The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island
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Laura Lee Hope >> The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island
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"Then we'd better go down to where Grace Lavine lives and see what she
can tell us," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"You don't need to," put in Bert. "I see Grace out in front now with
some other girls. Shall I call her in?"
"Oh, please do!" exclaimed Mrs. Porter. "My poor Helen! Oh, what has
happened to her?"
"We'll get your little girl back, even if the gypsies have her," said
Mr. Bobbsey. "But I don't believe they have taken her away. Call in
Grace, Bert."
Grace was not as excited as Johnnie, and told what she knew.
"Helen and Mary Benson and I were playing in my yard," said Grace. "We
had our dolls and were having a tea party. Mary and I went into the
house to get some sugar cookies, to play they were strawberry shortcake,
and we left Helen out under the trees with her doll. When we came back
she wasn't there, nor her doll either, and down the street we saw the
gypsy wagons."
"Did you see any gypsy man come into the yard and get Helen?" asked Mr.
Bobbsey.
"No," said Grace, shaking her head, "I didn't. But the gypsies must have
taken her, 'cause she was gone."
"Oh, please some one go after the gypsies, and make a search among them,
at any rate!" cried Mrs. Porter.
"We'll get right after them," said Mr. Bobbsey. "I don't really believe
the gypsies took Helen, but they may have seen her. They can't have gone
on very far. I'll call some policemen and we'll get after them."
"I'll come with you," said Bert. "Maybe we'd better get an automobile."
"It would be a good idea," said his father. "Let me see now. I
think----"
But before Mr. Bobbsey could say what he thought there was the sound of
shouts in the street, and when those in the Porter home rushed to the
windows and doors they were surprised to see, coming up the front walk,
the missing little girl herself!
There was Helen Porter, not carried off by the gypsies at all, but safe
at home; though something had happened, that was sure, for she was
crying.
"Here she is! Here she is!" cried several in the crowd, and Mrs. Porter
rushed out to hug her little girl close in her arms.
CHAPTER III
WORRIED TWINS
"Oh, Helen! how glad I am to have you back!" cried Mrs. Porter. "How did
you get away from the gypsies? Or did they really have you?"
The little girl stopped crying, and all about her the men, women and
children waited anxiously to hear what she would say.
"Did the gypsies take you away?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
"No, the gypsies didn't get me," said Helen, her voice now and then
broken by sobs. "But they took Mollie!"
"Took Mollie!" cried Mr. Bobbsey. "Do you mean to say they really did
take a little girl away?"
"They--they took Mollie!" half-sobbed Helen, "and I--I tried to get her
back, but I couldn't run fast enough and--and----"
"Well, if they really have Mollie," went on Mr. Bobbsey, "we must get
right after them and----"
"Mollie is the name of Helen's big doll--almost as large as she is,"
explained Mrs. Porter, who was now smiling through her tears. "Mollie
isn't a little girl, though probably there are several in Lakeport named
that. But the Mollie whom Helen means is a doll."
"Oh, I see," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But did the gypsies really take your
doll, Helen?"
"Yes, they did," answered the little girl. "A bad gypsy man took her
away. I was playing with Mollie in Grace Lavine's yard, and Grace and
Mary went into the house to get some cookies. I stayed out in the yard
with my doll, 'cause I wanted her to get tanned nice and brown. I laid
her down in a sunny place, and I went over under a tree to set the tea
table, and when I looked around I saw the gypsy man."
"Where was he?" asked Mr. Bobbsey.
"He was just getting out of one of the red wagons. And there was a
little gypsy girl in the wagon. She was pointing to my doll, and then
the man jumped down off the wagon steps, ran into the yard, picked up my
doll, and then he jumped into the wagon again and rode away. And he's
got my nice doll Mollie, and I want her back, and--oh, dear!" and Helen
began to cry again.
"Never mind," said Mr. Bobbsey quietly. "I'll try to get your doll back
again. How large was it?"
"Nearly as large as Helen herself," said Mrs. Porter. "I didn't want her
to play with it to-day but she took it."
"Yes, but now the gypsy man with rings in his ears--he took it,"
explained Helen. "He carried my doll off in his arms."
"Then it must have been the doll which Johnnie saw the gypsy man
carrying, and not Helen!" exclaimed Bert. "Did it look like a doll,
Johnnie?"
"Well, it might have been. It had light hair like Helen's, though."
"Helen's doll had light hair," said Mrs. Porter. "And probably if a
gypsy put the doll under his arm, and ran past any one it would look as
though he were carrying off a little girl. Especially as the doll
really had on a dress Helen used to wear when she was a baby."
