CHAPTER XXII
HOME AGAIN
Poor Flossie Bobbsey seemed to be covered from head to foot with the dough she had mixed to make peach tarts as she had seen Nan doing. Of course there may have been a few spots on the little girl that were not covered with the mixture of flour and water, but there were not many. Flossie had made her dough “very sloppy,” as Bert said, and it splattered all about. There was much on the floor, some on the chair, but most of it was on Flossie.
“Oh, you poor child! What in the world were you trying to do?” cried Nan, as she ran across the room to pick up her little sister.
“I was—now—I was makin’ tarts!” sobbed Flossie. “Did I break Mrs. Watson’s mixing bowl, Nan?” For her eyes were so filled with flour that she could not see out of them now.
“No, the bowl isn’t broken,” answered Nan kindly. “And I’ll help you clean up, Flossie. Oh, but it is a terrible mess!” she sighed.
Mrs. Bobbsey and Mrs. Watson, hearing the crash of Flossie’s fall, had run to the kitchen. They could tell at once what had happened, but Flossie thought it best to explain.
“I was making peach tarts,” she said. “But I didn’t finish.”
“Never mind,” soothed her mother, for Flossie had been punished enough, Mrs. Bobbsey thought. “You may have some of Nan’s tarts.”
And when Flossie had been washed and a clean dress put on her, she was given one of the first of the tarts from the oven. For Nan’s baking turned out wonderfully well.
“You’re getting to be quite a cook,” complimented Mr. Watson at the table a little later, when Nan’s tarts were served.
“You can put the story of Flossie and her tarts in your composition, Nan,” suggested Bert.
“Yes, I guess I will,” was his sister’s answer. “I hope some more things happenaround here before we go home,” Nan went on. “The more things I have in my composition the better it will be, and maybe I can win the prize.”
“I’d give some one a good prize if he or she could find my lost glasses,” sighed Mrs. Martin. She was still without her spectacles, though she gave up a large part of each day to looking for them.
“I guess you’ll have to wait until your doctor gets back, and then have him write you a prescription for a new pair,” suggested Mr. Watson, as he got on the floor to “play horse” with Baby Jenny.
“I think some one must have taken them, either by mistake or on purpose,” said the old lady. “I remember perfectly well that I had them the day the cattle ran away. Then I laid them down and some one must have come in and picked them up.”
“Who would do such a thing as that?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Well, some of those cattle men might,” Mrs. Martin answered. “Those were rough fellows and they might take a notion to my glasses. The frames were of solid gold.”
“But all the men who drove the cattle wereyoung fellows,” said Mr. Watson. “None of them wore glasses.”
“Well, I don’t know,” sighed Mrs. Watson’s cousin. “I wish I had my glasses, that’s all I can say.”
The happy days at Cloverbank were drawing to a close. Mr. Bobbsey planned to take his family back home in about a week, so the children could resume their studies at school.
“But first I must get some more things to put in my composition,” Nan said. “Are you going to work on yours, Bert?” she asked her brother, as she saw him wandering about the house as if searching for something. “Are you looking for a pencil and paper?”
“I’m looking for my pole,” he said. “I’m going fishing with Sam. I have lots of time to write a composition after I get back to Lakeport.”
“Oh, yes,” agreed Nan. “I’m going to write my composition after I get home, but I want some things to happen here so I’ll have plenty of incidents, as Miss Skell calls them.”
In the days that followed the Bobbsey twins had much fun. They went on picnicsto the woods and to Buttermilk Glen, but Bert kept away from the pirate’s cave.
The children played in the barns, they helped feed the chickens and gathered the eggs. Old Speck came off her nest beneath the barn with a brood of ten little chickens and was put in a coop near the house. Flossie and Freddie devoted themselves to this little family, feeding them and giving them water every day.
When another crop of hay was gathered, the twins were allowed to ride on top of the loads as they were brought in from the field, though Nan did not again try to operate the trolley fork. Twice Bert and Sam went fishing, and once they took Freddie who, to his great delight, caught a good-sized chub. But it dropped off the hook when close to the bank and flapped its way back toward the creek.
“I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” shouted the little fellow, and he threw himself on the fish so vigorously that he slipped and went into the water himself. But Bert and Sam soon pulled him out.
The late crop of peaches was being picked when it was time for the Bobbsey family toreturn home. Mr. Bobbsey had gone to Lakeport to attend to some business, but was coming back to drive his family home in the automobile.
“Only one day more,” sighed Nan, one afternoon, when word came in a letter that Mr. Bobbsey would arrive the following morning and that the twins must be ready to leave. “Oh, it’s so wonderful here I could stay forever!”
“So could I,” Bert said. “But at the same time I’ll be glad to get back home and see the fellows. We’re going to have a football eleven this season, and maybe I’ll be captain.”
“And I suppose I’ll be glad to get home after I arrive,” said Nan. “Anyhow, I want to see if I can win the composition prize. And that reminds me, I want to gather some yellow flowers I saw the other day and didn’t know what they were. Miss Skell said we should put in something about the trees and the flowers we saw.”
So Nan, taking Flossie and Freddie with her, went to gather the blossoms, so she could find out their name, while Bert went on a last fishing trip with Sam.
Bert came back from his trip with a fine string of fish which were cooked for the evening meal. Mr. Watson said he would miss this treat, as he was so busy he seldom had time to go to the creek with hook and line.
