CHAPTER XVIII

KIDNAPPED

For a moment Bert hardly knew whether or not to believe what Freddie said. Of course he knew that his little brother would not tell an untruth, but Freddie might be mistaken. So Bert made up his mind to ask him again what he had said. The fish which had been nibbling at Bert’s bait seemed not to like it, and swam away.

“What did you say you saw, Freddie?” asked the older boy.

“I saw—now—I saw that green umbrella!” whispered Freddie, getting up from his seat on the bank and walking over to Bert. “The green umbrella went past in the road—the same kind of a green umbrella the little old woman had when afterward we found the baby on our steps.”

Freddie seemed very sure about this. He was not fooling—Bert could tell that. And the little boy seemed somewhat frightened. Otherwise he would not have whispered and have come over so close to his older brother.

“Maybe you saw a tree waving in the wind—a tree with green leaves on it, Freddie,” suggested Bert, to try him. “Or it might have been a bush that you saw.”

“No, sir!” insisted Freddie stoutly. “It was a green umbrella.”

“Did you see the little old woman, Freddie?”

“No, I didn’t see her. But I saw her umbrella—a green one.”

“Well, we’ll take a look down the road,” decided Bert. “I guess we have enough fish, anyhow, and we might as well go home. We can look and see if the old woman is there.”

“If she is, you won’t let her take me, will you, Bert?”

“Of course not! Don’t be silly!”

“But she’s a kidnapper—Nan said she was.”

“Well, maybe she did kidnap Baby May and then leave her with us; but she wouldn’t take a big boy like you.”

“If she did,” declared Freddie, winding up his line, “I’d bite her and I’d kick her and I’d scratch her.”

“Well, I guess that wouldn’t be any too much for a kidnapper,” laughed Bert. “But I don’t believe we’ll see any one, Freddie.”

When the two brothers had crossed the field of clover and reached the highway, there was neither a green umbrella nor an old woman in sight—nothing but the dusty road.

“She isn’t here,” said Bert. “I didn’t think there would be anybody.”

“But I did see a green umbrella,” insisted Freddie. “Maybe if you looked in the dust you could see her feet marks like when you and the other fellows make believe trail Indians and wild game. Take a look, Bert.”

“Well, we can look, but I don’t believe we’ll find anything,” the older boy answered.

But when he saw the plain marks of a woman’s shoes in the dust at the side of the road, Bert had to admit that there might have been some woman along there. The footprints came on to the highway at a place where a narrow path wound back into the woods, and they showed that the woman, whoever she was, had come out of the clump of trees and had walked along the dusty road.

“There! What’d I tell you?” exclaimed Freddie. “Wasn’t an old woman along here with a green umbrella? I saw it!”

“Some woman has been here—that’s plain enough,” Bert had to say. “But I can’t tell by these marks how old she was, and nobody could tell if she had a green umbrella or not.”

“If she had an umbrella, and she kept sticking the end down in the dirt like daddy sticks his cane on Sundays, then you could tell,” said Freddie.

“Yes,” admitted Bert, “then you could tell. But I don’t see any umbrella marks.”

Neither could Freddie, but he was sure he had seen the green umbrella passing along the highway. But it had been held up, and the old woman was probably using it as a sunshade; so Freddie had to admit that it could not have made marks in the dust.

The boys followed the trail of the woman’s footsteps in the dust as far as they could see them. Then the woman, whoever she was, had stepped from the side of the highway, where the dust was thickest, into the hard, middle part, where there were many wheel marks, both of automobiles and wagons, and also the prints of horses’ feet.

“We’ve lost ’em!” announced Bert, as the footprints vanished. “No use trailing her any farther.”

“Can’t you tell which way she went?” asked Freddie.

“No,” his brother replied. “Maybe she turned around and walked back, or maybe she kept on, and, if she did, she might have turned off on any cross road. No use following her any farther, Freddie.”

“All right. But we’ll tell daddy and mother, sha’n’t we?”

“Oh, sure!” Bert agreed.

The boys trudged back to the house with their strings of fish.

“Oh, what fine luck you had!” cried Nan, as she met them.

“And we had an adventure, too!” burst out Freddie. “I saw the old woman kidnapper—I mean, I didn’t _zactly_ see her, but I saw her green umbrella and—and—”

But he had to stop, for he was out of breath.

“What does he mean, Bert?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, with a quick look at her older son.

“Well, he surely thinks he saw the green umbrella,” Bert explained, and then he went on with the story.

Mr. Bobbsey looked a bit serious when, later, he heard all about it.

“What do you think?” his wife asked him.

“Of course that strange old woman may have followed us here, and she may be anxious to get Baby May back,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Though how she found us I don’t know. And I can’t imagine why she is so mysterious. If she wanted the baby, why did she desert her in a storm on our steps? And if she gave her away, why, now, does she want her back?”

“It’s all very mysteriousness, isn’t it?” asked Nan, and when Bert laughed at her for saying the big word wrong she wrinkled up her nose at him, which was as near as Nan ever came to “making a face.”

“Yes, it is strange,” her father said, and he did not even smile at Nan’s error. “I think I must make some more inquiries around here. Surely if there is a mysterious woman going about and carrying a green umbrella, some one ought to see her. Meanwhile, you had better take extra good care of Baby May.”

