When Bert Bobbsey reached home that afternoon, having stopped his play on the lumber piles with Charley and Danny earlier than usual, the small boy saw his father and mother talking together on the side porch. Nan, Nellie Parks, and Grace Lavine were down in the yard under the shady grapevine playing.
"Well, I don't see anything for us to do except to go out West," Bert heard his father saying.
"Oh, do you really mean that?" cried the boy. "Are we going out West where there are Indians and cowboys and ponies and mountains and—and everything?"
His eyes were wide open with excitement.
"I didn't think you were around, or I wouldn't have spoken so loudly," said Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh.
"But, tell me, Daddy! Are we really going out West?" asked Bert. "I've always wanted to go there, and I guess Nan has, too."
"Oh, you can depend upon it, Nan will always want to go where you go, and so will Flossie and Freddie, for that matter!" said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a laugh.
Bert had passed his small brother and sister as he entered the yard. They were playing with a little cart of Freddie's, and, as you can easily guess, Freddie was pretending he was a fireman.
"When are we going?" asked Bert. "Can't we go right away? School is almost over, and I know I'm going to pass 'cause the teacher said so. Nan is, too!"
"My, but you are getting in a hurry!" said Mr. Bobbsey. "We have only just begun to talk of the West and here you are stopping school to go."
"But what is it all about?" Bert went on. "Why do you have to go outWest, Daddy? Aren't you going to have the lumberyard any more?"
"Oh, indeed I am, and perhaps a larger one than before if things turn out the way I expect," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "But here comes Nan," he went on. "I think we might as well tell her and Bert all about it," he said to his wife. "If we go out West Bert and Nan will have to make believe they are almost grown up."
"What's it all about?" asked Nan, as she sat down on the steps beside her brother. Grace and Nellie had gone home to help their mothers get supper.
"Well, to begin at the beginning," said Mr. Bobbsey, "I had a letter to-day from some lawyers out West. Children, your mother has been left a cattle ranch and a lumber tract by a relative who died and made his will in your mother's favor."
"A cattle ranch?" cried Nan. "Oh, I know what that is! We have a picture of one in our geography! There's a lot of cattle in the picture, and cowboys are catching them with lassos."
"Yes, that's one of the things that happen on a ranch," said Mr.Bobbsey. "Well, your mother now owns one of those."
"She does?" cried Nan with wide-open eyes. "Oh, what are you going to do with it?"
"I'm going to be a cowboy on it!" decided Bert, as quickly as that. "I've always wanted to be a cowboy, and now I'm going to. When can I go on your ranch, Mother?" and jumping up eagerly he stood beside her, waiting for her answer.
"Oh, but, dear boy! I don't know anything about it yet," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "The letter has just come, and your father and I were talking over the news when you came. Poor Uncle Watson! I never knew him very well, though I had heard he was quite rich. But I never expected he would leave me his fine ranch, to say nothing of a lumber tract."
"What's a lumber tract?" Nan asked. "Is it a lumberyard like yours,Daddy?"
"No, my dear," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "A lumber tract is what you children would call big woods. It is a place where trees grow that may be cut down and made into lumber. All the boards and planks in my lumberyard were once big trees, growing out West, or up North, or down South. Now it seems that your mother's uncle owned a big forest of trees where lumber is cut, as well as owning a cattle ranch."
"And has he left them both to you?" asked Bert.
"Yes," his mother answered. "And the letter from the lawyers who made Uncle Watson's will tells me that I had better come out to look after the property that has been left to me."
"Are you going?" Nan wanted to know.
"I think I must," Mrs. Bobbsey replied. "It isn't every day I have so much property given me. I must go out West to look after it. But daddy is coming with me, so I'll be all right."
"Hurray!" cried Bert, tossing his hat into the air.
"What are you 'hurrahing' about?" asked his father.
"'Cause I'm going to be a cowboy on mother's ranch!" answered Bert."Whoop-la! I'll be a lumberman, too, part of the time!"
"Now wait a minute, Son," said Mr. Bobbsey gently. "I don't want to spoil your fun, but we can't take you out West with us."
"You can't?" cried Bert. "Why, I thought we could all go—Nan,Flossie, Freddie, everybody!"
"No, I don't see how we can take you children," said Mr. Bobbsey, while his wife also shook her head. "You see we have to leave in a hurry, and it would not do to take you youngsters out of school. We will not be gone longer than we can help."
"And have we got to stay here all alone?" asked Nan, and there was a suspicion of tears in her voice.
"You won't mind staying here," said her mother. "There will be Dinah to cook for you and to look after Freddie and Flossie. Sam will be around the house all the while, and there will be Mr. Hickson, too. Besides this we have a surprise for you."
"What is it?" cried Bert. "Are you going to take us after all? Oh, say you are! Tell me you were only fooling when you said we would have to stay here all alone!"
"No, I wasn't fooling," replied his mother. "I don't really see how we can take you children West with us. But the surprise is this. I am going to ask Aunt Emeline to come and stay with you, to keep house for you while your father and I are away. Aunt Emeline will come."
"Oh, Aunt Emeline!" gasped Nan.
"Aunt Emeline!" cried Bert. "Why she—she—"
Then he stopped short. He knew what he had been going to say was not polite.
"Aunt Emeline will be very kind to you," went on Mrs. Bobbsey. "I will go in and write to her now, asking her to come."
"And I must go in and telephone," said Mr. Bobbsey. "If I am to goWest I shall have a lot of work to do to get ready."
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey entered the house, leaving Nan and Bert sitting out on the steps. For a moment or two the Bobbsey twins said nothing. They could hear Flossie and Freddie in the front yard laughing together as they played their games. Then Bert looked at Nan.
"Aunt Emeline!" he said, in a strange voice.
"Aunt Emeline!" responded Nan, and she sighed.
"I'll have to wipe my feet three times every time I come into the house once!" went on Bert, in a grumbly voice. "She'll always be looking at my hands to see if they're clean and—and—Oh, I don't want Aunt Emeline to come!" he exclaimed.
"She never likes to have me run," said Nan, and her voice was gloomy. "She won't want me to have the other girls in here to play up in the attic, and she doesn't believe in eating cookies between meals!"
"It's going to be awful—terrible!" exclaimed Bert. "I know what I'm going to do!" he declared desperately.
"What?" asked Nan, in a frightened sort of voice.
