CHAPTER XIII
NAN’S TROLLEY RIDE
“What’s that you said, Flossie? Where are you going?” asked Freddie, scrambling to his feet.
In her excitement over what she had seen, Flossie had screamed in such a shrill voice that her brother hardly understood her.
“What’s the matter? What are you running for?” he called to her.
“I guess you’d run yourself, if you saw a bear!” panted Flossie. She could not run very fast, for the passage, like a wooden tunnel, was covered on the bottom with wisps of hay, and that made it slippery.
“A bear!” gasped Freddie. “Did you see a bear?”
By this time he and Flossie had gotten out of the passage and were back in the big barn, on the other side of the small door they hadopened. There was no one else near them, none of the peach workers, nor was Bert nor Nan. The small twins had this part of the barn to themselves.
“Yes, it was a bear,” declared Flossie, not so excited, now that she saw a door between herself and the beast. “It wasn’t a very big bear,” she added. “Just a little bear.”
“I’m going to look!” declared Freddie, for, unlike his sister, he was not afraid of wild animals like bears, wolves, and lions. At least, Freddie said he wasn’t.
“Oh, you mustn’t go in there!” exclaimed Flossie, when she saw her brother about to open the small door. “The bear will get you! We’d better go tell Daddy or Mother.”
“I don’t believe there’s a bear in there,” asserted Freddie. “How could a bear get here, anyhow? Bears don’t eat peaches.”
“Well, maybe they eat hay, and there’s lots of hay in this barn,” Flossie said. “And I heard Mr. Watson say he was going to put more in soon. Maybe the bear wants hay.”
“Bears don’t eat hay,” went on Freddie. “They eat people. But I’m not afraid of a bear—anyhow, not of a little bear. And Idon’t believe there’s a bear here. They stay in the woods.”
Flossie knew that, as a rule, bears did do this. But she was sure she had seen some queer beast. So she ran to Freddie as he was trying to open the door and cried:
“Don’t go in! Don’t go in! If it wasn’t a bear it was some terrible wild animal! Let’s run!”
But Freddie wanted to show off before his sister, to prove how brave he was.
“The bear won’t hurt me!” he insisted. “You stay back there, Flossie, but I’ll open the door and look at him. And if it’s a big bear I’ll go call Mr. Watson. He has a gun—I saw it in the house.”
Flossie got ready to run farther back in the barn, and Freddie was tugging at the door, which had swung shut rather tightly, when he was spared the trouble of opening it. The door opened itself! Or perhaps something on the other side pushed it open, and the two children saw a strange beast staring at them. It was a creature with a black, bushy head, and at the sight of it Flossie cried:
“There! It is the bear! It is the bear! Now you’d better run, Freddie Bobbsey!”
“Yes, it’s a bear all right!” gasped the boy. “And it’s a big one, too! I’ll go get Mr. Watson and his gun!”
The two children ran out of a side door of the barn. Some distance away from that part of the building where the peaches were being sorted they saw Zeek, the hired man, walking toward them.
“Oh, there’s a bear in here!” screamed Flossie.
“A big bear!” added Freddie, as if that explained why he was also running. For he didn’t want it known that he would retreat from a small bear.
“What’s that you say?” asked the hired man. “A bear?”
“In the barn,” added Flossie.
“He came out of the little door,” went on Freddie.
“Oh, you mean in the fodder tunnel,” said the hired man. “Well, there can’t be a bear there.”
“But we saw him!” insisted Flossie.
“And he had a black, bushy head,” explained her brother.
Zeek, laughing and shaking his head,entered the barn, followed by the two children.
“Hadn’t you better get a gun?” asked Freddie.
“No, I guess your bear will come and eat out of my hand,” said Zeek.
“Oh, is he a trained bear?” Flossie wanted to know. She was not frightened now, and Freddie’s courage, also, came back to him. Zeek did not answer, but led the way to the fodder tunnel door. The children followed him.
