CHAPTER XVII

THE GREEN UMBRELLA

Certainly it was very strange—this vanishing of Baby May, carriage and all. What could it mean?

“Oh! Oh!” sobbed Flossie. “What will mother say? It wasn’t my fault, was it?” she asked, remembering the time she had left the baby carriage for a moment and it had so nearly rolled under the runaway horses hitched to the coal wagon.

“No, dear, of course it wasn’t your fault,” replied Nan soothingly. “But where can the baby be? We weren’t gone so very long. Bert, are you sure you aren’t playing a joke on us?”

“Course I’m not playing a joke!” ejaculated Bert earnestly. “I wouldn’t play a joke like this!”

And Nan believed him.

“It’s that old woman—I know ’tis!” declared Freddie.

“Let’s look around,” suggested Nan eagerly. “If the old woman did take May away she can’t have got very far. Let’s look around!”

Standing on top of the little hill, the Bobbsey twins began to look about them for a possible sight of the old woman hurrying away and wheeling Baby May. But they saw no one.

Suddenly Freddie slipped on the pine needles and began sliding down the hill. It was what he and Flossie had done before, to have fun, but now Freddie’s slipping was an accident.

“Oh!” he cried as he felt himself going. “Oh, I’m skidding!”

He had heard his father say this while driving the automobile on a wet and slippery pavement.

Freddie slid all the way down to the bottom of the hill. He came to a stop near a clump of bushes—bushes covered with thick, green leaves.

And then, all of a sudden, while Flossie, Bert and Nan stood on the top of the hill, hardly knowing whether or not to laugh at Freddie, and when they were wondering what dreadful thing might have happened to Baby May, Freddie gave a loud cry.

It was not a cry as if he were hurt. It was, rather, a cry of joy. Then the little fellow yelled:

“I’ve found her! I’ve found Baby May! Here’s her carriage in the bushes! I’ve found her!”

You can imagine how swiftly Bert raced down that hill. Nan tried to follow as fast as her twin brother, but she slipped and slid on the pine needles—she “skidded” just as Freddie had done. As for Flossie, she started to run, but she tripped and fell on her face. Then she, too, slid down the remainder of the way on the brown needles.

In this way all four of the Bobbsey twins reached the bottom of the hill. Bert was the first to get to where Freddie sat, pointing his chubby forefinger.

“Where is it?” demanded Bert. “Where’s the carriage and Baby May?”

“Right in there!” Freddie answered.

Bert saw the carriage, almost completely hidden behind a screen of green leaves. At the same time Nan and Flossie saw it.

“Oh,” murmured Nan. “Oh, maybe she isn’t in the carriage! Maybe the old woman took May out and pushed the carriage down the hill!”

“We’ll soon see!” exclaimed Bert.

He dashed into the bushes, pulled aside the branches that almost covered the carriage, and cried:

“She’s all right! She’s here fast asleep!”

As he spoke, his loud voice awakened the baby, who cooed and gurgled so that the others heard her.

“I’ll wheel her out,” said Bert, and a moment later Baby May was surrounded by the Bobbsey twins. Everything was all right now—the lost baby had been found.

“Oh, Baby May! Baby May!” cried Nan, gathering the infant up in her arms. “Oh, if that old woman had taken you what would I have done?”

“Maybe the old woman did try to take her,” suggested Bert. “She may have come as far as this down the hill, and then she heard us coming and she hid the carriage here.”

“Maybe,” agreed Nan. And then, as she remembered how she and the two smaller twins had slipped down the pine needle hill she added: “And maybe the carriage rolled down by itself, Bert. I put the brake on, but sometimes it doesn’t hold.”

“Yes, maybe it did happen that way,” Bert admitted. “The carriage could have rolled down the hill, and it could have rolled in behind the bushes and we wouldn’t see it until we went down close and looked—as Freddie did. I guess maybe the carriage did roll down by itself. It could slide easy on the pine needles, and it wouldn’t wake up Baby May.”

Having caught no sight of the strange old woman, the children finally decided it must all have been an accident.

The brakes did not hold very well, as Nan said, and some movement of the baby in her sleep might have started the carriage to rolling. Down the hill it could easily coast and push its way in through the screen of green leaves, the branches springing back into place, thus hiding the carriage from view until Freddie happened to see it.

“Well, I’m glad everything is all right,” announced Nan, as they started back for the boarding house. “I wouldn’t want to go home without Baby May.”

“Nor I,” said Flossie.

It was not easy for Nan and Bert to tell their mother what had happened, but they knew they must. They feared she would blame them for being careless, but all Mrs. Bobbsey said was:

“You must be a little more careful. If you knew the brakes on the carriage didn’t hold, Nan, you should have blocked the wheels with a stone or a piece of wood. But I’ll have daddy fix the brakes.” And the next day Mr. Bobbsey tightened the brakes so they would hold better.

Mr. Bobbsey also went to the hill and looked at the place where it was supposed the carriage had rolled down by itself.

“Yes, it could have happened that way,” he said to his wife. “But I must make sure the old woman is not sneaking around here. She may have followed us.”

“But we didn’t tell any of the neighbors where we were going!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “Just on that account we didn’t tell them—so if the old woman came back and inquired of the neighbors where we had gone, they couldn’t say.”

“All the same she may have found out and have come here,” returned Mr. Bobbsey. “I’ll make some inquiries.”

But as no one around Pine Hill had seen the stranger, the father of the Bobbsey twins began to feel a little easier in his mind.

“Probably it was just an accident,” he said.

The summer days at Pine Hill were happy ones for the Bobbsey twins. They played about in the woods and fields, and Mrs. Bobbsey sometimes went with them, taking Baby May in her carriage. Flossie and Nan had their dolls to play with, and many a little party they made up under the apple trees. There was a big swing, too, in the orchard, and there the twins had fun all day long.

Bert had become very fond of fishing since coming to Pine Hill. There were several small streams in the country round about, and from them he had pulled several good-sized fish that Mrs. Meekin cooked for him.

One day Bert took Freddie off on a fishing trip to a place about a mile from their boarding house. Freddie had a little pole of his own, and Bert promised to bait the hook for him, as Freddie, otherwise, might get it stuck in his fingers.

The boys sat down on the bank of the stream under a shady buttonwood tree, and tossed their baited hooks into the water. Fastened on their lines were bits of cork, painted green.

“When you see your cork bobber go under the water,” said Bert to Freddie, “you want to pull in quick.”

“Why?” asked Freddie curiously.

“’Cause why,” answered Bert. “’Cause when your green bobber goes under it means there’s a fish on the hook, and you want to pull it in before it gets off.”

“Oh,” answered Freddie. Then, after a moment, suddenly he cried: “There she goes!” and he jerked up his pole. On the end of his line was a large, wiggling fish.

“Oh, you caught a good one!” cried Bert.

He took Freddie’s fish off the hook, and then Bert caught one himself. The boys were having good luck with their fishing. Presently Freddie stood up to “stretch his legs,” as he called it. He gave a sudden start and, looking at Bert, exclaimed:

“I just saw it again, Bert! I just saw it!”

“Saw what?” Bert asked, not paying much attention to his brother, for he felt a nibble at his bait. “What did you just see, Freddie?”

“The green umbrella!” whispered the little fellow. “I just saw a green umbrella going along the road,” and he pointed to the highway which passed not far from the stream where the two were fishing. “It was a green umbrella, just like that kidnapper woman carried, Bert!”