"I'm going to run away, like Mr. Hickson's boys did!" Bert went on. "You can run away with me if you want to, Nan!" he added. "I'm going to be a cowboy and you can be the cook at the ranch."
"What ranch?" asked Nan.
"The one mother is going to get by Uncle Watson's will," explained her brother. "That's where I'm going to run to. I wouldn't run away to just any old place, but mother and father won't mind if I run off to our own ranch. They'll be glad to see me. Will you come, Nan?"
His sister shook her head.
"No," she answered. "Aunt Emeline is terrible, but she isn't bad enough to run away from, and maybe she'll be different now."
"She can't ever be any different," declared Bert. "I guess she means to be kind and good, but, say, a fellow can't be always washing his hands and wiping his feet!"
"And a girl's got to run and romp sometimes," added Nan. "But we'll have to do as father and mother want us to, I guess."
"Oh, I s'pose so!" agreed Bert. "Well, maybe I won't run away if you aren't coming with me. But I'd like to!" he said.
Flossie and Freddie heard something of the plans. They did not remember Aunt Emeline very well, though Bert and Nan easily recalled the queer old lady, who really was very particular when it came to children. She never had had any of her own, and perhaps this made a difference.
At first Flossie and Freddie had clamored to be taken out West with their father and mother, as Bert and Nan had done. But when told they must stay at home and help Bert and Nan keep house, they seemed to be satisfied. They were some years younger than the older Bobbsey twins.
"I'll put out the fire if our house starts to burn while you're away,"Freddie promised.
"There'll not be much danger of fire with Aunt Emeline here to look after things," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I wouldn't leave my children with every one, but I know they'll be safe with Aunt Emeline," she said to Dinah.
"Yassum, dey's suah gwine to besafe!" declared the fat, jolly colored cook. "She suah will look after 'em! But will dey gets enough toeat?Dat's whut I'se askin' yo'!" and she looked earnestly at Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Well, you'll be doing the cooking as usual. Dinah," said the children's mother. "I depend on you to feed them well."
"Dat's all right, den!" exclaimed Dinah, with a satisfied air. "I knows she won't starve 'em at de table, even ef she suah has terrible 'tickler manners. But ef she says dey shan't eat 'tween meals, den I'll says to her as how dey can. I ain't gwine to hab mah honey lambs starvin', dat's whut I ain't!" and Dinah shook her woolly head.
"Oh, Aunt Emeline isn't as bad as all that," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "She is strict, I know, but it is for the children's good. I expect a letter from her very soon, saying when she can come. As soon as she can Mr. Bobbsey and I will start for the West."
Bert and Nan tried to be cheerful as the days passed, and they thought more and more of their father and mother going away from them. Flossie and Freddie had fretted a little at first, but, being younger, they were over it more quickly.
At last the letter came from Aunt Emeline. Bert and Nan were home when their mother read it to their father. A look of surprise came over Mrs. Bobbsey's face as she read.
"Dear me," she exclaimed, "this is quite surprising!"
"What is it?" asked her husband.
"Aunt Emeline can't come to stay with the children while we go West," was the answer. "She says she is too old to take charge of a house and four children now, and she begs to be excused. Aunt Emeline isn't coming after all!"
Bert and Nan had hard work not to shout: Hurrah!
Mr. Bobbsey took the letter to read for himself.
"Then I'm sure I don't know what we're going to do," he said. "All our plans are made for going out West to look after the lumber tract and the cattle ranch. If Aunt Emeline can't come to stay with the children, what are we going to do?"
Mr. Bobbsey sat looking at Aunt Emeline's letter, reading parts of it over again. Mrs. Bobbsey watched her husband. The Bobbsey twins looked at their father and mother. A great hope was beginning to come into the hearts of Bert and Nan.
As for Flossie and Freddie, they were rather too small to know what it was all about, but they realized that something had happened that did not happen every day.
"What's the matter, Mommie?" asked Freddie, slipping down out of his chair and going over to her. He saw that she was worried. "Have you got the toothache?" he wanted to know. Once Freddie's tooth had ached and he knew how it hurt.
"No, dear," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "I haven't the toothache. But I have a letter from Aunt Emeline and she can't come to stay with you children while daddy and I go out West."
"Aunt Emeline not come?" repeated Freddie.
"No, dear. She thinks she is too old to look after you four lively youngsters. And perhaps she is right. I wouldn't want to make too much work for her."
"Aunt Emeline not coming!" said Freddie again in a thoughtful voice."Ho! Then I go and get a cookie!"
Nan and Bert burst out laughing.
"What's the matter?" asked their father and mother, as Freddie slipped down out of his mother's lap, into which he had climbed, and started for the kitchen to find Dinah. "What made you laugh, Bert?" asked his mother.
"Oh, I guess Freddie must have heard Nan and me talking about Aunt Emeline not letting us have anything to eat except at meal time," replied Bert. "And, now she isn't coming, he thinks he can have a cookie whenever he wants it."
"Oh, I see!" and Mr. Bobbsey smiled. "Well, Aunt Emeline may be strict, but she is a very good housekeeper. I am sorry she can not come to stay while we are in the West. I really don't know what we are going to do."
"Nor I," sighed Mrs. Bobbsey. "We counted on Aunt Emeline all the while, and now I don't know whom else I can get on such short notice. Can't we wait a while about going West?" she asked her husband.
"I don't very well see how we can wait," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "The tickets are bought, and all my plans are made. I have hired a man to come to the lumber office while I am away. I have written the men at the timber tract and at the cattle ranch that we are coming. Now, what are we to do?"
"We can't leave the children here alone," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "That is certain."
"No, we couldn't do that," agreed Mr. Bobbsey. "As good a cook as Dinah is, and careful as Sam is, we couldn't leave the children with them."
"Dinah gave me a cookie, an' she says she'll give you one, too, if you want it, Flossie," announced Freddie, coming into the room then, munching a sweet cake.
"Course I want it!" exclaimed the little "fat fairy," as her father called her, and she slipped out of her mother's lap, where she had climbed after Freddie got down, and, like her brother, hurried to the kitchen.
"Well, since we can't leave the children here at home by themselves, or only with Dinah and Sam," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a pause, "there is only one thing to do."
"You mean we must stay at home?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, and the hearts ofBert and Nan felt very sad indeed.
"Stay at home? No, indeed!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "We must take the children with us!"