Then, just before reaching the place, they were startled by a loud:
Maa-a-a-a!
“There’s your bear,” chuckled Zeek. A moment later a half-grown calf ran toward him and Flossie and Freddie! But it was not like any calf the children had ever seen. Its head was large and black and bushy.
“What makes him look so queer?” asked Freddie, as the calf, again uttering its maa-a-a cry, began nosing Zeek’s hand as if seeking a taste of salt, of which all cattle are very fond.
“Why, this calf has been roaming aroundthe pasture lot,” explained the hired man, “and he’s got a lot of burdock burrs and other stickers all over his head. No wonder he looked like a bear. My, but you are a sight, Sukie!” he said to the calf, to which, he explained later, he had given that odd name. “I’ll have to get a curry comb and brush and clean you up,” he went on, as he began pulling the burrs from the animal’s shaggy head.
“Is that all it was—a calf?” asked Flossie.
“That’s all,” said Zeek.
“It looked like a bear,” Freddie remarked. Both children, but especially Freddie, felt a little disappointed, now their fright was over, to find that their “bear” was only a calf.
“I haven’t the least doubt of that,” chuckled Zeek, in answer to Freddie’s remark. “He’s got a head almost as big as a buffalo’s.”
This was true. Sukie had rambled into one briar and burr patch after another. Then he had found his way down near a lower part of the barn connected with the fodder tunnel. The calf had gotten into this tunnel, which was used as a passage way from one part of the building to another. And, pushing along, the calf, with his head looking like a “bear”as Flossie thought, had confronted the little girl.
When she and Freddie ran back into the main barn, the calf followed them, and, hoping to get something to eat, possibly, had pushed the door open.
“It will be a week before you look like yourself again,” said Zeek to the calf. “But I suppose you didn’t know any better. Well, I’ll turn you out where you belong,” and he led the calf to a side door, and a little later the children saw the hired man using a curry comb on the creature.
Never was there such a jolly place to have fun as Cloverbank. Not only was there the big farmhouse with its attic containing many wonderful things, but there were barns, an ice-house, a smokehouse, and many other buildings where all sorts of games could be played. The attic alone would keep the children busy two or three rainy days at least, Mrs. Watson said.
But, as yet, the Bobbsey twins had done no more than peer into the delightful attic. While the sun shone they wanted to be out of doors, and for the first week of their visit to the farm the weather was fine. It was justwhat was needed to allow the peach crop to be gathered.
In the days that followed the experience of Flossie and Freddie with the “bear,” the children often visited the orchards, where they helped pick the red and yellow fruit. At other times they would help sort it in the barn, and once they rode with Zeek to the canning factory with a load of soft peaches which must quickly be made up into marmalade lest they spoil.
One day, when a lull came in the hard-and-fast work of picking and sorting the peaches, Nan, passing through the kitchen, saw Mrs. Watson getting ready to make some biscuits.
“Oh, may I do that?” begged Nan. “I know how! Mother showed me! Didn’t you?” she asked Mrs. Bobbsey who just then came into the kitchen.
“Yes, Nan bakes very good biscuits,” was the answer.
“I’d be glad to let her bake mine,” returned Mrs. Watson. “The baby is so fretful to-day she doesn’t want me to leave her. So go ahead, Nan; and I wish you luck.”
“You’d better wish her something else,” put in Bert, with a laugh.
“What do you mean?” asked Jenny’s mother.
“I mean you’d better wish that Flossie doesn’t sit down in the batch of biscuits,” Bert went on. “Flossie did that to Nan’s biscuits the time we were keeping house last winter,” and he explained what had taken place, as has been related in the book before this one.
“That will never happen again!” said Nan. “I’ll watch where I put the pan of biscuits, and I’ll watch Flossie. She won’t sit in any more of them!”