"That is probably what happened," said Mr. Bobbsey. "The gypsy man's
little girl saw, from the wagon, the doll lying in the Lavine yard.
Gypsies are not as careful about taking what does not belong to them as
they might be. They often steal things, I'm afraid. And, seeing the big
doll lying under the tree----"
"Where I put her so she'd get tanned nice and brown," interrupted Helen.
"Just so," agreed Mr. Bobbsey. "Seeing the doll under the tree, with no
one near, the gypsy man made up his mind to take her for his little
girl. This he did, and when he ran off with Mollie, Johnnie saw what
happened and thought Helen was being kidnapped.
"But I'm glad that wasn't so, though it's too bad Mollie has been taken
away. However, we'll try to get her back for you, Helen. Maybe the
gypsies took other things. If they did we'll send the police after them.
Now don't cry any more and I'll see what I can do."
"And will you get Mollie back?"
"I'll do my best," promised the Bobbsey twins' father.
There being nothing more he could do just then at the Porter home, Mr.
Bobbsey went back to his own family, and told his wife, Flossie, Freddie
and Nan what had happened.
"Oh, I'm so glad Helen is all right," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
"But it's too bad about her doll," sighed Nan. She had a doll of her
own--a fine one--and she knew how she would feel if that had been taken.
"Helen's doll could talk," said Flossie. "I know, 'cause she let me make
it talk one day. You wind up a winder thing in her back, and then you
push on a shoe button thing in her front and she says 'Mamma' and 'Papa'
and other things."
"Yes, that's right," said Nan. "Mollie is a talking doll. I guess she
has a little phonograph inside her. Maybe that's the noise Johnnie heard
when the gypsy man carried the doll past him, and Johnnie thought it was
Helen crying."
"I guess that was it," agreed Mr. Bobbsey.
"Well, it's too bad to lose a big talking doll. I must see what I can do
to help get it back. I'll call up the chief of police."
"It would be worse to lose your toy fire engine," declared Freddie.
"Why, Freddie Bobbsey!" exclaimed his little sister, "nothing could be
worse than to lose your very best doll--your very own child!"
Mr. Bobbsey, being one of the most prominent business men in the town,
had considerable business at times with the police and the fire
departments, and the officers would do almost anything to help him or
his friends.
So, after supper--at which Dinah had served the pudding with the
shaved-up maple sugar over the top, Flossie and Freddie each having had
two helpings--Mr. Bobbsey called up the police station and asked if
anything more had been heard of the gypsies.
"Well, yes, we did hear something of them," answered Chief Branford,
over the telephone wire. "They've gone into camp, where they always do,
on the western shore of the lake, and as I've had several reports of
small things having been stolen around town, I'm going to send on
officer out there to the gypsy camp, and have him see what he can find.
You say they took your little girl's doll?"
"No, not my little girl's," answered Mr. Bobbsey, "but the talking doll
belonging to a friend of hers."
"Her name is Molly, Daddy," said Flossie, who, with the other Bobbsey
twins, was listening to her father talk over the telephone. "I mean the
doll's name is Mollie, not Helen's name."
"I understand," said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh, and he told the chief the
name of the doll and also the name of the little girl who owned it.
"Well, what is to be done?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as her husband hung up
the receiver.
"I think I'll go with the policeman and see what I can find out about
the gypsies," said Mr. Bobbsey. "If they are going to take things that
do not belong to them they may pay a visit to my lumberyard, if they
have not done so already. I think I'll go out to the gypsy camp."
"Oh, let me come!" begged Bert, always ready for an adventure.
"I wouldn't go--not at night, anyhow," remarked Nan.
"Nor I," added Freddie, while Flossie crept up into her mother's lap.
"Oh, I'm not going until morning," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Then I'll take
you, Bert, if you'd like to go. We'll see if we can find Helen's big,
talking doll."
"She must feel bad at losing it," said Nan.
"She does," said Bert. "Though how any one can get to like a doll, with
such stupid eyes as they have, I can't see."
"They're as good as nasty old knives that cut you, and kite strings that
are always getting tangled," said Nan with a laugh.
"Yes, I guess we like different things," agreed her brother. "Well, I'm
glad it wasn't Flossie or Freddie the gypsies took away with them."
"I wouldn't go!" declared Freddie. "And if they took Flossie, I'd get my
fire engine and squirt water on those men with rings in their ears till
they let my sister go!"
"That's my little fat fireman!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey. "But now I think
you're getting sleepy. Your row on the lake made the sandman come
around earlier than usual I guess. Off to bed with you."