"Out West?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Yes, out West!" her husband said. "We'll take the children with us since Aunt Emeline can't come to stay with them."
"Hurray!" cried Bert.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" echoed Nan.
"Yes, that will be the best way out of it," went on Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, after Bert and Nan had stopped dancing around the room, hands joined, with Flossie and Freddie in the ring they made, the two younger twins each eating one of Dinah's cookies. "We'll take the Bobbsey twins out West."
"But what about school?" asked his wife, who just happened to think that the summer term would not end for about three weeks.
"Oh we don't need to go to school!" said Bert.
"We can take our books with us and study on the train," suggested Nan.
"I fear there wouldn't be much studying done," laughed Mrs. Bobbsey. "But do you really think we might take the children out of school?" she asked.
"That is something we will have to find out about," her husband answered. "Of course it will not be much loss to Flossie and Freddie, as they are not as far along in their studies as are Nan and Bert. But I wouldn't like to have them lose much of their lessons."
"Teacher said I was at the head of my class, and I'd pass easy!" declared Bert.
"And my teacher said I was one of her best students," added Nan. She and Bert were in the same grade but in different classes.
"Well, since we really have to go out West to look after the lumber and cattle properties that are to be your mother's," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and since we must take you children with us, I'll see your teachers, Bert and Nan, and ask them if it will put you back much to lose the last two weeks of the term."
"Oh, goodie! Goodie!" shrieked Nan, jumping up and down.
"Hurray!" cried Bert. "Now I'm going to be a cowboy. Whoop!"
"Mercy me!" exclaimed their mother, covering her ears with her hands as Bert and Nan shouted loudly.
"Come on, Flossie!" called Freddie to his small sister. "Let's go and ask Dinah for more cookies."
That was Freddie's way of celebrating the good news.
Then came happy days.
Mr. Bobbsey, once he had made up his mind that the children were to go out West with him and his wife, went to the school and saw the teachers who had charge of Bert and Nan. He found that the older Bobbsey twins were so well along in their studies that it would not hold them back in the fall to stop now. So they were given permission to leave school before the regular time.
There was no trouble at all about Flossie and Freddie. They had simple lessons, and they could easily be taught at home to make up for the time they would lose.
It was arranged that Dinah and Sam should stay at home in the Bobbsey house to look after it during the summer, while Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and the twins went out West.
"And be sure to feed Snap!" said Bert to Sam, as the colored man was cutting the grass on the lawn one day, while the dog frisked about chasing sticks that Bert and Freddie tossed here and there for him.
"Oh, I won't forget Snap!" promised Sam.
"And you must give Snoop a saucer of milk every day, Dinah!" said Nan, as she rubbed the black cat which was purring around her legs.
"Oh, indeedy Snoop and I am mighty good friends!" declared Dinah. "I suah won't forget to feed Snoop!"
Mr. Bobbsey bought other tickets, so he could take the children on the Western trip. He made all the arrangements, trunks were packed, and finally, one day, Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie said good-bye to their school chums.
"I'm going out West to learn to be a cowboy!" said Bert.
"I wish I was going!" exclaimed Danny Rugg.
"So do I," said Charley Mason.
"I'll see some Indians, too," Bert went on.
"And will you see those darling little papooses they carry on their backs?" asked Nellie Parks.
"I guess I'll see them," Nan said. "I don't like Indian men and women, but the babies must be cute."
"Wouldn't it be great if you could get an Indian doll?" asked Grace.
"Indians don't have dolls!" declared Danny.
"Indian girls do!" exclaimed Nellie. "I saw a picture in one of my books of an Indian girl, and she had a doll made of corn silk and a corncob and some tree bark."
"What a funny doll!" exclaimed Grace. "Do try and bring one home,Nan!"
"I will," she promised.
Bert and Nan were so excited at the prospect of going West that if their father and mother had expected the children to pack the trunks and valises it never would have been done. But Mrs. Bobbsey knew better than to expect this. She and Dinah looked after the packing.
Flossie and Freddie, of course, were too small to do any of this, though one day Mrs. Bobbsey saw the little boy stuffing something into an old stocking.
"Freddie Bobbsey, what are you doing?" asked his mother.
"Dinah gave me some cookies," was the answer, "and I'm goin' to take 'em out West with me. Maybe I'll get hungry, an' maybe I'll get lost, or carried off by the Indians, an' then I'll have cookies to eat!"
"Oh, dear me! you can't take a lot of cookies in a stocking," laughedMrs. Bobbsey.
"There'll be plenty to eat out West. As for getting lost, I suppose you will do that; you always have, but we manage to find you. However, I hope you won't get lost too often. And I don't think you'll be carried off by the Indians. Or, if so, they'd return you quickly."
The happy days seemed to grow happier as the time came nearer to take the train for the great West. One afternoon, the day before the Bobbsey twins were to start, Bert and Nan went down to their father's lumberyard office with a message sent by their mother.
"What's all this I hear about you?" asked Mr. Hickson, the old man who had been in the railroad wreck. He was out loading a wagon with boards. "What are you children going to do out West?" he asked them.
"I'm going to learn to be a cowboy," declared Bert.
"And I'm going to get an Indian doll!" said Nan.
"My goodness!" exclaimed the old man, smiling at the Bobbsey twins, for he liked them very much. "I hope you have a good time. That's what makes children happy—to have a good time. I wish I could find my children. I haven't seen my boys, Charley and Bill, for a long while. They must be grown-up men now. Yes, I certainly wish I could find Charley and Bill. It was all a mistake when they ran away from home. I wish I had them back," and slowly and sadly shaking his head he went on loading the lumber wagon.
Bert and Nan felt sorry for Mr. Hickson, and they wished they might help him find his "boys," as he called Bill and Charley, though, as he said, they must be grown men now. But Bert and Nan had too many things to think about in getting ready to go out West to feel sorry very long. They took the message to their father and then hurried home.
Monday morning was the day set for the start of the Bobbsey twins for the great West. They had said good-bye to their school friends the Friday before, and now, while the bells were ringing to call the other boys and girls to their classes, Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie stood on their front porch and watched their friends go past. "Oh, but you are lucky!" called Danny Rugg to Bert, as the Bobbseys waved their hands to him.
"I wish I could be you!" added Charley Mason, as he swung his strap of books over his head. "I'm going out West to be a cowboy when I grow up."