“I certainly will do that!” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

For the next few days Baby May was not wheeled in her carriage very far from the house. Or, if she was, either Mr. or Mrs. Bobbsey went with the children who took May out for an airing. Neither Flossie nor Freddie, together or singly, were allowed to wheel Baby May now, unless Bert or Nan went along.

“We can’t take any chances,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Of course May isn’t our baby, but I love her as much as though she were, and I don’t intend that some one who has no right to her shall take her away from us.”

So Baby May was given extra care. She seemed to have gotten all over her illness and laughed and cooed and “talked” for she could now say a few words, though of course she could not put them together in a sentence. She smiled and made her blue eyes sparkle, until Nan, hugging and kissing her, declared she was the “dearest, sweetest and loveliest baby in all the world.” And of course she was—just as every baby is to those who love children.

Meanwhile Mr. Bobbsey rode about in his automobile, sometimes taking Nan and Bert with him, and he made inquiries of all whom he met about the mysterious old woman with the green umbrella.

At first he could learn no news. No one seemed to have seen her. But one day, when Mr. Bobbsey and Nan and Bert stopped at a lonely farmhouse so the children could get a drink of water, he got a “clew,” as he called it. Afterward he told Bert and Nan that a “clew” on a ship was something to which a rope may be fastened.

“And when you are searching for some one or something, a clew is a bit of information to which you may fasten other news and so, after a while, get enough clews to lead you to what you are looking for,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

“Let’s see now—a queer old woman with a green umbrella,” musingly repeated a farmer of whom Mr. Bobbsey asked this question. “Yes, I did see such a person. She came to our door four or five days ago and asked for a drink of milk. My wife gave her a glass. I’ll call her. She can tell you more than I can.”

Mrs. Kenton said that she had seen the queer old woman.

“She carried a faded green umbrella, and she wore a faded shawl,” she said to Mr. Bobbsey. “She acted queer, too, and kept putting her hand to her head as if it hurt her. I asked her if it ached and if she didn’t want a cup of tea to cure it. But she said it wasn’t exactly an ache, but a sort of buzzing. It was getting better she told me, after she had taken the milk.”

“Did she say anything about having lost a baby or of having left one on the steps of our house?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.

“Good land! Left a baby on your steps! No, she didn’t say anything about that!” exclaimed Mrs. Kenton. “Do tell! Land sakes!”

“I am anxious to know why she is acting so strangely around here,” went on Mr. Bobbsey. “Do you know where she lives?”

This the Kentons did not know. The old woman had departed, green umbrella, faded shawl and all, after resting herself and drinking the milk.

“Well, at least we have proved that she is real,” said Mr. Bobbsey to Bert and Nan, on their way home. “She isn’t imaginary.”

“Do you think Freddie saw her?” asked Nan.

“He may have,” admitted her father. “I wish I knew what to do about it. I don’t want to keep Baby May away from her parents, but I don’t want this queer old woman to have her.”

Mrs. Bobbsey was a bit excited when she heard the news her husband brought.

“Here, Nan,” she said to her daughter, “you take Baby May out in the side yard under the trees with Flossie and Freddie. I want to talk to your father undisturbed for a little while.”

Bert had gone with Mr. Meekin to help with the evening “chores,” and this left Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey free to talk when Nan had taken Baby May and the smaller twins out in the yard.

“What do you think we had better do?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey of her husband. “I don’t like this shadow of a strange woman always hovering over us and the baby.”

“Neither do I. Suppose we go to some other place, and go in such a way—perhaps at night—that she can’t find us?”

“I think that would be a good plan. She must have inquired of the neighbors back in Lakeport and so have traced us.”

“I suppose so; though I thought we had kept it quiet. But we don’t want to spoil the children’s summer. I’ll look for another place.”

The sound of footsteps on the side porch was heard and, looking out, Mrs. Bobbsey saw Nan coming in, followed by Freddie and Flossie.

“You shouldn’t come in and leave Baby May out there all alone!” warned Mrs. Bobbsey.

“Oh, she’s all right,” said Nan. “She’s sound asleep, and I can see the carriage from here, and Flossie and Freddie wanted something to eat.”

“It’s too near supper time,” said their mother. “You must wait, my dears,” she told the smaller twins. “Don’t spoil your appetites.”

“I can’t spoil mine—it’s too big,” chuckled Freddie. “I just wanted a cookie.”

“So do I,” said Flossie.

Their mother finally allowed them a cookie apiece, for she found out that supper would be a bit late, as Mrs. Meekin wanted to finish skimming the milk as she was going to churn the next day.

Then Nan decided she wanted a cookie for herself, so it was perhaps five or ten minutes before the children went back to where they had left Baby May in the carriage.

But, all the while, the carriage was in plain sight from the porch. Even Mr. Bobbsey could watch it, so nothing was feared.

Nan and Flossie and Freddie, munching their molasses cookies, went back to where they had left Baby May, Nan gently raised the coverings to see if May was still asleep.

“Oh! Oh!” she gasped.

“What is it?” Flossie wanted to know.

“Is a bee stinging Baby May?” asked Freddie.

“Oh! Oh, no!” cried Nan, and she was very pale. “Baby May—she—she isn’t here! She’s gone!”

From the porch Mrs. Bobbsey was watching. She realized that something was wrong, and she ran down to the carriage about which Nan, Flossie and Freddie stood.

“What is it, Nan?” she asked quickly. “Has anything happened?”

“Baby—Baby May!” sobbed Nan, “She’s gone! She’s been kidnapped!”