CHAPTER VIII
THE STORM
Silence followed the noise of Freddie’s fall and his mother’s questions. But it was silence for only a moment. The commotion awakened Flossie, who caught hold of Nan, with whom she was sleeping, and called out:
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t know, dear,” Nan answered quietly, for she did not want Flossie to be frightened. Indeed, Nan, as yet, knew nothing about which to be alarmed. True, there had been a noise, but that often happened at night, even at home.
Mr. Bobbsey, out in the car with Bert, also heard the sounds in the cabin, his wife’s voice having awakened him.
“I’m coming!” he cried, jumping out of the car. None of the campers had taken off their clothes.
“So am I!” added Bert, as he followed his father.
By this time Freddie had “picked himself up,” as he said afterward, and discovered that he had stumbled over a broken box in the middle of the cabin floor. The little fellow was not hurt.
Also by this time Mrs. Bobbsey had reached for and turned on the flashlight her husband had left with her, so that she could see what had caused the commotion.
What she saw was Freddie standing with his “club” in his hand, ready to cast it on the embers, so there would be blaze enough to see what had caused the noise. But the gleam of the electric torch made Freddie’s brand unnecessary now.
“What is it, Freddie?” asked his mother. “Did you fall out of bed?”
“No, Mother, I didn’t fall out of bed,” answered the little lad. “I got out to make the fire brighter so I could see.”
“See what?” asked his father, who, by this time, had come into the log cabin, followed by Bert. “What did you want to see, little fireman? Tell me!”
“Little fireman” was a good name forFreddie in this case, as he was about to start the fire to blazing again.
“I wanted to see the noise,” stated Flossie’s brother.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Bert. “You can’tseea noise.”
“Well, I wanted to see what made it,” went on Freddie. “I heard a noise and it woke me up.”
“Did the noise wake you, too, Mother?” asked Nan.
“Well, some noise did, but I think it was Freddie falling out of bed that I heard,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I didn’t fall out of bed!” insisted Freddie. “I got out all right, and then, in the dark, I fell over one of these old boxes. It was a noise like one of these broken boxes being dragged over the floor that I heard. There it goes again!” he cried, pointing to a dark corner of the cabin. “Listen!”
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey each held a flashlight now, but the beams were turned away from the corner toward which Freddie pointed so that it was quite dark over there. Truly enough, a noise had come from there.
Quickly Mr. Bobbsey pointed his light inthat direction and an instant later there was a scurrying of feet and a rattle of wood.
“Look! It’s a dog!” cried Freddie.
“Or maybe a skunk!” shouted Bert. “Better be careful!”
“No, that wasn’t a skunk,” said his father. “It was a dog, and he seemed to be dragging that broken box, which would have made the noise which Freddie heard.”
The dog had quickly run out, and when Mr. Bobbsey went over to the corner, where it seemed to have been hiding during the excitement, the reason for it all was explained.
Caught in one corner of the broken box was a bone with some meat on it. Perhaps the dog himself had put the bone there during the day and had come back in the night to get it. But the bone had become wedged fast and in pulling on it the dog moved the box over the floor.
“And that’s what made the noise that awakened Freddie,” said Mr. Bobbsey, when he had finished looking in the corner. “The dog came back here to get the midnight lunch he had hidden, for it is midnight and past,” Mr. Bobbsey went on, looking at his watch.
“Well, I’m glad it was only a dog,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “He may come back and disturb us again, for the door is so broken that it cannot be tightly shut,” she added.
“But I can toss the dog’s bone outside so he will not need to come in after it,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “That will keep him outside. And since there is a dog around here I believe we aren’t as far from a house where people live as I thought at first. There may be a settlement just over the hill. We’ll find out in the morning. Now we can all go back to sleep.”
This they did, and nothing more disturbed them until the sun was shining in the morning, when it was time to arise.