"I'll tell you all about it when I come back," promised Bert.
Nan's girl friends, as they went past on their way to school, blew kisses to her from their hands, and wished her all sorts of good luck.
Flossie and Freddie were too busy running around and playing hide-and-go-seek among the trunks to pay much attention to their little school friends who went past the house.
The trunks and valises had been stacked on the front porch, and in a little while Mr. Hickson was to come with his lumber wagon to take them to the station. Later the Bobbseys would go down in the automobile, one of the men from Mr. Bobbsey's office bringing it back. Sam Johnson, though he used to drive the Bobbsey horse when they had one, never could get used to an automobile, he said.
Snap, the jolly dog, seemed to know that something out of the ordinary was going on. He did not run about and play as he nearly always did, but stayed close to Bert and Nan. He seemed to know they were going away from him.
"You'll have to watch Snap," said Mrs. Bobbsey to Sam. "He may try to sneak after us and get on the train, as he did once before. Mr. Bobbsey had to get off at the next station and bring him back."
"Yassum, I'll watch Snap," promised Sam. "But he suah does want to go wif yo' all pow'ful bad!"
"I wish we could take Snap and Snoop!" said Bert.
"Oh, dear boy, we couldn't think of it!" exclaimed his mother. "We have a long way to travel to get to the West, and we couldn't look after a cat and a dog. They'll be much better off here at home."
"Snoop maybe will," argued Bert, "'cause he doesn't like to have rough fun the way Snap does. But I guess my dog would like to see an Indian and some cowboys!"
However, the older Bobbsey twins knew it was out of the question to take their pets with them, so they made the best of it, Bert petting Snap and talking kindly to him. Snoop had gone out to the barn where he knew he might catch a mouse.
In a little while Mr. Hickson drove up for the trunks which were loaded on the lumber wagon.
"You're going to have a fine day to start for the West," said the old man, who had entirely got over his hurt got in the railroad wreck. "A very fine day!"
The June sun was shining, there was just enough wind to stir the leaves of the trees, and, as Mr. Hickson said, it was indeed a fine day for going out West, or anywhere else. Very happy were the Bobbsey twins.
With rattles and bangs, the trunks were piled on the lumber wagon, such valises as were not to be carried by Mr. or Mrs. Bobbsey, or Bert or Nan, were put in among the trunks. Flossie and Freddie were each to carry a basket which contained some things their mother thought might be needed on the trip.
"All aboard!" called Mr. Hickson, as he took his seat and gathered up the reins.
"That's what the conductor on the train says!" laughed Freddie, as he and Flossie had to stop playing hide-and-go-seek among the trunks.
"Well, I'm making believe this lumber wagon is a train," went on the old man. "I wish it was a train, and that I was going out West to find my two boys, Charley and Bill." Then he drove off with his head bowed.
"When do we start?" asked Bert. It was about the tenth time he had asked that same question that morning.
"We're going to leave soon now," his mother told him. "Don't go away, any of you. Nan, you look after Flossie and Freddie. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Freddie were to get lost at the last minute."
Just then Freddie and his little sister were running around in the yard, playing tag, and neither of the smaller Bobbsey twins showed any signs of getting lost. But one never could tell what would happen to them—never!
Finally everything seemed to be in readiness for the start. The last words about looking after the house while the Bobbseys were in the West had been said to Sam and Dinah, and Mr. Bobbsey had telephoned his final message to his office to say that he was about to start. The automobile had been brought around, and Harry Truesdell, who was to drive it back from the station, was waiting.
"Come, children, we'll start now!" called Mother Bobbsey. "Get the satchels you are to carry, Nan and Bert. Where are Flossie and Freddie?" she asked. "I want them to take their baskets."
"They were here a minute ago," replied Nan, looking around the yard for her smaller brother and Flossie.
"But they're not here now!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "See if you can find them, Nan. Tell them we must leave now."
Nan set down the valise she had taken up and was about to go around to the back yard when some excited cries were heard. Dinah's voice sounded above the others.
"Heah, now, you stop dat, Freddie Bobbsey!" called the colored cook."Whut are yo' doin'? Heah, Freddie, yo' let mah clothes line alone!"
There was a moment of silence, and then Dinah's voice went on.
"Oh, land o' massy! Oh, I 'clare to goodness, yo' suah has gone an' done it now! Oh, mah po' li'l honey lamb! Oh, Freddie, look what you has gone an' done!"
At this moment the crying voice of Flossie was heard. The little girl seemed to be in trouble.
"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to!" shouted Freddie.
"Something has happened!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I knew it would, just at the last minute!"
"It does seem so," said Mr. Bobbsey, coming out on the porch. "I'll go and see what it is!" he added, as he ran around the side path.
"I'll come, too," said Mrs. Bobbsey. And Nan and Bert thought they had better follow.
They could hear Flossie crying, while Dinah was saying:
"Oh, mah po' li'l honey lamb! Freddie Bobbsey, look whut you gone an' done!"
And Freddie kept saying:
"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to! I didn't know it was going to come down!"
"I wonder what it was that came down," thought Mrs. Bobbsey, as she hurried after her husband, with Bert and Nan bringing up the rear and Snap barking as hard as he could bark.
When Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey got around to the back yard they saw at a glance what had happened. One of the clothes lines, on which Dinah had hung the sheets she had just washed, had come down. And two or three sheets had fallen right over Flossie.
Of course the little girl was not hurt, for the sheets were not heavy. But they were damp from the tub, and Flossie was all tangled up in them and in the line. In fact, Flossie could not be seen, for she was between the two sides of a sheet, and only that Dinah was there, trying to get her out, told Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey what had happened to their little girl. Oh, yes! I forgot! Flossie was crying, and that was a sign she was there, even though she could not be seen.
Freddie was standing near a clothes post with the kitchen bread knife in his hand.
"What happened, Dinah?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she helped the fat, colored cook get Flossie out from under the sheets. "What is it all about?"
"Oh, dat Freddie boy he done cut mah clothes line an' let mah clean wash down on da ground!" exclaimed Dinah. "I didn't minded DAT so much!" she said, as she wiped away the tears from the face of the frightened Flossie. "I kin wash de sheets ober ag'in. But I'm so s'prised dat Freddie done scared his li'l sister, dat's whut I am. Freddie done scared honey lamb mos' to pieces!"
"I—I didn't mean to," repeated Freddie.
