CHAPTER XV
IN THE APPLE ORCHARD
“Bert! Bert! Hold on!” screamed Nan.
“I—I am holding on—all I can!” her brother answered.
But desperately as he clutched at the grass and ground, it was of no use. They were both wet, for Bert had splashed water around when he was working to fix his wheel in place, and farther and farther down the slope he slid.
“Oh, he’ll be drowned!” yelled Flossie, as she saw what was going to happen.
“No, I won’t drown!” called Bert, in reply. “But I’m going to get wet! Here I go!” he shouted, and then into the pool he plunged, going in over his head, for the falling water had washed out quite a hollow place.
“I’ll get him! I’ll help him out!” cried Freddie, making a dash toward his brother.
“You stay right where you are, Freddie Bobbsey!” insisted Nan, catching the little fellow before he could reach the edge of the brook. “Bert can look out for himself, and we don’t want two in the water at the same time. Keep back!”
Freddie had to obey, whether he wanted to or not. But there was really no need of his help in getting Bert out, for the older lad could take good care of himself in the water.
He held his breath as he felt himself going under, and then, as he came up, as one always does after the first plunge in, he shook his head, to clear his eyes of water, and struck out for the bank, only a short distance away.
“Are you all right?” asked Nan, as he climbed out, dripping water all over like a big dog that has gone in to bring back a stick.
“Sure, I’m all right,” said Bert, gasping a bit, for he had swallowed a little water. “Not hurt a bit. Only my clothes will need drying.”
“I should say they would!” laughed Nan. “If you had your fan going now you could start it and stand in front of it. Wind dries clothes very fast.”
“Well, I haven’t got my fan, and I camenear not having my water wheel,” said Bert. “I fell on it when I slipped. I hope I didn’t break it.”
More concerned about his latest “invention,” than about himself, Bert went back to the waterfall, his shoes making a queer “sloshing” sound, as Freddie called it, for they were half full of water. He found the water wheel pulled a little out of place, for in his excitement when he found himself falling, he had made a grab for it.
“But I can easily fix that,” he said, and he got a hammer, some nails and bits of wood from a box he had brought down to the brook together with his paddle wheel.
“You aren’t going to keep on at that now, are you?” asked Nan, in evident surprise.
“Why not?” Bert wanted to know.
“Because you’re all wet. You ought to go up to the house and get dry clothes on.”
“No,” said Bert. “If I go up Mother might not let me come down again. Besides, these are the oldest clothes I have and I couldn’t play around again until they dried. They’ll dry on me just as well as off me. I’m going to keep ’em on and stay right here.”
“But you’d better take off your shoes andstockings,” Nan advised him. “They’ll dry quicker off you than on you.”
“I guess that’s a good idea,” Bert agreed, and soon his footwear was placed on bushes out in the hot sun, and he resumed work on his water mill.
Nan looked after Flossie and Freddie so they would not get in Bert’s way nor into the brook, and soon the older Bobbsey boy gave a cry of delight.
“What’s the matter?” Nan called.
“She works! She works!” he responded. “Look at my paddle wheel turn!”
Indeed it was splashing around bravely under the dashing water that came over the rocks. Around and around went the wooden blades, just like the larger wheel in a big mill that grinds grist for the farmers.
“Now all I have to do,” said Bert, as he and the others watched how regularly the paddles turned, “is to make my fan and then connect it with this water mill by a string belt on the two pulley wheels. Then we can sit down on the porch and we’ll keep cool by the fan which will be turned by this water wheel.”
“Oh, Bert!” exclaimed Nan, “you cannever make the fan run so far away from the brook.”
“Yes, I can,” he declared. “I can have a long string belt, and it will work fine!”
But when he came to try it Bert found many difficulties in the way. True, the pulley wheel on the paddles turned around all right, and when the boy tried it with a short string belt this, too, went circling around as he held the farther end out on a smooth stick. But when he came to use a longer piece of cord, and even this was only halfway to the porch, it wouldn’t turn at all.
