubbed up against Flossie's fat, chubby legs with a mew and a purr, and then, seeing a place where the sun shone nice and warm on the steps, the cat curled up there and began to wash its face, using its paws as all cats do.
"Please, Sarah, can't I have something to eat for the stray children, and maybe for the cat?" again asked Tom of the cook.
"Oh, I dunno!" she answered. "Sure an' you're a bother! Your mother's out and I don't know what to do. These must be lost children, and, most likely, their father or mother's lookin' all over for 'em now. But I'd better bring 'em in an' keep 'em safe here, rather than let 'em wander about the streets. How did they come into our yard, do you think, Tom?"
"They just walked in, after the stray cat. They were on one of the big automobiles, and it stopped, so they got off. I told 'em maybe their folks would be looking for them," went on Tom, who was older than Flossie and Freddie. "But they seem to think it's all right."
"Well, they're lost, as sure as anything," declared the cook. "But it's best to keep 'em here until their folks can come after 'em. I'll give you something for them to eat, Tom, and then you must look after 'em, as I'm too busy, getting ready for the party your mother is going to have this night."
The kind cook soon got ready a plate of cookies and some glasses of milk for Flossie and Freddie. And, as Tom began to feel hungry himself when he saw something being made ready for his new little friends, a place was set for him, also, on a side table in the dining room.
"Call 'em in, now!" said the cook. "Everything is ready. And is the cat there?"
"Yes," answered Tom, as he looked out and saw the pussy curled up in the sun on the steps. "It's there."
"Well, I think I'll give it some milk," said the cook.
So, a little later, Flossie and Freddie, the stray children—for that is what they were—sat down to a nice little lunch in a strange, house. Tom Walker sat down with them, and the stray cat had a saucer of milk in the kitchen.
"I looked out in the street," said the cook, as she came back to getFreddie another glass of milk, "but I don't see any automobile there.Did you really ride here in an auto?"
"Oh, yes," answered Freddie. "And the man on it all the time talked through a red horn, but I didn't know what he said."
"That was the man speaking through a megaphone so everybody on the sight-seeing auto would know what they were looking at as they rode along," said Tom. "They often pass through here, though I haven't seen any to-day."
"But what to do about you children I don't know," said the cook, when Flossie and Freddie had eaten as much as they wanted. "If you did come here on an auto it's gone now, and there isn't a sign of it. I think you must have come two or three streets away from the car before you turned in here."
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Freddie. "When we got down off the auto we saw the cat and we came in after it. The auto was right out in front."
"Well, it isn't there now," said the cook. "I guess it must have gone away and taken your folks with it. Maybe they're looking for you. But I guess you'll have to stay here until they come to find you. You're too small to be allowed to go about alone."
"We like it here," said Flossie, settling back comfortably in her chair."We can stay as long as you want us to."
"And we can stay to supper if you ask us," went on Freddie. "Course mother wouldn't let us ask for an invitation, but if you WANT to ask us to stay we can't help it."
"'Specially if you have cake," added Flossie, smoothing out her dress.
"Yes, 'specially cake!" agreed Freddie.
"Oh my!" laughed the cook. "Sure an' you're very funny! But I like you. And I only wish I knew where your folks were. But the best I can do is to keep you here until they come. They must know about where they lost you. Come, Tom, take the stray children out and amuse them. Your mother'll be home pretty soon."
If Tom's mother had been at home she would have at once telephoned and told the police that she had two lost—or stray—children at her house, so that in case Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey inquired, as they did, they would know that the tots were all right.
But Mrs. Walker was not at home, and the cook did the best she could. She made sure the children were safe and comfortable while they were with her.
And, after they had eaten, Tom got out some of his toys, and he and Flossie and Freddie had a good time playing about the house and in the yard. The stray cat wandered away while Flossie and Freddie were eating their little lunch, and the Bobbsey twins did not see him again.
Now while Flossie and Freddie were having a pretty good time, eating cookies and drinking milk, there was much excitement on the big sight-seeing car where Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, Nan, Bert, and the other, still had their seats.
For some little time after the car had stopped to allow the man to put water in the radiator, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bobbsey missed their smaller twins. They were busy talking, and Bert and Nan were looking about and having a good time, talking to Billy and Nell Martin.
At last, however, the auto man called:
"Everything is all right! Get on board!"
That meant he was going to start off again, and it was not until then that Mrs. Bobbsey thought to look around to see if Flossie and Freddie were all right. And, of course, she did not see them.