"But did you really cut down Dinah's wash line?" his mother asked him, when it had been found that Flossie was only frightened and not hurt.
"I—I cut off a little piece," said Freddie, showing a dangling end in his hand. "I didn't think it would fall down. I didn't mean to make it."
"But what made you cut any of it?" asked his father, tying the cut ends together while Dinah took up the sheets which had fallen to the ground and had some black spots on them. "Why did you cut the clothes line, Freddie?"
Mr. Bobbsey did not call his little boy "fireman" now. That was a pet name, and used only when Freddie had been good, and he had been a little bad now, though perhaps he did not mean to.
"I—I cut the line to get a piece of rope," said Freddie.
"What did you want a piece of rope for?" asked his father.
"I wanted to make a lasso to lasso Indians as Bert's going to do," Freddie answered. "I wanted a piece of clothes line for a lasso. But I didn't mean to make the clothes come down."
"No, I don't guess you did," said Dinah, as she came out of the laundry with the sheets which she had rinsed clean. "Ole Dinah done gwine to forgib her honey lamb 'cause he's gwine away far off from her. An' Dinah's other honey lamb didn't get hurted any. It was only two sheets an' Dinah's done washed 'em clean again. But don't you go lassoin' any Injuns, Freddie! Dey mightn't like it."
"No, I won't!" promised the little fellow.
"And don't cut any more clothes lines," added his father.
"No, sir, I won't!"
Freddie was ready to promise anything, now that he found nothing serious had happened. At first, after he had cut the rope and let the sheets down on Flossie's head as she was running through the yard, Freddie had been very much frightened.
"Well, I'm glad it was no worse," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she straightened Flossie's hat, which had been knocked to one side. "Now we must hurry, or we'll be late for the train."
"Yes, come along!" called Mr. Bobbsey.
Freddie gave up the bread knife to Dinah, the last good-byes were said, and the children started for the automobile. Snap leaped around Bert, barking and whining.
"Better tie up the dog, Sam, or he'll follow us," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"Yes, sah. I'll do dat."
Poor Snap was led away whining. He did not want to be left behind, but it had to be.
"Good-bye!" called Bert to his pet. "Good-bye, Snap!"
Flossie took up her basket, and Freddie had his. Each one had something to carry. Into the automobile they hurried and soon they were on the way to the station to take the train for the West.
They did not have many minutes to wait. Harry Truesdell sat in the automobile, until Mr. Bobbsey and the family should be aboard the train before he went back to the garage.
The Bobbsey twins were standing on the station platform. Mr. Bobbsey was talking to a man he knew, and Mrs. Bobbsey was speaking to two friends. Bert and Nan were putting pennies in a weighing machine to see how heavy they had grown, and Freddie was looking at the pictures on the magazine covers at the news stand.
Suddenly Flossie, who had set her basket down on one of the outside seats, gave a cry.
"What's the matter?" asked her mother, turning quickly. "What is it,Flossie?"
"Oh, my basket! My basket!" cried the little girl. "There's something in it! Something alive! Look, it's wriggling!"
And, surely enough, the basket she had carried, was "wriggling." It was swaying from side to side on the station seat.
Freddie Bobbsey, called away from looking at the magazine pictures on the news stand, came running over when he heard Flossie shout.
"What's the matter?" asked the little boy. "Did something else fall on you, Flossie, like the sheets flopping over your head?"
"No, nothing falled on me!" exclaimed Flossie. "But look! Look at my basket! It's wriggling!"
"There's something in it!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, while her husband quickly hurried away from the man to whom he was talking, and prepared to see what the matter was. "There's something in your basket, Flossie! Did you put anything in?"
"No, Mother!" answered the little girl. "I Just put in the things you gave me. And just before I came away I took off the cover to put in some cookies Dinah handed me."
"I think I can guess what happened," said Mr. Bobbsey. "While the cover was off the basket something jumped in, Flossie."
"Oh, I see what it is! A little black squirrel!" cried Nan.
"Squirrels aren't black!" Bert said. There were some squirrels in the trees near the Bobbsey house, but all Bert had ever seen were gray or reddish brown.
"It's something furry, anyhow," Nan went on. "I can see it through the cracks in the basket."
And just then, to the surprise of every one looking on, including the Bobbsey twins, of course, the cover of the basket was raised by whatever was wriggling inside, and something larger than a squirrel, but black and furry, looked out.
"Gee!" exclaimed Bert.
"Oh, it's Snoop!" cried Nan.
"It's our cat!" added Freddie.
"In my basket!" exclaimed Flossie. "How did you get there, Snoop?" she asked, as Bert took the cat up in his arms, while the other passengers at the station laughed.
"Perhaps Snoop felt lonesome when he knew you were going to leave him," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "And when you took off the cover of your basket, Flossie, to put in the cookies Dinah gave you, Snoop must have seen his chance and crawled in."
"He kept still all the way in the auto, so we wouldn't know he was there," added Nan.
"Maybe he thought we'd take him with us," said Bert. "Did you, Snoop?" he asked. But the big black cat, who must have found it rather hard work to curl up in the basket, snuggled close to Bert, who was always kind to animals.
Just then the whistle of the train was heard down the track.
"Dear me! what shall we do?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey. "We can't possibly take Snoop with us, and we can't leave him here at the depot."
"Harry will take Snoop back home in the auto," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"Yes, give him to me—I'll be careful of him," promised the young man from the lumberyard office, and Bert carried his pet over to the waiting automobile.
Snoop mewed a little as Bert put the big, black cat into Harry's arms.
"Good-bye, Snoop!" Bert said, patting his pet on the head.
"Come, Bert, hurry!" called his father.
Then, as the train pulled into the station, Bert ran back and caught up his valise. The other Bobbsey twins took up their things, Flossie put back on her basket the cover the cat had knocked off in getting out, and soon they were all on the train.
"All aboard!" called the conductor, and, as the engine whistled and the cars began to move, Bert and Nan looked from the windows of their seats and had a last glimpse of Snoop being held in Harry's arms, as he sat in the automobile.
Flossie and Freddie forgot all about their cat, dog, and nearly everything in Lakeport in their joy at going out West. For they were really started on their way now, after several little upsets and troubles, such as the clothes line coming down on Flossie, and the cat hiding himself away in the basket.