Flossie and Freddie went to bed earlier than Nan and Bert, who were
allowed to sit up a little later. There was much talk about the gypsies,
and what they might have taken, and Nan and Bert were getting ready for
bed when a pattering of bare feet was heard on the stairs, and a voice
called:
"Where's Snoop?"
"Why, it's Flossie and Freddie!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, as she saw the two
small twins. "Why are you out of bed?" she asked.
"Freddie thought maybe the gypsies would take our cat Snoop," explained
Flossie, "so we got up to tell you to bring him in."
"And bring in Snap, our dog," added Freddie. "The gypsies might take
him, 'cause he does tricks and was once in a circus."
"Oh, don't worry about that!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey. "Get back to bed
before you take cold."
"But you won't let the gypsies take them, will you?" asked Flossie
anxiously.
"No, indeed!" promised her mother. "Snoop is safely curled up in his
basket, and I guess Snap wouldn't let a gypsy come near him."
But Flossie and Freddie were not satisfied until they had looked and had
seen the big black cat cosily asleep, and had heard Snap bark outside
when Bert called to him from a window.
"The gypsies won't take your pets," their father told the small twins,
and then, hand in hand, they went upstairs again to bed.
CHAPTER IV
THE GOAT
"Can't we come, too?"
"We're not afraid of the gypsies--not in daytime."
Flossie and Freddie thus called after their father and Bert, as the two
latter started the next morning to go to find the gypsy camp. The night
had passed quietly, Snap and Snoop were found safe when day dawned, and
after breakfast Mr. Bobbsey and his older son were to go to Lake Metoka
and find where the gypsies had stopped with the gay red and yellow
wagons. They were going to see if they could find any trace of Helen's
doll, and also things belonging to other people in town, which it was
thought the dark-skinned visitors might have taken.
"Please let us go?" begged the little Bobbsey twins.
"Oh, my dears, no!" said Mrs. Bobbsey. "It's too far; and besides----"
"Are you afraid the gypsies will carry us off?" asked Freddie. "'Cause
if you are I'll take my fire engine, and some of the funny bugs that go
around and around and around that we got in New York, and I'll scare the
gypsies with 'em and squirt water on 'em."
"No, I'm not afraid of you or Flossie's being carried off--especially
when your father is with you," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "But there is no
telling where the gypsies are camped, and it may be a long walk before
they are found. So you stay with me, and I'll get Dinah to let you have
a party."
"Oh, that will be fun!" cried Flossie.
"I'd rather play hunt gypsies," said her brother, but when he saw Dinah
come out of the kitchen with a tiny little cake she had baked especially
for him and his sister to have a play-party with, Freddie thought, after
all, there was some fun in staying at home.
"But take Snap with you," he said to Bert. "He'll growl at the gypsy
men, and maybe he'll scare 'em so they'll give back Helen's doll."
"Well, Snap can growl hard when he wants to," said Bert with a laugh.
"But still I think it wouldn't be a good thing to take him to the gypsy
camp. They nearly always have dogs in their camp--the gypsies do--and
those dogs might get into a fight with Snap."
"Snap could beat 'em!" declared Freddie.
"No, don't take him!" ordered Flossie. "I don't want Snap to get bit."
"I don't either," agreed Bert, "so I'll leave him at home I guess. Well,
there's daddy calling me. I'll have to run. I'll tell you all about it
when I come back."
So, while Flossie and Freddie, with the little cake Dinah had baked for
them, went to have a good time playing party, Mr. Bobbsey, with a
policeman and Bert, went to the gypsy camp. The policeman did not have
on his uniform with brass buttons--in fact, he was dressed almost like
Mr. Bobbsey.
"For," said this policeman, whose name was Joseph Carr, "if the gypsy
men were to see me coming along in my helmet, with my coat covered with
brass buttons, and a club in my hand, they would know right away who I
was. They could see me a long way off, on account of the sun shining on
the brass buttons, and they would have time to hide away that little
girl's doll, or anything else they may have taken. So I'll go in plain
clothes."
"Like a detective," said Bert.
"Yes, something like a detective," agreed Mr. Carr. "Now let's step
along lively."
Several persons had seen the gypsy caravan of gay yellow and red wagons
going through Lakeport, and had noticed them turn up along the farther
shore of Lake Metoka. There was a patch of wood several miles away from
the town, and in years past these same gypsies, or others like them, had
camped there. It was to these woods that Bert and his father were going.
"Do you think we'll find Helen's doll?" asked the boy.
"Well, maybe, Bert," answered his father. "And yet it may be that the
gypsies have it, but will not give it up. We'll just have to wait and
see what happens."
"If I get sight of it they'll give it up soon enough," said Policeman
Carr.