"Flossie! Freddie! Where are you?" called Mrs. Bobbsey.
There was no answer, and the seat which the two smaller children had been in on the big bus, was empty.
"Oh, Daddy!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, "Flossie and Freddie have gone."
"Gone? Gone where?" Mr. Bobbsey asked,
"That's it—I can't say," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "The last I saw of them was when the auto stopped."
"I saw the two little tots climb down off the rear steps of the car," said the man who had wanted to "stretch his legs." "They seemed to be going after something," he added.
"It was a cat," said the woman next to the big man who had last spoken. "I saw the children get down and go toward a stray cat and then I got to thinking of something else."
"Oh, if it was a cat you might know it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh. "I guess they're all right. They can't have gone far. Probably they are on the other side of the street, looking at some bedraggled kitten." But a look up and down the street did not show Flossie and Freddie. By this time the auto was all ready to start off again.
"But we can't go without Flossie and Freddie!" cried Nan.
"I should say not!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Oh, where are they? Where can my darlings have gone? What has happened?"
Mrs. Bobbsey's cries of alarm, of course, excited all the other passengers who had got back on the sight-seeing auto, ready to start off again. They had had a little rest while the water was being put into the radiator, and the man had "stretched his legs" all he wanted to, it seemed.
"The children can't be far away," said Mr. Bobbsey. "They were here only a moment ago. Even if they have wandered off, which is probably what they have done, they can't be far."
"They're all right," the man who drove the car assured Mr. Bobbsey. "I didn't see 'em go away, of course, as I was busy, but I'm sure nothing has happened."
"But what shall we do?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, and tears came into her eyes. "It does seem as if more things have happened to Flossie and Freddie since we started on this trip than ever before."
"Oh, they'll be all right," declared Mr. Bobbsey. "I'll look around.Perhaps they may have gone into one of these houses."
"Did you look under the seats?" asked Bert.
"Under the seats!" exclaimed Billy. "What good would that do? Your brother and sister couldn't be under there!"
"Pooh, you don't know much about Flossie and Freddie!" answered Bert."They can be in more places than you can think of; can't they, Nan?"
"Yes, they do get into queer places sometimes. But they aren't under my seat," and Nan looked, to make sure.
"Nor mine," added Nell, as she looked also.
Some of the other passengers on the auto did the same thing. Mr. Bobbsey really thought it might be possible that Freddie and Flossie, for some queer reason, might have crawled under one of the seats when the big machine stopped for water. But the children were not there.
"Oh, what shall we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
"They'll be all right," her husband answered. "They can't be far away."
"That's right ma'am," said a fat, jolly-looking man.
"Some of you go and inquire in the houses near here," suggested the man who drove the auto. "And I'll go and telephone back to the office, and see if they're there."
"But how could they be at your automobile office?" Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to know.
"It might easily happen," replied the man. "We run a number of these big machines. One of them may have passed out this way while I was stopping here for water, and perhaps none of us notice it, and the children may have climbed on and gone on that car, thinking it was this one."
"They couldn't get on if the auto didn't stop," said Billy.
"Well, maybe it stopped," returned the driver. "Perhaps it passed up the next street. The children may have gone down there and gotten on. Whatever has happened, your little ones are all right, ma'am; I'm sure of that."
"I wish I could be!" sighed Mrs. Bobbsey.
Several men volunteered to help Mr. Bobbsey look for the missing twins, and they went to the doors of nearby houses and rang the bells. But to all the answer was the same. Flossie and Freddie had not been seen.
And the reason for this was that the small Bobbsey twins, in following the stray cat, had turned a corner and gone down another street, and were on the block next the one where the auto stood. That was the reason the Walker cook, looking out in front, could see no machine, and why it was that none of those who helped Mr. Bobbsey look for the missing children could find them.
"Well, this is certainly queer!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey, when at none of the houses was there any word of Flossie and Freddie.
"But what are we to do?" cried his wife.
"I think we'd better notify the police," said Mr. Bobbsey. "That will be the surest way."
"Yes, I think it will," agreed the auto man. "I telephoned to the office, but they said no lost children had been turned in. Get aboard, every one, and I'll drive to the nearest police station."
Away started the big auto, leaving Flossie and Freddie behind in the home of Tom Walker on the next street. And though Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, with Nan and Bert and Billy and Nell were much worried, Flossie and Freddie themselves, were having a good time.
For they were playing with Tom, who showed them his toys, and he told them about the rabbits he used to keep.
"I have had as many as six big ones at a time," Tom said. "And I had one pair that had the finest red eyes you ever saw."