"Well, now I can sit back and rest," said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a sigh of relief. "I know the children are all here, and they can't get lost for a while, at least, and I don't see what mischief they can get into here."
Now, indeed, the children were all right for a time. Freddie sat with his father, next to the window, and Flossie was in the seat with her mother pressing her little nose close against the glass, so she would not miss seeing anything, as the train flew along.
Bert and Nan were sitting together, Nan being next to the window. Bert had, very politely, let his sister have that place, though he wanted it himself. However, before the first part of the journey was over there was a seat vacant on the other side of the car, and Bert took that. Then he, too, had a window.
Bert and Nan noticed, as the train passed Mr. Bobbsey's lumberyard, Mr. Hickson standing amid a pile of boards. The old man did not see the children, of course, for the train was going rather swiftly, but they saw him.
"I wish we could help him find his two sons," said Nan to Bert.
"Yes, I wish we could," Bert answered. "But it's so long ago maybe Mr.Hickson wouldn't know his boys even if he saw them again."
"He'd know their names, wouldn't he?" Nan asked.
"Yes, I s'pose he would," Bert replied.
Then the older Bobbsey twins forgot about Mr. Hickson in the joys and novelty of traveling.
The Bobbseys were going to travel in this train only as far as a junction station. There they would change to a through train for Chicago, and in that big western city they would again make a change. On this through train Mr. Bobbsey had had reserved for him a drawing room. That is part of the sleeping car built off from the rest at one end.
On arriving at the junction the Bobbseys left the train they had been on since leaving Lakeport and got on the through train, which drew into the junction almost as soon as they did. They went into the little room at the end of the sleeping coach which Mr. Bobbsey had had reserved for them. In there the twins had plenty of room to look from the windows, as no other passengers were in with them.
"It's just like being in our own big automobile," said Nan, and so it was. The children liked it very much.
The trip to Chicago would take a day and a night, and Flossie and Freddie, as well as Bert and Nan, were interested in going to sleep on a train in the queer little beds the porter makes up from what are seats in the daytime.
It was not the first time the children had traveled in a sleeping car, but they were always interested. It did seem queer to them to be traveling along in their sleep.
"Almost like a dream," Nan said, and I think she was quite right.
"Where's my basket?" Flossie asked, after they had ridden on for about an hour.
"Do you want to see if Snap is in it this time?" her father jokingly inquired.
"Snap's too big to get in my basket," Flossie answered. "He's a big dog. But I want to get some of the cookies Dinah gave me. I'm hungry."
"So'm I!" cried Freddie, who had been looking from the window. "I want a cookie too!"
"Dinah gave me some for you," Flossie said, and, when her basket had been handed down from the brass rack over the seat, she searched around in it until she had found what she was looking for—a bag of molasses and sugar cookies.
"Oh, Dinah does make such good cookies!" said Flossie, with her mouth half full, though, really, to be polite, I suppose, she should not have talked that way.
"Shall we get any cookies out on the cattle ranch?" asked Nan. "If we don't, Flossie and Freddie will miss them."
"Oh, they have cooks on ranches, same as they do in lumber camps," Bert declared. "I saw a picture once of a Chinese cook on a cattle ranch."
"Can a Chinaman cook?" asked Nan, in surprise. "I thought they could only iron shirts and collars."
"Some Chinese are very good cooks," explained Mr. Bobbsey. "And Bert is right when he says that on some ranches in the West a Chinese man does the cooking. I don't know whether we shall find one where we are going or not."
"Are we going to the lumber tract first, or to the ranch?" asked Bert.
"To where the big trees grow," answered his father. "The tract your mother is going to own is near a place called Lumberville. It is several hundred miles north and west of Chicago. We will stop off there, and go on later to the ranch. That is near a place called Cowdon."
"What funny names," laughed Bert. "Lumberville and Cowdon. You would think they were named after the trees and the cows."
"I think they were," his father said. "Out West they take names that mean something, and Lumberville and Cowdon just describe the places they are named after."
While Flossie and Freddie were looking from the window of the coach in which they were riding, while Bert and Nan were telling one another what good times they would have on the ranch and in the lumber camp, and while Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were discussing matters about the trip, there came a knock on the door.
Mr. Bobbsey opened it and a lady came in, saying:
"I am so glad to see you! I am traveling to Chicago all alone, and I saw you get on as I looked from my window in the next car. I came back to speak to you."
"Why, it's Mrs. Powendon!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey as she saw a lady whom she had first met at a Red Cross meeting. Mrs. Powendon lived in a village near Lakeport, and often came over to see Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey and other friends. "I am very glad you saw us and came in to see us," went on Mrs. Bobbsey. "Do sit down! So you are going to Chicago?"
"Yes. But what takes you away from Lakeport?"
"I don't suppose you heard the news, but an old uncle of mine, whom I had not seen for years, died and left me a western lumber tract and a cattle ranch. Mr. Bobbsey and I are on our way there now to look after matters, and we had to take the children with us."
"And I suppose they were very sorry about that," said Mrs. Powendon with a smile, as she looked at Nan and Bert.
"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bert "Indeed we weren't sorry! We're going to have fine times!"
Then Mrs. Powendon sat down and began talking to Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, while Nan and Bert looked at magazines their father had bought for them from the train boy.
No one paid much attention to Flossie and Freddie, and it was not until some little time later that Mrs. Bobbsey, looking around the drawing room, exclaimed:
"Where are they?"
"Who?" asked her husband.
"Flossie and Freddie. They aren't here!"
That was very evident. There was no place in the little room for them to hide, and yet the children could not be seen.
"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, "can they have fallen off the train?"
"Of course not!" answered her husband "They must just have gone outside in the car. I'll look."
Mr. Bobbsey was about to open the door when a knock came on it, and, as the door swung back, the face of a colored porter looked in. The man wore a white jacket.
"'Scuse me, sah," he said, talking just as Sam Johnson did, "but did you-all only want dinnah for two?"
"Dinner for two? What do you mean?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
"Why, dey's two li'l children in de dinin' car. Dey says as how dey belongs back yeah, an' dey's done gone an' ordered dinnah for two—jest fo' der own selves—jest two! I was wonderin' ef you-all folks wasn't goin' to eat!"
"Dinner for two! Little children!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey.
"It is Flossie and Freddie!" cried his wife. "Where is the dining car?"
The waiter from the dining car, who had come back to the sleeping car where the Bobbseys had their places, smiled as he finished telling about the two children.