Mr. Bobbsey’s guess, about people living just over the hill, was correct. He and Bert, walking to the top of the hill and looking about, saw several houses not more than half a mile from the lonely cabin. At one of these houses Mr. Bobbsey arranged for his family to have breakfast.
“Have you got a dog?” asked Freddie of the farmer, whose wife had agreed to set a morning meal for the travelers.
“Yes, we have a dog,” was the answer.“At least, he stays here some of the time, but mostly he roams around nights. There he is now—been out all night, as usual,” and with a laugh the man pointed to a small black and white dog that came into the yard, wagging its tail in a friendly fashion.
“That’s the dog that made a noise in the night when I fell over the box!” declared Freddie, and Bert said it was the same animal that had come into the cabin after the bone.
“It would be just like Major,” chuckled the farmer. “So you stayed all night in the old cabin, did you?”
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey, as she sipped the hot, comforting coffee the farmer’s wife set before her. “Did anybody ever live there?”
“A queer, solitary sort of fellow—a farm hand,” answered the farmer. “But that was some time ago. It’s too bad you folks didn’t come on just a bit farther and you could have spent the night here.”
“We couldn’t get any farther with a flat tire,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Besides, from the lonely look of that cabin, it didn’t seem as if there was another house within ten miles.”
“Yes, it is lonesome back there by the cabin,” agreed the farmer. “But that fellow liked it lonesome, he said. Do you want me to hitch up and haul your car here?” he asked.
“Oh, no, thank you,” replied Mr. Bobbsey. “Now that it is daylight and I can see what I’m doing, it will be easy enough to change the tire. Then we can go on to Midvale and thence to Hitchville. This road will take us to Midvale, will it not?”
“It will if you keep on going long enough,” the farmer said. “But you missed the best and shortest way. However, there’s no help for it now. I hope you don’t have any more bad luck.”
“Thanks,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
The twins, as usual, finished their meal before their father and mother were ready to leave the table, and, being excused, they ran out to see and make friends with Major, the dog, who was ready enough to play with them. There were other farm animals, also, to be admired. A little lamb, its mother dead, was being brought up on a baby’s feeding bottle by one of the farm boys. The little “cosset,” as a lamb of this kind is called,was so “dear and sweet” that the children begged their father to buy it for them.
“I guess you’ll find something just as good at Cloverbank,” he said, with a laugh. “Anyhow, we haven’t any room for it in the auto.”
“And I doubt if my Ned would sell it at any price,” said the farmer. “He sets quite a store by that cosset.”
So the Bobbsey twins had to leave without it, and probably it was just as well, since the auto was quite filled as it was.
The sunshine gave plenty of light for Mr. Bobbsey to see to change the tire, and in a little while the travelers were riding along again after the night of adventure.
Midvale proved to be a pleasant little village. Here a stop was made to get some gasoline and oil, and then once more the Bobbseys were on their way.
The road to Hitchville was a main one, well traveled and with signs up in many places, so there was no more danger of Mr. Bobbsey taking the wrong turn. The children began anticipating their arrival, and were talking about what they would do when they reachedCloverbank, which they hoped to do by early afternoon.
But when Nan saw her mother and father now and then turning to look up at the sky, the Bobbsey girl thought something might be amiss, so she asked about it.
“I think we are going to have a storm,” her father replied. “I don’t like the looks of those clouds.”
On and on they journeyed, going a bit faster now that the storm seemed approaching more rapidly. Fortunately the road was a good one. As they went down a little hill toward a white bridge, they saw a boy on it jumping up and down, seemingly much excited. He was shouting something and pointing down toward the water.
“Somebody may have fallen in!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “Stop the car, Dick, and find out!”
“I will!” was the answer, and the auto came to a halt on the bridge, close to the jumping, excited, shouting boy.
“What’s the matter?” called Mr. Bobbsey, hurrying from his seat behind the wheel. “Is somebody in the water?”
