CHAPTER XI
BERT HAS AN UPSET
With a thud Freddie crashed down. But instead of hitting the hard ground, he fell into a box of soft peaches, and it was like falling on a load of hay—almost. In fact, some of the peaches were so soft that Freddie was smeared with the pulp and his face and clothes were stained with the juice.
“Oh, Freddie Bobbsey!” cried his mother, who had come up in time to see her little boy fall.
“I—now—I couldn’t help it, Mother! Really I couldn’t!” protested Freddie, as he tried to climb out of the box of soft peaches.
“I know you couldn’t help it, my dear,” his mother said, as she and Bert helped him to climb over the edge of the box. “But you should never lean too far to one side when you are up on a ladder. Oh, Freddie, you are asad sight!” she sighed as she looked at his soiled garments. “And Mr. Watson’s peaches! Oh, dear!”
“Freddie looks like a peach short-cake,” remarked Nan.
“More like a long-cake,” declared Bert. “He’s got peach pulp all over him.”
“Well, they’re my old clothes, anyhow,” said Freddie, as if that helped some, which it probably did.
“Did you get any peach in your mouth?” asked Flossie.
Freddie moved his tongue around over his teeth to make sure.
“No, I guess I didn’t,” he answered. “But I’ll go up to the house and wash, Mother, and put on other clothes, and then I can help pick more peaches, can’t I?”
“I guess you’d better stay on the ground or on a box which isn’t so high as the ladder, and then you won’t fall next time,” suggested Mr. Watson, with a laugh.
“Did he do any damage?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, who came up from another part of the orchard in time to see Nan leading her small brother back to the house to help him change his clothes.
“No damage at all. He fell in the soft peaches that are going to the factory where they will be made into peach butter,” answered the farmer. “For canned peaches, either in halves or slices, the canning factory, of course, uses only good, sound fruit. But the soft ones, when they aren’t actually rotten, can be made up into peach butter, and very good it is, too. No, Freddie didn’t do any harm.”
The work of gathering the peaches was in full swing now, for it was the time to gather the best of the crop and sell while the prices were high.
“Where do you sell your fruit?” asked Mr. Bobbsey of the farmer when Freddie had returned to the orchard.
“Over in Hitchville,” was the answer. “There’s a peach market there, where the wholesale buyers come and buy them by the truck load. I’ll have about two loads ready to go in to-morrow.”
“Could we go with you and see how they sell peaches?” asked Bert, who hoped, when he grew up, to become a business man like his father.
“Yes, you children can ride on the truckif you like,” the farmer said. “But you’d be more comfortable going in your own car. The trucks are big and heavy and aren’t easy riding.”
“I’ll take the whole family over in my car,” Mr. Bobbsey said.
“And it will give me a chance to do a little shopping at the Hitchville stores,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “I need some things for the children.”
So the trip was planned for the following day, by which time many peaches would be picked by the orchard workers. After a while the Bobbsey twins became tired of “helping,” as they called it, and they had eaten all the peaches that were good for them, so they turned to look for something new to amuse them.
“Why don’t you go up in the barn and watch them sorting the peaches?” suggested their mother. “That will be fun.”
“Oh, let’s!” exclaimed Flossie. “And we can roll on the hay.”
But just then Bert saw a small cart drawn by an old and slow-going horse being driven into the orchard by Zeek. Bert at once had an idea.
“What’s that cart for, Mr. Watson?” the boy asked.
“We use that to cart the soft peaches in, as it doesn’t do much harm if they get shaken up and bruised a bit more,” the farmer answered. “We have to be more careful with the sound fruit, and I send that up to the barn on my small auto truck. But we don’t much care what happens to the soft peaches.”
“Do you think—now—maybe—if I was careful—I could drive the cart back to the barn?” asked Bert eagerly. “I’d love to drive the horse, and I know how, for I did it once when we were at Meadow Brook. Could I, please, Mr. Watson?”