"Dey's right up forward in my dinin' car," he said to Mrs. Bobbsey. "An' dey is all right, too, lady! I tooked good keer ob 'em. Dey jest walked right in, laik dey owned de place, an' I says to 'em, what will dey hab?
"Dey tells me dat dey done want dinnah fo' two, an' I starts to gib it to 'em, but de conductor says as how dey belonged to a party back heah, an' mebby de odder folks would want somethin' to eat, too. An', as anyhow, dey had bettah be tol'."
"I'm hungry!" exclaimed Bert.
"So'm I!" added Nan.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I must go and see about them."
"We will all go," said Mr. Bobbsey. "I did not know it was so near lunch time. But I suppose Freddie and Flossie never forget anything so important as that."
"Trust children to remember their meals!" said Mrs. Powendon. "I fearI am to blame for your two little ones running away."
"Oh, no," murmured Mr. Bobbsey.
"How?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"By coming in here, and talking to you. Probably I left the door of your drawing room open. Flossie and Freddie must have slipped out that way."
"Very likely they did," said their father. "But no great harm is done.We will all go to lunch now. Won't you come with us, Mrs. Powendon?"
"Thank you, I will," answered the lady who had come visiting, and so the rest of the Bobbseys and their friend went to the dining car.
There, surely enough, seated at a little table all by themselves, were Flossie and Freddie. The two tots looked up as their father and mother, with Nan and Bert and Mrs. Powendon, came into the car.
"I'm going to have a piece of pie!" shouted Freddie so loudly that every one in the car must have heard, for nearly every one laughed.
"So am I going to have pie!" echoed Flossie, and there was another laugh.
"Well, what have you children to say for yourselves?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, in the voice she used when she was going to scold just a little bit. "What have you to say, Freddie?"
"I like it in here!" he said. "It's a nice place to eat."
"And I like it, too!" added Flossie.
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey tried not to laugh.
"But you shouldn't have slipped away while we were talking and come in here all alone," went on Mother Bobbsey. "Why did you do it?"
"I was hungry," said Freddie, and that seemed to be all there was to it.
"Our cookies were all in crumbs," explained Flossie. "They wasn't a one left in my basket. I was hungry, too."
"I presume that's as good an excuse as any," said Mr. Bobbsey, with a laugh. "And so we'll all sit down and have lunch."
And while they were eating Flossie and Freddie told how they had slipped out, when their mother and father were busy talking to Mrs. Powendon, and while Bert and Nan were looking out of the window. They had been in dining cars on railroad trains before, and so they knew pretty nearly what to do.
But when they ordered dinner for themselves, or at least told the smiling, black waiter to bring them something to eat, the Pullman conductor, who had seen the children in the sleeping coach, suspected that all was not right, so he sent the waiter back to tell Mrs. Bobbsey about Flossie and Freddie.
"And you mustn't do it again," said Mrs. Bobbsey, when the story had been told.
"No'm, we won't!" promised Freddie.
"No, he won't do just this again," said Bert with a laugh to Nan. "But he'll do something else just as queer."
And of course Freddie did.
After lunch Mrs. Powendon went back to her car, and the Bobbseys took their seats in the drawing room which they occupied. The meal and the riding made Flossie and Freddie sleepy, so their mother fixed a little bed for them on the long seat, and soon they were dreaming away, perhaps of cowboys and Indians and big trees being cut down in the forest to make lumber for playhouses.
The train rumbled on, stopping now and then at different stations, and, after a while, even Bert and Nan began to get tired of it, though they liked traveling.
"How much farther do we have to go?" asked Bert, as the afternoon sun began to go down in the west.
"Oh, quite a long way," his father answered. "We are not even in Chicago yet. We shall get there to-morrow morning, and stay there two days. Then we will go on to Lumberville. How long we shall stay there I do not know. But as soon as we can attend to the business and get matters in shape, we will go on to Cowdon."
"That's the place I want to get to!" exclaimed Bert. "I want to see some Indians and cowboys."
"There may not be any there," said his mother.
"What! No cowboys on a ranch?" cried the boy.
"Why, Mother!" exclaimed Nan.
"I meant Indians," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Of course there'll be cowboys to look after the cattle, but Indians are not as plentiful as they once were, even out West."
"I only want to see an Indian baby and get an Indian doll," put in Nan. "I don't like grown-up Indians. They have a lot of feathers on, like turkeys."
"That's what I like!" Bert declared. "If I wasn't going to be a cowboyI'd be an Indian, I guess."
Night came, and when the electric lights in the cars were turned onFreddie and Flossie awakened from their nap.
"How do you feel?" asked his mother, as she smoothed her little boy's rumpled hair.
"I—I guess I feel hungry!" he said, though he was still not quite awake.
"So'm I!" added Flossie. You could, nearly always, depend on her to say and do about the same things Freddie did and said.
"Well, this is a good time to be hungry," said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "I just heard them say that dinner was being served in the dining car. We'll go up and eat again."
After dinner the porter made up the funny little beds, or "berths," as they are called, and soon the Bobbsey twins had crawled into them and were asleep.
It must have been about the middle of the night that Mrs. Bobbsey, who was sleeping with Flossie on one side of the aisle, heard a noise just outside her berth. It was as if something had fallen to the floor with a thud. She opened the curtains and looked out. Freddie and his father had gone to sleep in the berth just across from her, but now she saw a little white bundle lying on the carpeted floor of the car.
"What is that? Who is it?" the mother of the twins exclaimed.
Mr. Bobbsey poked his head out from between his curtains.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Anything gone wrong?" he added sleepily.
"Look!" exclaimed his wife. "What's that?" and she pointed to the bundle lying on the floor.
"That? Oh, that must beFreddie," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "As usual he's done something we didn't expect. He's fallen out of his car bed."
Surely enough Freddie Bobbsey had fallen out of bed, or his "berth," as beds are called in sleeping cars. The little fellow had been resting with his father, and on the inside, too, But he must have become restless in his sleep, and have crawled over Mr. Bobbsey.
At any rate, when Freddie fell out he made a thud that his mother, in her berth across the aisle, had heard.
But the carpet on the floor of the car was so soft, and Freddie was such a fat, chubby little fellow, and he was so sound asleep, that he was not at all hurt in his tumble, and he never even awakened. He just went on sleeping, right there on the floor.