"Red eyes!" cried Flossie. "What funny rabbits they must have been!"
"Oh, I know some rabbits have red eyes," declared Freddie. "But not very many. Bert said so."
"I don't believe I'd like to have red eyes," answered his twin sister."Everybody'd think I'd been crying."
"They're not red that way," explained Tom. "They just have the color red in them; just as some people have black eyes, blue eyes, and brown eyes—like that."
"Oh! Say, I heard Nan say once that a girl in her room at school had one black eye and one grey eye. Wasn't that funny?"
"It certainly was," answered Tom. And then he showed the little Bobbsey twins a number of picture books and a locomotive which went around a little track.
Freddie and Flossie were having such a good time that they never thought their father and mother might be worried about them.
But, after a while, Mrs. Walker came home. You can well imagine how surprised she was when she found the two lost, strayed children in her house.
"And so they got off one of the sight-seeing autos, did they?" cried Tom's mother. "Oh, my dears! I'm glad you're here, of course, and glad you had a good time with Tom. But your mother and father will be much frightened! I must telephone to the police at once."
"We'll not be arrested, shall we?" asked Freddie anxiously.
"No, indeed, my dear! Of course not! But your parents have probably already telephoned the police, who must be looking for you. I'll let them know I have you safe."
"Why, course we're safe!" cried Flossie.
So Mrs. Walker telephoned. And, just as she guessed, the police were already preparing to start out to hunt for the missing children. But as soon as they got Mrs. Walker's message everything was all right.
"They're found!" cried Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, when a police officer telephoned to the hotel to let the father of the small Bobbsey twins know that the children were safe. "They're all right!"
"Where were they?" asked his wife,
"All the while they were right around the corner and just in the next street from where our auto was standing."
"Oh, dear me!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, "what a relief."
"I should say so!" agreed Mrs. Martin, who had gone to the hotel, where her friends were staying, to do what she could to help them.
"I'll get a taxicab and bring them straight here," said Mr. Bobbsey.
A little later Flossie and Freddie were back "home" again. That is, if you call a hotel "home," and it was, for the time, to the traveling Bobbseys.
"What made you do it?" asked Flossie's mother, when the story had been told. "What made you go after the stray cat?"
"It was such a nice cat!" said the little girl,
"And we wanted to see if it was like our Snoop," added Freddie.
"Well, don't do such a thing again!" ordered Mr. Bobbsey.
"No, we won't!" promised Freddie.
"No, but they'll do something worse," said Bert in a low voice to his friend Billy, who had also come to the hotel.
So the little excitement was over, and soon the Bobbsey twins were in bed. Not, however, before Nan had asked her father:
"Where are you going to take us to-morrow?"
"To Mount Vernon, I think," was his answer.
"Oh, where Washington used to live!" remarked Bert.
"Where—" But right there Freddie went to sleep.
"Yes, and where he is buried," added Nan.
And then she, too, fell asleep. And she dreamed that Flossie and Freddie were lost again, and that she started out to find them riding on the back of a big cat while Bert rode on a dog, like Snap.
"And I was so glad when I woke up and, found it was only a dream," saidNan, telling Nell about it afterward.
There are two ways of going to Mount Vernon from the city of Washington. Mount Vernon is down on the Potomac River, and one may travel to it by means of a small steamer, which makes excursion trips, or one can get there in a trolley car.
"I think we'll go down by boat and come back by trolley," said Mr.Bobbsey. "In that way we can see more."
"I'd rather go on the boat all the while," said Freddie. "Maybe I could be a fireman on the boat."
"Oh, I think they have all the firemen they; need," laughed his father.
"Is Mount Vernon an old place?" asked Nan, as they were getting ready to leave their hotel after breakfast.
"Quite old, yes," her father answered.
"And do they have old-fashioned things there, like spinning wheels, and old guns and things like those in Washington's headquarters that we went to once?" Nan went on.
"Why, yes, perhaps they do," her father said. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was just thinking," went on Nan, "that if they had a lot of old-fashioned things there they might have Miss Pompret's sugar bowl and cream pitcher, and we could get 'em for her."
"How could we?" asked Bert. "If they were there they'd belong toWashington, wouldn't they, Daddy?"
"Well, I suppose all the things in the house once belonged to him or his friends," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But I don't imagine those two missing pieces of Miss Pompret's set will be at Mount Vernon, Nan."
"No, I don't s'pose so," sighed the little girl. "But, oh, I would like to find 'em!"
