CHAPTER XV

FREDDIE SEES SOMETHING

With hushed voices and walking on tiptoes, the smaller Bobbsey twins and Nan entered the house. Mrs. Bobbsey closed the door softly after them.

“Where is she? Where is Baby May?” asked Flossie.

“May I look at her?” asked Freddie soberly.

“Not now, dears,” their mother answered. “She has just fallen asleep, and I don’t want her to awaken. You may see her after she has had her nap—that is, if she is well enough.”

“Is she very sick?” Nan wanted to know. “It must have come on suddenly, for she was all right when we went to school this morning.”

“Yes, it was sudden,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered. “She was taken with a spasm after you left, and I had to telephone for the doctor.”

“What did he say?” Nan asked, while Flossie and Freddie, hardly breathing so anxious were they to make no noise, waited for the answer.

“He said he thought it was something she had eaten, and he gave me some medicine for her. After she took it she fell asleep. She is up in my room now.”

“Is anybody with her?” asked Nan. “We got out of school a little earlier on account of Bert speaking his piece.”

“Dinah is sitting beside Baby May,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But what do you mean about getting out earlier on account of Bert speaking his piece? I hope he didn’t fail or cut up or—”

“Oh, no, _he_ was all right,” softly laughed Nan. “It was Sammie Todd. He fell out of the window—”

“Fell out of the window!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, and then she suddenly lowered her voice for fear of waking Baby May. “Was he hurt?” she whispered.

“No,” chuckled Nan, and then she told what had happened. “I’ll go up and sit by the baby,” she added, when she had finished the story.

“All right, then Dinah can come down,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “You and Flossie go out and play, Freddie,” she added to the younger twins. “But don’t make any noise.”

“I’ll play with my paper dolls—they don’t make a sound,” decided Flossie.

“And I’ll take my little cart with the rubber tires on the wheels—that doesn’t make any noise, either,” said Freddie.

“Why can’t you give my family a ride in the cart?” suggested Flossie. “The children haven’t had a ride for a long time.” By children, she of course meant her paper dolls.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” answered Freddie. “We’ll pretend the cart is a trolley car and the children can ride on it. Only they have to pay fare. Little stones will do for money.”

And so it was arranged.

With the younger twins thus safely amusing themselves, Nan could spend her time with the baby.

She went quietly up to the room where Dinah sat beside the bed on which little May was lying.

“De honey lamb is gettin’ bettah,” whispered Dinah. “I kin tell by de way she breeves. Dat doctor man’s medicine done her a powerful sight ob good! But don’t wake her up. Let her sleep! Sleep’s de best when a baby’s sick.”

“Yes,” agreed Nan, in a whisper, and then she sat silent beside the bed.

Baby May was a beautiful picture to look upon as she slept—a beautiful picture, but just a little sad, Nan thought. For the little child seemed friendless and alone in the world, no one, seemingly, knowing where her father and mother were. No one ever to have cared for her save the queer old woman with the green umbrella!

“I wonder where that woman is now,” thought Nan, as she listened to the breathing of Baby May. As Dinah had said, her “breeves” were quieter, now that the medicine had its effect. But she still looked ill, Nan thought, as she tenderly touched one dimpled hand with a finger.

Outside in the yard below the bedroom window Flossie and Freddie could be heard at their play. They made only a little noise—not enough to waken the baby. Nan heard them and smiled, then she almost laughed as she thought of how Sam had fallen into the barrel of water.

The baby stirred uneasily in her sleep and cried faintly. Mrs. Bobbsey came quickly up the stairs and appeared in the room.

“If she is waking I must give her some more medicine,” she said.

Baby May awoke with a pitiful, fretful sick cry, and she wailed more loudly as she became more widely awake. It was hard work to make her take the medicine, but at least she swallowed some, and then she cried harder than ever.

“Poor little dear!” murmured Nan. “She must be terribly sick!”

“Oh, perhaps not,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Little babies cry very hard for only a slight illness. The doctor did not seem to think it was anything serious. But he is coming in again.”

“Shall I take her out in the carriage?” offered Nan.

“Oh, no. She must stay in the house,” her mother answered.

Flossie and Freddie came creeping up the stairs, having left their play at the sound of the baby’s cries.

“Is she all right now?” asked Flossie. “Could I take her out?”

“She is far from being all right,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey. “Better run down and play some more, little twins. Nan and I will look after Baby May.”

“She sounds all right,” observed Freddie. “She’s making a lot of noise,” for the infant was crying hard.

“All babies have to cry,” wisely remarked Flossie, as she went downstairs with her brother. “You cried when you were little.”

“I don’t ’member it,” said Freddie.