"Yes," said Mr. Bobbsey with a smile at his wife as he picked Freddie up, "you can generally depend on his doing something unusual, or different. Well, he's a nice little boy," he murmured softly, as he picked up the "fireman" and put him back in the berth.
Even then Freddie did not completely wake up. But he murmured something in his dreams, though Mr. Bobbsey heard only a few words about Indians and cowboys and sugar cookies.
"He's hungry even in his sleep!" said the father, with a silent laugh.
The other Bobbsey twins knew nothing of what had happened until morning, when they were told of Freddie's little accident.
"And did I really fall out of bed?" asked Freddie, himself as much surprised as any one.
"You certainly did!" laughed his mother. "At first I was startled, being aroused so suddenly, but I saw that you were still sleeping and I knew you couldn't be hurt very much."
"I didn't even feel it!" laughed Freddie. "And now I want my breakfast!"
"Dear me! You want to eat again, after dreaming about sugar cookies?" cried Mr. Bobbsey, and he told his little boy what he had heard him say in his sleep. "Well, we had all better go to the dining car again. It will be our last meal there."
"Our last meal!" cried Bert. "Aren't we going to eat again?"
"Not on this train," his father answered. "We'll be in Chicago in time for dinner."
Breakfast over, the Bobbseys began gathering up their different things to be ready to get out at Chicago when the train should reach that big and busy city.
It was about ten o'clock when the station was reached, and the Bobbsey twins thought they had never been in such a noisy place, nor one in which there were more people.
But Daddy Bobbsey had traveled to Chicago before, and he knew just what to do and where to go. He called an automobile, and in that the whole family rode to the hotel where they were to stay while they were in the city.
Two days were to be spent in Chicago, which Mrs. Bobbsey had not visited for some time. She wanted to look around a little, and show the children the various sights. Mr. Bobbsey planned to attend to some business in the "Windy City," as Chicago is sometimes called.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey wanted their children to see all there was to be seen.
"Travel will broaden their minds," Mrs. Bobbsey had said to her husband when they had talked the matter over one night after the twins had gone to bed. "Just see how much they learned when we took them to Washington."
"They not only learned something, but they brought back something—I mean Miss Pompret's china pieces," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Yes, traveling is good for children if they do not do too much of it."
So when the Bobbsey twins reached the big Chicago hotel they were not as strange and surprised as they would have been if they had never been at a hotel before.
"I like this better than the hotel we stayed at in Washington," said Nan to Bert, as they were shown to their rooms, after riding up in an elevator.
"Yes, you can see lots farther," agreed Bert, as he glanced from one of the windows.
"I didn't mean that," his sister said. "I mean the curtains and chairs and such things are ever so much nicer."
"You can't eat curtains!" exclaimed Bert. "And I'm hungry. I hope they have good things to eat."
"I think they will," his father remarked with a laugh.
And when, a little later, they went down to the dining room, the Bobbsey twins found that it was a very good hotel, indeed, as far as things to eat were concerned.
Though Mrs. Bobbsey was very much interested in Chicago, and though Mr. Bobbsey was glad to get there to look after some matters of his lumber business, I must admit that none of the Bobbsey twins thought a great deal of the big city.
"'Tisn't any different from New York!" declared Bert, as he looked at the big buildings, the elevated roads, the street cars and the hurrying crowds. "I wouldn't know but what I was in New York."
"Yes, in some ways it is much like New York," his mother agreed.
"But there isn't any big lake in New York, such as there is here," said Nan.
"Well, I guess the New York Atlantic Ocean is bigger than Lake Michigan," returned Bert. "And the ocean has salt water in it, too, and Lake Michigan is fresh!"
"That makes it better!" declared Nan, who decided then and there to "stick up" for Chicago. "If you're thirsty you can't drink the salty ocean water, but you could drink the lake water."
"Well, maybe that's better," admitted Bert. "I didn't think of that."
And when he and the other children had been taken by their father out to the city lake front, and had seen the bathing beach, Bert had to admit that, after all, Chicago was just as good as New York. But he would not say it was better.
As for Flossie and Freddie, any place was nice to them if they had Bert and Nan and daddy and mother along. The smaller twins seemed to have fun over everything; even riding up and down in the hotel elevator amused them.
After a day of sight-seeing about Chicago, Mrs. Bobbsey was rather tired, and she thought the children were, too, for she told them they had better go to bed early, as they would still have another day to-morrow to see things.
"Oh, I don't want to go to bed!" exclaimed Bert. "There's a nice moving picture in the theater near this hotel! It's all about Indians and cowboys, and daddy said he'd take us after supper. Anyhow, he said he'd take Nan and me."
"If he said so I suppose he will," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "But I can't letFlossie and Freddie go, and I am too tired to go myself."
"Oh, I want to see the Indians!" cried Freddie when he heard what was being talked about.
"No, dear. You and Flossie stay here with me in the hotel, and I'll read you a story," promised his mother. She knew by his tired little legs and his sleepy eyes that she would not have to read more than one story before he and Flossie would be fast asleep.
And so it proved. Mr. Bobbsey took Nan and Bert to the moving picture theater a few doors from the hotel, promising to bring them back early, so they would not lose too much sleep. Then Mrs. Bobbsey sat down to read to Flossie and Freddie.
Just as she had expected, before she reached the end of the story two little heads were nodding and four sleepy eyes could hardly keep open.
"Bed is the place for my tots!" said Mrs. Bobbsey softly, and soonFlossie and Freddie were slumbering together.
Mr. Bobbsey came in with Nan and Bert about an hour later, the pictures having been enjoyed very much.
"I surely am going to be a cowboy!" declared Bert. "I can easily be one on the ranch you are going to own, can't I, Mother?"
"We'll see," replied Mrs. Bobbsey, with a quiet smile at her husband.
Then Nan and Bert went to bed and were soon asleep.
"Well, I hope Freddie doesn't fall out of bed again to-night, and wake me up," said the children's mother.
"So do I," echoed her husband. "I think we shall all rest well to-night."
But trying to sleep in a big city hotel is quite different from trying to sleep in one's own, quiet home. There seemed to be even more noises than on the railroad train, where the motion of the cars, and the clickety-click of the wheels, appears to sing a sort of slumber song. So it was that in the Chicago hotel Mrs. Bobbsey did not get to sleep as soon as she wished.