Early the next morning all was in readiness for the trip back to Lakeport. The Bobbsey twins, brown as berries from their life out of doors, once again put on their “good clothes,” valises were packed, and the auto was brought to the door.
“Have you got room for these?” asked Mr. Watson, pointing to three baskets of choice peaches on the porch. “I sorted these out especially for you. They’ll stand the journey, if you don’t jounce them too much over the rough roads, and when you get them home, Nan, you can make some more tarts.”
“Indeed we’ll make room for the peaches!” said Mr. Bobbsey. “And very glad we are to have them.”
“If we could take some bees home, we could have some honey, too,” remarked Freddie.
They all laughed at this, and the farmer said:
“I’m afraid it would be dangerous to carry bees. But in the fall I’ll send you some honey.”
“Well, good-bye, folks!” called Zeek. “I’ve got to go back to the peach orchard. We’re getting in the last load now and I don’t want anything to happen to it.”
The children and their parents said farewell to the kind hired man, and Mrs. Martin called after him:
“If you find my lost glasses anywhere, Zeek, bring them back with you.”
“I will,” he promised, though of course as she had lost them around the house, he would hardly find them in the orchard.
“Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!” was called over and over again, Baby Jenny waving her little hand to the travelers. Then, with a jolly tooting of the auto horn, the Bobbseys began their homeward journey.
There was no delay and no such experiences as had befallen them on their trip to Cloverbank, although there was one detour that made, for a short time, a little rough going, and that evening they reached their home in Lakeport. Dinah and Sam were at the house, waiting to greet them.
“How’s all mah honey lambs?” asked the fat cook, as she took some of the baggage Mrs. Bobbsey handed out.
“We’re all well, thank you, Dinah,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Did you and Sam have a good vacation?”
“Jes’ fine!” answered Sam.
“But Ah suah did miss de chilluns!” murmured Dinah. “Whut all am dis?” she asked as she saw the baskets in the car.
“Those are some peaches Mr. Watson gave us,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I’m going to make peach tarts,” added Nan.
“I think those peaches had better be sorted,” observed Mr. Bobbsey. “We went over a bit of rough road in making that detour, and some fruit may be bruised.”
“That’s right,” agreed his wife. “And as Mr. Watson told us, a few bruised peaches in a basket may spoil the whole lot. We’ll turn them out on the table and sort them.” This work was begun as soon as the Bobbseys had rested a little while.
As the last peaches from one of the baskets rolled out on the table, Nan, looking in thebottom of the container, uttered a cry, darted out her hand, and said:
“Look! I’ve found Mrs. Martin’s glasses!”
“Mrs. Martin’s glasses!” exclaimed her mother. “Where were they?”
“In the bottom of that basket, covered with the peaches,” said Nan. “Look!” She held out the spectacle case which, when it was opened, proved to contain the old lady’s glasses, not in the least harmed.
“How did they get there?” asked Bert.
No one knew, of course, but it was thought that the empty peach basket must have been on the porch at the time of the cattle scare. Mrs. Martin must either have dropped or, in her excitement, have put the glasses in the basket. Later it was set out in the shed, no one looking to see if it contained anything. The glasses must have remained in the basket all the while, and even when the peaches were put in to be given to Mr. Bobbsey, no one saw the spectacle case. The case was about the color of the basket, and, of course, a spectacle case is not large.
“But here they are, safe, and how glad Mrs. Martin will be,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “I’ll mail them right back to her.”
This was done, and a grateful letter of thanks came in reply a few days later.
“Baby Jenny misses the children,” Mrs. Watson had added in a postscript to her cousin’s missive.
“And we miss her,” said Nan. “But I’ve got something more to put in my composition—I’m going to write about the lost glasses and how they were found in the peaches.”
School opened about a week later, and after the first few sessions Miss Skell brought up the subject of the vacation compositions. She gave the children three days in which to write and hand in their essays, and Nan worked hard. Bert also wrote one, but he spent so little time over it that his mother said he would not stand much chance of winning the prize.
At last the day came when the decision was to be made. There were some anxious hearts among the boys and girls in Miss Skell’s class as the teacher faced them ready to tell who had won the prize.
“Most of you did very well,” said their instructor. “Much better than I expected. There were some excellent compositions handed in—and some very poor and shortones.” As she said this she seemed to look at Bert Bobbsey. “But the best of all was Nan Bobbsey’s,” went on Miss Skell. “So I award her the prize and I am going to ask her to come up here and read her composition to you. I think you will all enjoy it. The name of it is ‘A Vacation in the Country.’ Come, Nan.”
Nan blushed, but, proud and happy, she read her story and the boys and girls all said it was most interesting. Nan told in an entertaining way about many of the incidents that had taken place at Cloverbank, and on the way there and back, just as they have been told to you here.
“Now what books do you want for a prize?” asked Miss Skell, when Nan had finished.
“A set of nice story books for girls, if you please,” was the answer.
And that is what Nan received a little later. She still has those books, and thinks them the best in her little library.
“Well, we certainly had fun at Cloverbank,” said Bert to his brother and sisters that afternoon on their way home from school, Nan hurrying to tell the good news about winning the prize.
“Lots of fun,” she agreed.
“Wasn’t it funny when Freddie and I saw the bear that turned into a calf?” laughed Flossie.
“And wasn’t it fun that day when we played outdoors in the rain?” asked Freddie. “I wonder if we’ll ever have fun like that again?”
“Oh, I guess so,” said Bert.
Whether the Bobbsey twins did or not remains to be seen.
THE END