“The reason for that,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, who had, meanwhile, come to the brook, “is that your paddle wheel isn’t powerful enough, Bert. It takes force to move the string, which gets wet, you see, and is all the heavier on that account. But you are wet yourself,” she went on, noticing Bert’s damp condition. “What happened?”
“Oh, I just—now—sort of—fell in,” he admitted. “I’m all right and ’most dry. But don’t you think my water wheel will turn a wooden fan up on the porch, Mother?”
“No, son, I think not,” she answered. “The fan will be too far away, and the waterwheel isn’t powerful enough to turn the long, wet string and the fan pulley in addition. But you may try, if you like.”
She knew Bert would learn best by actually doing what he had in mind, and after a day of hard work he found that his mother was right. Though the paddle wheel turned under the falling water, the long string belt would not move, and neither would the fan. Besides, the string got tangled on bushes and once Freddie reported he found a grasshopper sitting on it taking a sun bath.
“I guess I’ll just work the paddle wheel in the water and nothing else,” decided Bert.
“I believe that will be best,” agreed his mother. “We don’t really need a fan to keep cool on the porch. There are lovely cool breezes at Cloverbank.”
Mr. Bobbsey returned from a trip to the city, and he and the twins and their mother had another happy day on the farm. There was so much to do and watch, aside from the gathering of the peaches, that not an hour passed without something happening, it seemed.
One afternoon when Bert and Nan decided to walk to the post-office to mail some lettersand postals they had written to their playmates in Lakeport, they passed the lower edge of the apple orchard. There they heard the voice of Flossie.
“Now look what you did, Freddie Bobbsey!” accused the little girl. “Just look what you did! Oh, it’s terrible!” and she began to cry.
“Something’s happened!” shouted Bert, breaking into a run.
“Sounds so,” agreed Nan. “But, anyhow, they haven’t fallen into the water, for there isn’t any around here.”
“Maybe that calf that got all burrs and stickers is chasing them,” suggested Bert. “It would be just like Freddie to try to get up on its back and ride it!”
It was nothing as exciting as this, it turned out. When Bert and Nan reached the orchard they saw the two children standing under one of the trees, gazing up into the branches, which were laden with fruit just beginning to ripen.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bert. “Is your kite up there, Freddie?”
“No! It’s my doll! And Freddie threw her up there!” the little girl answered, dryingher tears on her dress. “And she won’t come down and maybe I’ll never have her again. Oh, dear!”
“What in the world did you toss Flossie’s doll up into a tree for?” asked Nan of the little boy.
“I threw her up so she’d bring down some apples,” was the answer. “We wanted some apples, and we threw up stones and sticks, but we couldn’t knock any down, then I asked Flossie if I shouldn’t throw her doll up, ’cause she’s easier to throw than a stick. Flossie said yes, so I did.”
“But I didn’t think my doll was going to stay up there!” objected Flossie. “You said she’d come down with some apples; that’s what you did!”
“But how’d I know she was going to stick there?” asked Freddie. “Anyhow I’ll climb up and get her down for you.”
“No, you don’t!” cried Bert, catching Freddie as he was about to climb the tree. “I see where the doll is. She’s too high for you to reach. I think I can make her come down with a long stick.”
Bert found one with which he managed not only to dislodge the doll, but to bring downsome apples as well, to the delight of the small twins. Then, restoring her plaything to Flossie, Bert and Nan took the small ones to the post-office with them.
When they returned they heard voices in the dining room of the farmhouse—voices in excited talk, it seemed—and at the sound of one voice Bert and Nan looked at each other in surprise.
“It’s Mrs. Martin!” whispered Nan.
“That’s right!” agreed her brother. “I wonder if she is crazy again and has come to take the baby away?”
It was Mrs. Martin who had been left in charge of Baby Jenny while her parents went to South America and who had left the little one on the Bobbsey’s doorstep in the rain that strange day. And now Mrs. Martin was at Cloverbank!
What could it mean?