“Yes! Yes! There she is! She can’tswim, either!” cried the boy. “Oh, get her out!”
“Is it your sister?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as she put aside some valises and bundles to enable her to get out.
The boy did not answer, but kept shouting and jumping around, meanwhile pointing to the water. Mr. Bobbsey looked over the railing of the bridge, but when he saw no child in the stream, which at this point was wide and deep, he turned to the boy and said:
“What’s the matter with you? There’s no one in there!”
“Yes, there is!” cried the lad. “It’s my cat! She followed me down the road and when an automobile ran close to her on the bridge she tried to climb up on the rail and she fell in! Oh, please get her out before she drowns!”
Mr. Bobbsey looked again, and, sure enough, saw a cat trying to swim to shore. But cats aren’t like dogs. Their fur gets so wet when they are in the water that it is hard for them to get out again. Bert was going to ask why the boy himself didn’t get his own cat out, but when the Bobbsey lad saw howsmall the other lad was, he held back the question. Instead Bert cried:
“I’ll get her for you!” He ran down off the road toward the edge of the river.
“Be careful!” warned his mother. “You may fall in or get stuck in the mud!”
But Bert was taking no chances. He picked up a piece of tree branch, and, leaning over the edge of the stream, while he held to a bush, he reached the branch out and pulled the poor cat to shore. With pitiful mewings and looking very wet and miserable, the pussy crawled out.
“Oh, thanks!” cried the boy.
“You’re welcome,” answered Bert, with a laugh.
The boy ran down and picked up the cat, all dripping wet as it was, in his arms. Evidently he loved animals, and if he had not been so excited he, himself, might have rescued his pet as Bert had done.
“I thought a child had fallen in,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“So did I,” agreed her husband. “But if we don’t hurry along we may all be as wet as that kitten. It’s going to rain hard soon. And with this wind it will be a drivingrain so the top on the car won’t be much protection. It’s too much work to get up the side curtains. We’d better run for shelter.”
Leaving the boy with his wet cat calling out renewed thanks to Bert, the Bobbsey family started off once more. Now the sky was torn with jagged flashes of lightning, followed by low mutterings of thunder which seemed to come nearer and nearer.
“I guess this is Hitchville,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as they turned off a country road into a town. Very soon several signs told them that this guess was correct.
By this time the wind was blowing hard, the lightning was more vivid, and the thunder louder.
“Hadn’t we better run into some garage here?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband, as they passed along the main street of Hitchville.
“Wait until I find out how far it is to Cloverbank farm,” he suggested. “We may be able to get there before the storm breaks if it isn’t too far.”
He stopped to make inquiries of a traffic officer where the two main streets of Hitchvillecrossed, and the officer said Mr. Watson’s place was about two miles out, on the main road.
“We can make it!” decided Mr. Bobbsey. “It won’t rain for ten minutes yet and we’ll be there before then.”
But they had no sooner gotten beyond the town than the first drops began splashing down, to the accompaniment of loud thunder and such glaring lightning as to make Flossie hide her head in the auto robes.
“It’s going to pour in another minute!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “I wish we had stayed in Hitchville!”
“Yes, it would have been better,” agreed her husband. They were on the main road now, but there was no shelter in sight until, as they made a turn, they saw just ahead of them a farmhouse and a large barn up a lane and near the road. The wide doors of the barn were open, and as there came a sudden burst of rain and a great crash of thunder, Mrs. Bobbsey suggested:
“Drive into that barn, Dick. Then we’ll be sheltered. Don’t try to go on to Cloverbank.”
“All right,” he replied, speaking loudly tobe heard above the noise of the storm. “I guess that’s the best thing to do!”
He swung the auto off the road, into the lane, and up the inclined drive right into the open barn, much to the surprise of two men who were inside, having evidently gone there for shelter.
A moment later it seemed as if the sky were torn open to let down the rain which dashed around the barn in a fury, whipped by the high wind, while the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled.