CHAPTER XVI
THE RUNAWAYS
“Shall we go in?” asked Nan of her brother in a whisper, after they had stood outside the door a few moments, listening to the voices within the room.
“Well, I guess so—yes,” he replied. Then, as he listened and heard the sound of laughter mingled with the talking, he began to believe that, after all, Mrs. Martin had only called in a friendly way and not to get the baby again. “Sure, let’s go in,” said Bert.
Followed by Flossie and Freddie, who did not understand very much about why the other two had delayed, the twins entered the room where the old lady who had acted so strangely about “Baby May” was seated.
Mrs. Bobbsey and Mrs. Watson were also there, and so was Baby Jenny, who was being held by the old lady.
“Well, here are the lost twins!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, with a laugh, as her four entered.
“Lost! We weren’t lost!” said Bert, in some surprise.
“I know—I was only joking,” his mother told him. “You were gone a long time, and while you were away this friend of yours called,” and she motioned to Mrs. Martin.
“Do you remember me, my dears?” asked Mrs. Martin, nodding at each of the Bobbsey twins in turn.
“Oh, yes, ma’am,” answered Nan politely.
Mrs. Martin could tell that the children were just a little bit afraid of her. It really was no wonder, for she had acted very strangely in leaving Baby Jenny in a basket on the Bobbseys’ steps during a storm and later stealing the baby away again. Of course afterward, as you know if you have read the book, everything came out all right.
“I am all right now,” the old lady said, for she guessed that Bert and the others were looking at her curiously. “You needn’t be afraid of me, my dears. I am not going to take this darling baby away any more. Ijust came to pay a little visit to her. But I didn’t expect to find the Bobbsey twins here.”
“We’re glad to see you,” was Bert’s polite remark.
“And we’re glad you’re better,” added Nan.
“But you look sort of—sort of different,” said Freddie.
“She looks like—now—like the Grandmother in Red Riding Hood,” Flossie said, after a little hesitation over the matter.
Every one laughed and Mrs. Martin said:
“It’s my glasses, I guess. Always, up until a week ago, I used the kind of glasses that pinch on your nose,” she told Mrs. Bobbsey and Mrs. Watson. “Then my eyes began to get worse and I went to the doctor who said I needed different glasses, and he wrote out the kind I should get on a paper.
“I took it to a shop and they made me these glasses that fasten on over my ears and stay on better than the nose kind. And I can see ever so much better. I think it must be my glasses that make me appear strange to the children.”
“Yes, I guess it is,” said Nan. “I never saw you with glasses on before.”
“Well, I hope you will get used to them, my dear, and like me,” went on Mrs. Martin. “I am quite proud of these glasses. I hope nothing happens to them,” she said anxiously. “If they got broken or I lost them, I could hardly see at all, my eyes have changed so. I am getting old, I guess,” she said, with a sigh. “But then we all have to do that—even Baby Jenny is older than when I so foolishly took her away and left her on your steps,” she told Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Yes, and my twins are growing up, too,” said their mother. “Though sometimes, when they act foolishly, fall into brooks and ride on hay forks, I fear they are growing younger instead of older,” she concluded, with a laugh.
“They can’t be young but once,” Mrs. Martin said, as she took off her glasses to wipe them on a piece of silk she carried in her pocket. Baby Jenny had reached up and put her fingers on the glass, making a blurred place. “No, they can’t be young but once—more’s the pity. Have all the fun you can when you are little,” she advised the children.
“I guess you don’t need to tell them that,” said their mother.
Flossie and Freddie went into the yard to play. Bert and Nan, after having talked a while longer with Mrs. Martin, also left the room. Later they learned that Mrs. Martin had come to stay a week or two with her cousin, Mrs. Watson.
That evening after supper the Bobbsey twins made up their minds that they were going to like Mrs. Martin very much, for she gathered them about her after the evening’s play and told them some fine stories. Even Bert, who liked out-of-door games more than he did books, was interested in the tales the old lady told.
“Did somebody tell you that story?” asked Freddie, after the ending of one he had liked very much.
“No, my dear, I read it in a book,” was the answer. “And now that I have my new glasses, I can read a lot more stories to tell you.”
“That’s good,” said Flossie. “I hope nothing happens to your glasses, Mrs. Martin.”
“I hope not, myself,” she said. “If I lost them or broke them, I would have hardwork to replace them, especially out here at Cloverbank. Then I couldn’t read any more.”