The doctor came again that evening soon after supper. He carefully looked the baby over and, after sitting in his chair and appearing to be in deep thought, he asked:

“Has she ever had the jaundice?”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered. “You see, she isn’t our baby, exactly. She was left on our doorstep, and what she may have had and gotten over I don’t know.”

“Um—yes,” remarked the doctor. “Well, it looks to me as if she were going to have a touch of the jaundice; she’s getting a bit yellow. I’ll give her some new medicine,” and he began to write on one of his prescription blanks.

“What’s jaundice, Mother?” asked Nan, when the doctor was gone. “Did I ever have it?”

“Yes, you had it, and you turned as yellow as saffron, so Dinah said. As a rule, it isn’t anything serious. Little babies often have it. Their stomachs get out of order. But I will need to have this medicine brought from the drug store.”

“I’ll get it,” offered Bert.

“I’ll go with you,” said Nan.

“We’ll go, too,” chimed in Flossie and Freddie.

“No, it’s too late,” said their father, for, though it was not yet dark, night was fast coming on.

However, it was not too late for Bert and Nan to go to the drug store, which was only a few blocks away, and out they started. Bert had some money saved up, and he treated his sister to an ice-cream cone while they waited for the medicine to be prepared.

It was when the twins were on their way home that Bert saw Nan stop, turn around, and look back several times.

“What’s the matter?” he finally asked.

“I thought I saw some one following us,” she answered.

“Some one coming after us, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it—Danny Rugg?” asked Bert. “He isn’t mean any more. He used to follow you and throw stones at you, but he doesn’t any more.”

“No, it wasn’t Danny Rugg,” Nan answered.

“Who then?”

“It was an old woman.”

“An old woman!” exclaimed Bert. “Do you mean it was the same one who left Baby May?”

“I couldn’t be sure about that,” replied Nan, once more glancing back over her shoulder. “But it was some old woman. She has been following us for two blocks.”

“Wait a minute—we’ll fool her the way detectives do!” exclaimed Bert, not explaining how he happened to know anything about detectives.

“What you going to do?” asked Nan.

“We’ll turn the next corner, and then we’ll hide in a doorway,” Bert explained. “If any old woman is following us she’ll think we kept right on and we can see who she is.”

“Oh, I know, like playing tag,” said Nan.

So the children turned the next corner quickly, and then, swinging back, hid themselves in a doorway. They waited, but no one followed them. They waited some little time longer. Then Bert stepped out and looked back down the street from which they had turned.

“No one’s coming,” he said. “I guess you didn’t see anybody, Nan.”

“Yes, I did,” she insisted.

When the twins reached home with the medicine, and told their parents about the matter, Mr. Bobbsey said:

“I don’t believe it was the same old woman. She doesn’t want to be found out, that’s certain; so she wouldn’t come back to the same town in which she deserted the baby. It was some other old woman, Nan.”

“Well, perhaps it was, Daddy,” said Bert’s sister.

After that they thought no more about it. The new medicine seemed to be just what Baby May needed, for she was much better the next day. She really had the jaundice, and her skin grew ever so yellow, causing the Bobbsey twins to fear for the worst. But their mother laughed at their alarm and said Baby May would soon be better.

And she was. A few days later she could be taken out in the yard and allowed to sleep in the hammock beneath the overshadowing trees.

Mrs. Bobbsey placed Baby May in the hammock, where the little thing crowed and cooed in her happiness at feeling well again. Freddie was with his mother. Nan had taken Flossie down to a store to buy her a new hair ribbon. Bert had gone fishing with some of the boys.

“De telafoam am ringin’,” announced Dinah, coming to the back door and calling to Mrs. Bobbsey. “Somebody done want yo’, Mrs. Bobbsey.”

“I’ll come right in, Dinah. Freddie, you watch Baby May a little while, and don’t swing the hammock.”

“No’m, I won’t,” Freddie promised.

He sat beside the baby, smiling at her, for she was so pretty and cute, and letting May catch hold of one of his fingers. Then, as Freddie looked toward the street he saw something—or rather, some one. And that some one was an old lady in a faded shawl. Freddie insisted afterward that the shawl was faded.

At any rate, an old lady passed the Bobbsey house, and when she saw a baby swinging in a hammock in the side yard, with a little boy sitting beside the hammock, a strange look came over her face.

“Oh!” softly murmured Freddie. “Oh, it’s the same old woman!”

As he spoke thus to himself the old woman put her hand on the closed gate, and seemed about to push it open.

“Don’t come in here! Don’t you come in!” screamed Freddie, in such a loud voice that he frightened Baby May and she began to cry.

“Don’t you come in!” Freddie shouted again.