"And get the hundred dollars reward!" added Bert.
"Don't think too much of that," advised their mother. "Of course it would be nice to find Miss Pompret's dishes, and do her a favor, but I think it is out of the question after all these years that they have been lost."
The weather was colder than on the day before, when Flossie and Freddie had been lost, and the sun shone fitfully from behind clouds.
"I think we are going to have a snow storm," said Mr. Bobbsey, on their way to take the boat for Mt. Vernon.
"Oh, goodie!" cried Flossie. "I hope it snows a lot!"
"So do I!" added Freddie. "Could we send home for our sled if there's lots of snow, Daddy?" he asked.
"I hardly think it would be worth while," said his father. "We are not going to be here much more than a week longer. And it would be quite a lot of work to get your sleds here and send them home again. I think you'll get all the coasting and skating you want when we get back to Lakeport."
"Anyway, we're having a nice time while we're here," said Nan, with a happy little sigh.
"It's fun when Freddie and Flossie don't get lost," added Bert. "I'm going to keep watch of 'em this time."
"I'll help," added Nan. "Oh, here are Billy and Nell!" she called, waving her hand to their new friends. The Martin children were to go to Mount Vernon with the Bobbsey twins, and they now met them near the place from which the boat started.
"All aboard!" cried Freddie, as they went on the small steamer that was to take them to Mount Vernon. "All aboard. I'm the fireman!"
"There aren't any fires to put out," said, Nell, teasing the small chap a little.
"Yes, there is—a fire in the boiler, and it makes steam," said Freddie, who had often looked in the engine room of steamers. "But I'm not that kind of fireman. I put out fires. I'm going to be a real fireman when I grow up," he added.
Soon they were comfortably seated on board the boat, which after a bit moved out into the Potomac. Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were talking together. Nan, Bert, Billy and Nell were watching another boat which was passing, and Flossie was near them. But Freddie had slipped away, in spite of what Bert had said about going to keep a watchful eye on his small brother.
Suddenly, when the steamer was well out in the river, there was the loud clanging of a bell, and a voice cried:
"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
At once every one on the boat jumped up. The women looked frightened, while the men seemed uncertain what to do.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!" rang the fire alarm bell.
"I hope nothing has happened—that the boat isn't on fire," said Mrs.Bobbsey to her husband. "That would be terrible!"
"I hardly think that is it," he said. "There may be a small fire, somewhere on the boat, but, even if there is, they have a way of putting it out. I'll go and see what it is. You stay with the children."
But just then, after another clanging of the bell, some one was heard to laugh—the ringing, hearty laugh of a man.
"There!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey, "I guess everything is all right. They wouldn't be laughing if there was any danger."
"Let's go to the fire!" cried Bert. "I want to see it!"
"So do I!" chimed in his new chum, Billy, eagerly.
"Oh, can't we see it; whatever it is?" begged Nan.
"First I'll have to make sure there is a fire," replied Mr. Bobbsey. "I hope there isn't. But, if there should be a small one, and the firemen on the boat are putting it out, and if they let us get near enough to see, and if the smoke isn't too thick—"
"Oh, Daddy! Not so many 'ifs' please!" laughed Nan.
The Bobbseys all laughed at this, as did Nell and Billy.
"Freddie would like to see the fire, if there is one," remarked NellMartin.
"Oh, that's so! Where is Freddie?" cried Bert.
Then, for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey noticed that the little blue-eyed and light-haired boy was not with them.
But at that moment around the corner of a deck cabin came a man wearing a cap with gold braid around the edge. He was smiling and leading by the hand a little boy. And the little boy was Freddie!
"Oh, there he is!" cried Flossie. "Freddie, where were you?" she asked."And did you been to see the fire?"
"Well, I rather guess he did!" exclaimed the man, who was the captain of the boat. "He Was the whole fire himself!"
"The whole fire?" cried Mr. Bobbsey. "Do you mean to say that my little boy started a fire?"
"Oh, nothing as bad as that!" said the captain, and he smiled down on Freddie who smiled up at him in return. "No, all your little boy did was to ring the fire alarm bell and then call out 'Fire!' But of course that was enough to start things going, and we had quite a good deal of excitement for a time. But it's all right now, and I think he won't do it again."
"Just what did he do?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as Freddie came over to stand beside his mother. He looked rather ashamed.
"Well, on the deck, back of the wheel-house, which is the little place where I or my men stand to steer the boat, there is a fire alarm bell. It's there for any one to ring who finds the boat on fire, and when the bell is rung all my firemen hurry to put out the blaze," said the captain.