After about a two-hours' walk Bert, his father and Mr. Carr came to the
woods. Through the trees they looked and saw the red and yellow wagons
standing in a circle. Near them were tied a number of horses, eating
what little grass grew under the trees, while dogs roamed about here and
there.
"I'm glad we didn't bring Snap," said Bert. "There'd have been a dog
fight as sure as fate."
"Yes, I guess so," agreed his father.
By this time they had entered the gypsy camp, and some of the dark-faced
men, with dangling gold rings in their ears, came walking slowly forward
as if to ask the two visitors with the little boy what was wanted.
"We're after a big doll," said Mr. Bobbsey. "One was taken from a little
girl in our town yesterday. Perhaps you gypsies took it by mistake; and,
if so, we'd be glad to have it back."
"We haven't any doll," growled one big gypsy. "We have only what is our
own."
"I'm not so sure about that," said Mr. Carr. "We'll have a look about
the camp and see what we can find."
The gypsy growled and said something else, though what it was Bert
could not hear. The gypsies did not seem pleased to have visitors, nor
did the dogs who sniffed about the feet of Bert, his father and the
policeman. One dog growled, while others barked, and then the gypsy man
who had first spoken made them go away.
"You are wasting your time here," said this gypsy, who seemed to be the
leader, or "king," as he is sometimes called. "We have nothing but what
is our own. We have no little girl's doll."
"We'll have a look about," said Mr. Carr again.
But though the policeman and Mr. Bobbsey, to say nothing of Bert, who
had very sharp eyes, looked all about the gypsy camp, there was no sign
of the missing doll. If a gypsy man had taken it, of which Helen, at
least, was very sure, he had either hidden it well or, possibly, had
gone off by himself to some other camp in another part of the woods.
"If the doll would only talk now and tell us where she is, we could get
her," said Bert with a laugh to his father, when they had walked
through the camp and come out on the other side.
"That's right," agreed Mr. Bobbsey; "but I'm afraid the doll isn't smart
enough for that. Do you see anything else that the gypsies may have
taken?" asked the twins' father of the policeman.
"I'm not sure," answered Mr. Carr. "We had a report of two horses
missing, and they may be here, but most horses look so much alike to me
that I can't tell them apart. I guess I'll have to get the men who own
them to come here and see if they can pick them out."
For half an hour Bert, his father and Mr. Carr roamed through the gypsy
camp, the dark-faced men and women scowling at them, and the dogs now
and then barking. If there were any boys or girls in the camp Bert did
not see them, and he thought they might be hiding away in some of the
many wagons.
"Well, we didn't find the doll," said Mr. Carr when they were on their
way back to Lakeport. "But I'm sure some of the horses the gypsies have
don't belong to them. The chief of police is going to make them move
away from that camp anyhow, for the man who owns the land doesn't like
the gypsies there. He says they take his neighbors' chickens."
Flossie and Freddie, as well as Helen Porter, were much disappointed
when Mr. Bobbsey and Bert came back without the doll. Helen was sure
some gypsy had it, but as it could not be found, nothing could be done
about it.
"We'll help you look for your doll this afternoon," said Freddie to the
little girl, into whose eyes came tears whenever she thought of her lost
pet. "Maybe you left Mollie under some bush in Grace's yard."
"I looked under all the bushes," said Helen.
"Well, we'll look again," promised Freddie, and they did, but no doll
was found.
The next day the gypsies were made to move on with their gaily colored
wagons, their horses and dogs, and though they went (for they had no
right to camp on the land near the lake), they were very angry about it.
"They said they had camped there for many years," reported Mr. Carr,
telling about the police having driven the dark-faced men and women
away, "and that they would make whoever it was that drove them away
sorry that he had done such a thing."
"I suppose that means," said Mr. Bobbsey, "that they'll help themselves
from somebody's chicken coop."
"We haven't got any chickens," said Freddie.
"But we've got a dog and a cat," put in Flossie. "If those gypsies take
Snap or Snoop I--I'll go after 'em, I will!"
"So'll I!" declared her little fat brother.
"What'll you do when you get to where the gypsies are?" asked Bert.
"Why, I--I'll----" began Freddie.
"Oh, I'll just pick Snoop up in my arms and tell Snap to come with me
and we'll run home," answered Flossie.
"But maybe the gypsies----"
"Don't, Bert," admonished his father. "I do not believe that you little
twins need worry about your cat and your dog," he continued.
But for several days and nights after that Flossie and Freddie were very
much worried lest their pets should be taken away. But the gypsies did
not come back again--at least for a time, and though the small Bobbsey
twins again helped Helen hunt under many bushes for her talking doll it
could not be found.
"I just _know_ the gypsy man took my Mollie!" declared Helen.