“There won’t be any danger driving this horse,” chuckled Zeek, as he brought the animal to a stop near the box of soft peaches into which Freddie had toppled. “He’ll stand without hitching any minute of the day or night.”
“Do you think it would be all right for Bert to take in a load?” asked Mr. Watson of his hired man.
“Oh, sure!” was the answer.
“I’ll be very careful!” promised the small boy.
“Well, wait until I load the truck and you can take charge,” suggested Zeek, one of whose duties was to transport the soft peaches to the barn and later to the canning factory after they had been sorted.
Meanwhile Nan had taken Freddie and Flossie to the big barn where a number of men were engaged in the work of carefully sorting the best peaches into several grades.
“Well, all right,” said Mr. Watson, as he moved on to visit another of his orchards. “I’ll leave this to you and Zeek, my boy.”
Delighted at doing what seemed to be real work, as it was, in a way, Bert helped Zeek put into baskets the best of the soft peaches from the box of discarded ones. Some were so soft that it would not be wise to take them to the barn. These very soft ones and some that had been crushed or broken by falls were put in another box and later fed to the pigs and chickens.
When the small cart was loaded Zeek told Bert how to drive to reach the barn and also told the boy what to do when he got there.
“Aren’t you going to ride with me?” asked Bert, for he thought the hired man would at least be with him on the cart.
“No, I’m not going,” was the reply. “Land sakes, I guess you can manage a load of soft peaches all right, ’specially when Tramper is hitched to the cart.”
“Yes, I guess I can,” Bert assented. “Is the horse named Tramper?” he inquired.
“That’s his name,” replied Zeek, with a laugh. “I named him that myself,” he added.
“Won’t Nan and the others be surprised when they see me driving up all alone?” exclaimed Bert, with a happy laugh as he climbed up to the seat of the cart and looked at the pile of soft peaches behind him.
“Well, don’t give ’em too much of a surprise,” advised Zeek.
“Do you mean Tramper might run away?” the boy asked.
“Oh, no danger of that!” chuckled the hired man. “But don’t upset the cart before you get to the barn. After you get there it doesn’t matter much what happens.”
“Oh, I won’t upset!” promised Bert. “I know how to drive.”
For a time all went well. There was a level road leading into and out of the orchard, and along this Bert guided the steady oldhorse. On either side were men and women up on ladders picking the peaches, and Bert felt that they were all looking at him as he went along.
“Go on there, Tramper!” he called to the horse. But the patient old animal did not pay much attention to anything. He never went a bit faster for all Bert’s talk.
The lad guided the horse and cart safely out on the main road, and along that to the lane which led to the barn where the sorting was going on.
As Bert hoped, Nan and the smaller twins were in the doorway and saw him coming.
“Oh, look at Bert!” cried Flossie.
“He’s driving a real horse!” added Freddie.
“So he is!” exclaimed Nan.
Bert “began to put on airs,” then, as his father said later. But just as he was urging the horse up the little slope that led into the barn, Bert saw a turtle crawling across the lane in front of him. The wheels of the cart would almost surely pass over the turtle’s shell, crushing it.
“Look out there, Mr. Mud Turtle!” cried Bert. But the turtle, like all of its kind,was a slow mover. It did not get out of the way.
OVER WENT LITTLE BOY AND ALL.The Bobbsey Twins at Cloverbank.Page124
OVER WENT LITTLE BOY AND ALL.The Bobbsey Twins at Cloverbank.Page124
OVER WENT LITTLE BOY AND ALL.
The Bobbsey Twins at Cloverbank.Page124
Bert pulled sharply on the left rein to turn the horse and swerve the cart. But he pulled too hard. The horse turned too suddenly, and the cart began to tilt to one side.
“Oh, Bert!” screamed Nan, who was watching.
Then, before he could swing the animal the other way, over went the cart, Bert, peaches, and all in a grand upset.