“Well, in that case, I’ll let you do the baking,” promised Mrs. Watson, and soon Nan was in her element. She loved to cook and she really knew how to make very good biscuits. And as Flossie and Freddie were playing at sailing boats down in the brook, the little twin girl and boy did not appear on the scene to cause trouble.
Nan’s biscuits came out of the oven a lovely brown, and when Mr. Watson asked for a third helping of them at the table when supper was served, Nan felt just a little bit proud, as well she might.
“The best biscuits I ever ate, except thosemy wife makes!” said the farmer, with a laugh.
Mr. Bobbsey had to return to Lakeport to see about some business matters, but he planned to return to the farm as soon as he could. He would have to make trips back and forth that way all during the summer, he told his family.
It was the day after Mr. Bobbsey went away that Nan strolled out to the large barn in time to see a big wagon loaded with hay drive into the yard. She saw several men, a horse, a long rope, and what looked like a big iron letter U turned upside down near the hay wagon.
“What’s it all about?” asked Nan.
“That’s the hay fork and unloading trolley,” explained Zeek, who was busily hurrying to and fro. “You see we have such a lot of hay that some of it has to be stored in the top story of the barn. It would take too long to carry it up, one pitchfork full at a time, so we have this hay fork. It’s like the letter U turned up, as you see, and on each of the legs, as you might call them, are prongs which fold up when they aren’t in use. A man jabs the two ends of the U down into the hay.Then he pulls on a rope and that makes the prongs stick out and they hold a big bundle of hay.
“Then the horse starts walking along the ground and he pulls the hay fork full up to the top of the barn over a pulley wheel. The horse does most of the work, you see, and we can put in a lot of hay in a short time.”
Nan watched as the fork took up what seemed to be a quarter of the load on the wagon, and then, as the horse pulled, up the mass of dried grass rose in the air.
Then it rolled along by means of a grooved trolley wheel on a tight rope until it reached the open door of the second story of the big barn. Into the door went the mass of hay, and a man there pulled on another rope, loosening the prongs in the legs of the U and the hay fell out. Then the empty fork coasted back down the inclined stretched rope until it was at the wagon again.
Nan found this very interesting to watch, and in order to see better she climbed up to the top story of the barn and found herself in the hay mow which was being filled.
“Hello! who’s there?” asked Zeek, as he heard some one behind him. Zeek had goneup to empty the hay fork after each full trip.
“I came up to watch,” said Nan.
“All right—stand over there and you’ll be safe,” said the hired man.
As one wagon was emptied of its load in this quick fashion, another drove into the yard, and the fork began taking the hay off that. Then some one called Zeek away and Nan was left alone in the mow. As she stood there the horse on the ground below started off, raising a fork full of hay and pulling it toward the open mow door.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Nan. “Here’s a lot of hay coming and no one to open the fork. I wish I could do it. I think I could. I watched Zeek. All he does is to pull the short rope. I’ll do it!”
And so, when the fork full of hay swung into the barn, Nan made a jump for the dangling short rope and pulled on it. But the hay fork did not open. Something was caught, or jammed. Nan fairly lifted herself off the ground in her eagerness to pull, and hung dangling by the rope fast to the fork full of hay.
Just then Zeek, who had gone out of thebarn, looked up and saw the fork full of hay in the open door.
“What did you haul that up for?” he asked the man, who was driving the horse. “I’m not there to open the fork!”
“Oh,” said the man, “I didn’t know that. I thought you were there. I’ll let the hay come back again!”
He spoke to the horse. The animal began backing, and the big bundle of hay began to roll down the inclined trolley rope.
As it came out of the barn Zeek and the others were startled to see Nan Bobbsey clinging to the rope. Before she could let go she was being given a dangerous hay trolley ride out of the barn, high in the air over the yard.
“Oh! Oh!” gasped the little girl, as she realized her plight.
“Hold on! Hold on!” shouted Zeek. “Don’t let go and you’ll be all right in a minute! Hold on!”