"Now this little chap of yours went up and rang that bell, and then he cried out 'Fire,' as I've told you. Then—well, lots of things happened. But I couldn't help laughing when I found out it was a false alarm, and learned just why Freddie, as he tells me his name is, rang the bell."
"And why was that?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, quickly.
Freddie spoke up for himself.
"The bell had a sign on it," said the little fellow, "and it said to ring it for a fire. I wanted to see a fire, and so I rang the bell and—and—"
Freddie's lips began to quiver. He was just ready to cry.
"There, there, my little man!" said the captain kindly. "No harm is done. Don't worry. It's all right," and he patted Freddie on the shoulder.
"You see it's just as Freddie says," the captain went on. "There is a large sign painted near the bell which reads: 'Ring this for a fire.' I suppose it would be better to say; 'Ring the bell in case of fire.' I believe I'll have it changed to read that way. Anyhow, your little boy saw the sign over the bell, And on the bell is a rope so low that any one, even a child, can reach it. So your Freddie just pulled the rope, clanged the bell, and then he cried 'Fire!' as loudly as he could. Some one else took up the cry, and, there you are!"
"And so you rang the bell, did you, Freddie, because you wanted to see a fire?" asked the father of the little fellow.
"Yes," answered Flossie's brother. "I wanted to see how they put out a fire on a boat, and the bell said for to ring for a fire, and I wanted a fire, I did; not a big one, just a little one, and so——"
"And so you just naturally rang the bell!" laughed the captain. "Well, I guess that's partly my fault for having the sign read that way. I'll have it changed. But your little boy is quite smart to be able to read so well," he added.
"Oh, I go to school!" said Freddie proudly, "only there isn't any now on account of—well I guess the boiler got on fire," he added.
"He's a regular little fireman," said Mr. Bobbsey. "He can't read very much, but one of the first words he learned to spell was 'fire,' and he's never forgotten it."
The boat was now going on down the river toward Mount Vernon, and the excitement caused by the false alarm of fire was over.
Of course Freddie had done wrong, though he had not meant to, and perhaps it was not all his fault. However, his father and mother scolded him a little, and he promised never to do such a thing again.
I wish I could tell you that the Bobbsey twins were interested in Mount Vernon, but the truth of the matter is that the two younger ones were so busy talking about Freddie's fire alarm, and Bert and Nan, with Billy and Nell, also laughed so much about it, that they did not pay much attention to the tomb of the great Washington, or anything about the place where the first President of the United States once had his home.
Of course Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were interested in the place where the wonderful man had lived, and they looked about the grounds where he had once walked, and they visited the house where he had lived. But, really, the children did not care much for it.
"When are we going back?" asked Freddie several times.
"Don't you like it here?" asked his mother. "Just think of what a wonderful and beautiful place this is!"
"Well," said Freddie slowly, "I didn't see any fire engines yet."
Mrs. Bobbsey tried not to laugh, but it was hard work.
"I think we'd better go back to Washington," she said to her husband.
"I think so, too," he answered, and back to Washington they went. This time they rode on a trolley car, and there was no danger of Freddie's sending in an alarm of fire.
And on the way home something quite wonderful happened. At least it was wonderful for Freddie.
He was looking out of the window, when suddenly he gave a yell that startled his father and mother, as well as Nan, Bert, Nell and Flossie, and that made the other passengers sit up.
"Oh, look! There's a fire engine! There's a fire engine!" cried the little chap, pointing; and, surely enough, there was one going along the street. It was bright and shiny, smoke was pouring from it and the horses were prancing.
The other Bobbsey twins turned to look at it, and Bert said:
"Pooh, that's only coming back from an alarm."
"That's so," agreed Mr. Bobbsey. "The horses are going too slowly to be running to a fire, Freddie. They must be coming back."
"Well, it's a fire engine, anyhow," said Freddie, and every one had to agree with him. Freddie watched the shiny engine until it was out of sight, and then he talked about nothing else but fires on the way home.
Tired, but well satisfied with their trip, the Bobbsey's reached their hotel, and the Martin children went to their home, promising to meet the following day and see more Washington sights.
It was about the middle of the night that Mrs. Bobbsey, who slept in the same room with Flossie and Freddie, felt herself being shaken in bed. She roused up to see, in the dim light, Freddie standing near her, and shaking her with his chubby hands.
"What is it, dear?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, sleepily.
"Fire!" hoarsely whispered Freddie. "The house is on fire, and it's real, too, this time!"