The next day was a rainy one—the first the children had met with since coming to Cloverbank, though, as you remember, they had arrived in a hard shower. At first the twins were rather disappointed when they awakened and heard the drizzling downpour, for they had planned a picnic in the woods. But Mrs. Bobbsey, seeing their unhappy faces, laughed and said:
“This is just the kind of day to play in the attic!”
There was a bookcase in the attic, and in it Nan found some old children’s books that had belonged to Mr. Watson’s mother when she was a little girl.
“And such funny, funny stories about such very proper little girls I never before read,” Nan told her mother afterward.
There were trunks full of old clothes, and Flossie dressed up in these. There were some ropes, too, and the boys fastened these to the rafters and did—or Bert did and Freddie tried to do—all sorts of acrobatic tricks. Therewas old furniture, and chairs and tables were pulled out and made to do for a house, a steamboat, and a train of cars in turn.
After dinner Mrs. Watson pleaded with Mrs. Bobbsey that the boys be permitted to put on overalls and the girls old dresses and run out in the rain to play. Mrs. Bobbsey thought the children might catch cold, but Mrs. Watson laughed and said that such a warm summer rain would never hurt running children, if they came in and dried themselves as soon as they stopped playing.
So out in the falling rain rushed Nan and Bert, Freddie and Flossie, and such a game of tag as they had, the smaller twins not always being caught, either! Then came a jolly game of puss-wants-a-corner, with trees for corners. After this they went in the house again and, after putting on dry clothing, went back to the attic for the rest of the afternoon.
Before the Bobbsey twins knew it the rainy day had passed and night had come. They had spent many happy hours in the attic, and running about in the rain. Then came an evening story by Mrs. Martin, and soon it was bedtime, even for the older twins, Bert and Nan.
“Well, I’m glad to see the sun,” said Mr. Watson the next morning after breakfast. “I was afraid it was going to rain and I couldn’t get the rest of my peaches picked. But this is a fine day.”
As soon as the orchard had dried up a little, the men and women peach-gatherers appeared, and soon there were the same busy scenes that the visitors had observed when they first came to Cloverbank.
As more pickers came to work than he expected, Mr. Watson soon found that a great quantity of fruit was gathered in the barn to be sorted, and this must be done quickly, so the baskets could be hurried to the market to be sold.
“I’ll come out and help you sort,” offered Mr. Bobbsey, who had returned from his trip to the city.
“So will I,” his wife said.
“We will, too!” exclaimed Nan and Bert.
The small twins offered their services, but as it was doubtful whether or not they could tell choice fruit from that intended for the near-by canning factory, their mother decided they had better play about the barn while the others sorted.
The barn was soon a busy place, with the small truck and wagon bringing in the fruit from the orchard, and the sorters picking out the different grades. The whole place had a most delightful perfume about it from the crushed peaches, for, in spite of care, some would fall and be bruised, quickly getting soft.
Bert and Nan soon learned to do good work at the sorting bins, watching what the expert workers did, and Mr. Watson, pausing near them once or twice, said they were doing very well. Mrs. Bobbsey, knowing a lot about peaches, for she had canned many of them, was able to work with the best of them. Nor was Mr. Bobbsey far behind.
“I’m glad you Bobbsey folks came out to Cloverbank,” chuckled the farmer, during a lull in the work. “I never had such a big crop of peaches before, and good workers are scarce.”
“We’re working for our board,” Mrs. Bobbsey said, with a laugh. “And that reminds me, Mr. Watson! Your wife said she would like you to send a few baskets of peaches to the house, as some friends of hers are going to stop for them during the day.”
“I’ll have Zeek take out some ripe ones,” was the answer, and this was done, the baskets of peaches being set on the porch of the farmhouse.
It was just before noon, and Bert and Nan were having a race to see who could sort the most peaches, when suddenly there arose a great shouting outside the barn.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Maybe somebody else upset a load of peaches,” suggested Bert.
But Freddie, who was near the open door of the barn, began to dance in excitement at something he saw.
“They’re running away! Oh, look at the runaways!” he cried.
“Are the horses running away?” asked his father, for Mr. Watson was using a team to haul wagonloads of peaches in from the orchard.
“No, it isn’t horses! It’s cows! A lot of cows running away! They’re coming right into the barn, too! Oh, look!”