"I'll help you get it back if ever I see those gypsies," declared
Freddie, but at that time neither he, Flossie nor Helen realized what
strange things were going to happen about that same talking doll.
It was about a week after this (and summer seemed to have come all of a
sudden) that, when the mail came one morning, Mrs. Bobbsey saw a postal
card that made her smile as she read it.
"What's it about, Momsie?" asked Freddie, when he noticed his mother's
happy face. "Are we going back to New York?"
"No, but this postal has something to do with something that happened in
New York," was Mrs. Bobbsey's answer. "It is from the express company to
your father, and it says there is, at the express office, a----"
Just then Mrs. Bobbsey dropped the postal, and as Nan picked it up to
hand to her mother the little girl saw one word.
"Oh!" cried Nan, "it's a postal about a goat!"
"A--a goat?" gasped Flossie.
"A goat!" shouted Freddie. "A live goat?"
"Why--er--yes--I guess so," and Nan looked at the postal again.
"Oh, I know!" cried Freddie. "It's that goat I almost bought in New
York--Mike's goat! Oh, did daddy get a goat for us as he promised?"
asked the little boy of his mother.
CHAPTER V
A BUMPY RIDE
The Bobbsey twins--all four of them--stood in a circle about their
mother, looking eagerly at her and at the postal card which Nan had
handed to her. Freddie and Flossie were smiling expectantly while Nan
and Bert looked as though they were not quite sure whether or not it was
a joke.
"Is it really a goat, Mother?" asked Bert.
"Well, that's what this postal says," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "A goat and
cart have arrived at the express office, and your father is asked to
come to get them and take them away."
"Course he's got to take 'em away," said Freddie. "The goat'll be hungry
there, for he can't get anything to eat."
"And he might butt somebody with his horns," added Flossie.
"Daddy wouldn't buy a butting goat," Freddie declared. "Anyhow, let's go
and get him. I want to have a ride."
"If there really is a goat outfit at the express office for us," said
Bert, "we'd better get it I think. I'll take the postal down to the
lumberyard office and ask daddy----"
"I'm going with you!" cried Freddie.
"I'm comin', too!" added Flossie.
"Suppose you all go," suggested Mrs. Bobbsey. "Your father will tell you
what to do, for I'm sure I don't know what to say. I never had a goat.
Four twins, a dog and a cat are about all I can manage," she said
laughingly, as fat Dinah came waddling into the room to ask what to
order from the grocery.
"A goat! Good lan' ob massy!" exclaimed the colored cook. "Dere suah
will be trouble if de honey lambs takes t' playin' wif goats! Um! Um!
Um! A goat! Oh, landy!"
"I know how to drive a goat!" declared Freddie. "Mike, the red-haired
boy in New York, showed me. Flossie and I had a ride in his wagon for
two cents apiece. It was fun, wasn't it, Flossie?"
"Yep. I liked it. We had lots of fun in New York. Freddie rode on a mud
turtle's back and we had bugs that went around and around and around."
"Maybe the goat will go around and around and around," said Nan, half
laughing.
"Well, hurry down to your father's office with the postal," advised Mrs.
Bobbsey. "He'll know what to do."
And when the four excited Bobbsey twins--for even Bert was excited over
the chance of owning a goat--reached their father's office he told them
all about it.
"You remember," he said, "that when Freddie and Flossie 'almost' bought
the goat in New York I promised that if I could find a good one for
sale, with a harness and wagon I'd buy it for you this summer. Well, I
heard of one the other day, and I got it, having it sent on here by
express. Now we'll go down and see what it looks like."
"It's going to be my goat--Flossie's and mine, isn't it?" asked Freddie,
as they started for the express office down near the railroad station.
"No more yours than it will be Nan's and Bert's, my little fat fireman,"
said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "You must all be kind to the goat and
take turns riding in the wagon."
"Can't we all ride at once?" asked Nan.
"Well I don't know how large the wagon is," answered Mr. Bobbsey, as he
started from his lumberyard for the express office with the children.
"Maybe you can all get in at once if the goat is strong enough to pull
you."
"I hope he's a big goat," said Freddie. "Then me and Bert will drive him
and ride you and Flossie, Nan."
"Don't let him run away with me, that's all I ask!" begged Nan,
laughing.
They found the goat in a crate on the express platform. Near him was a
good-sized wagon, like those the children had seen in Central Park when
on their visit to New York.
"Oh, we can all get in it!" cried Freddie, as he ran from the wagon over
to where the goat was bleating in his crate. The animal was a large
white one, and he seemed gentle when Flossie and Freddie put their hands
in through the slats of the crate and patted him.
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