CHAPTER XXI

IN THE DUCK POND

Meanwhile, back in the house at Pine Hill, the other Bobbsey children and their mother waited anxiously for news from Bert and his father.

At first Nan was sure the two would come back in an hour after setting off, bringing back Baby May. But when the long hand of the clock had gone slowly all around the face twice, making two hours, Nan sighed and said:

“I guess it’s going to take longer than I thought.”

“I’m afraid so,” agreed her mother.

Flossie and Freddie, however, though just as anxious to get back Baby May as were Bert and Nan, did not think so much about the kidnapping of the little one. Flossie and Freddie liked to have fun all the while, and just waiting for some one to come back was not much fun.

“Let’s do something,” proposed Freddie, after a while.

“All right,” agreed Flossie. “What’ll we do?”

Freddie thought for a few moments. Then he said:

“Let’s go wading in the pond.”

“Oh-o-o-oo!” exclaimed Flossie, her eyes opening wide in surprise. “Mother said we mustn’t go there!” she added.

“That was yesterday,” said Freddie, with a shake of his curly head. “Yesterday it looked like it was going to rain, and she told us not to go to the pond. To-day it isn’t going to rain, so we can go to the pond and wade—with our shoes and stockings off,” he went on, after another thought.

“Are you sure?” asked Flossie.

“Course I’m sure,” answered Freddie. “Come on!”

Perhaps if Flossie had not wanted so much to go and wade in the pond she might have thought more of what her mother had said the day before. This was that neither she nor Freddie was to go in wading. But then Freddie might be right. Mrs. Bobbsey might not have wanted the children to play in the water when it was likely to rain.

Now the sun was shining and the water of the pond sparkled in the bright light. The pond was out of sight of the house. It was a place where a brook widened out, making a swimming space for the ducks. Flossie and Freddie had been allowed to sail toy boats on it, but had not been allowed to go in wading.

“It’s too muddy,” Mrs. Bobbsey had said.

But now the two little Bobbsey twins made their way down to this pond, no one in the house seeing them.

“I’ll get my shoes and stockings off before you do!” cried Freddie, sitting down on the ground near the water.

“You will not! I can beat you!” cried Flossie.

She did, but she tore one of her stockings while taking it off in such a hurry.

“I beat! I beat!” she cried, dancing up and down.

“But you tore your stocking!” cried Freddie, pointing to the hole.

“I don’t care—it was an old stocking,” replied Flossie.

“Well, anyhow, I’ll get in wading first!” shouted Freddie. He made a dash toward the water, Flossie following closely after him.

“Oh! Oh!” suddenly cried the little girl.

Freddie turned and saw that she had fallen down.

“Did you hurt yourself, Flossie?” asked her brother kindly.

“N-n-no; not mu-mu-much!” she stammered. “Is my—now, is my nose red?” she asked, raising her head from the ground, where she still lay.

Freddie ran forward and dipped one foot in the water of the pond.

“That’s to show I beat and got in first,” he said. Then he went back to Flossie who was still stretched out on the ground. He wanted to be kind to his sister, but a race was a race. “Your nose is a little red,” he went on.

“Is it bleeding?” Flossie wanted to know, about ready to cry.

“No, it isn’t bleeding,” Freddie answered.

“Then I guess it’s all right,” Flossie went on. “Please help me up, Freddie.”

Freddie did this, and the two barefooted Bobbsey twins, hand in hand, walked toward the pond. Freddie did not care now if Flossie got in ahead of him, for he had wet his feet first.

However, Flossie was a bit timid, so she stood on the edge of the pond and said:

“Wade in again, Freddie, and tell me if it’s very deep and if it’s cold.”

“It isn’t deep and it isn’t cold,” declared Freddie. “I’ll show you, Flossie!”

He waded boldly out into the pond, splashing about and getting the bottoms of his little trousers wet. He turned toward Flossie, to tell her to come on out, but, suddenly, a queer look came over the little boy’s face.

“Oh, Flossie!” he cried. “Something’s got me by the toe! Oh, I guess it’s a mud turkle! Go call mother!”

Flossie paused for a moment on the edge of the pond.

“Go on! Go on!” cried Freddie, dancing about with one foot out of the water. The other seemed stuck in the mud. “Go on. Call mother! Tell her a mud turkle has me by the toe!”

“I don’t see any turkle,” remarked Flossie. Both she and Freddie called it “turkle,” instead of turtle.

“Well, the turkle is here all right!” Freddie exclaimed. “He has me by the toe! Maybe it’s a snapping turkle ’stid of a mud turkle! But go call mother!”

Away ran Flossie, and she was soon gasping to her mother:

“It’s got him by the toe! It’s got him by the toe!”

“What has who by the toe?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

“The turkle has Freddie by the toe,” explained Flossie. “Come on, Mother!”

“Where is Freddie?” asked his mother.

“Down in the duck pond,” answered Flossie.

“Didn’t I tell you not to go wading there?” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. But she did not wait for Flossie to answer. On hurried the mother of the Bobbsey twins, Flossie keeping alongside of her.

“Freddie said it was all right to go in wading to-day, ’cause it was yesterday you said we couldn’t go in,” remarked Flossie.

“Oh, my goodness!” gasped Mrs. Bobbsey. “Such children!”

By this time she was within sight of the pond where Freddie stood near the edge. He was crying and was splashed from head to foot with muddy water.

“Oh, Freddie! Are you hurt, child?” called his mother.

“The—the turkle’s—got hold of my toe yet and he won’t let go!” Freddie sobbed.

There was a plank on the edge of the pond, and, pushing this out into the water, Mrs. Bobbsey stepped on it until she could reach the little boy without getting her own feet wet. She put her arms around Freddie and lifted him from the water. That is, she tried to lift him, but at first he did not come.

“He’s stuck in the mud!” shouted Flossie.

“It’s my foot! The turkle has hold of it!” screamed Freddie.

“It must be a very large turtle!” gasped Mrs. Bobbsey. But she did not really believe that a turtle had hold of the little boy’s foot, though he certainly was held fast.

She gave another pull, and this time Freddie came up in her arms. Something was dangling from one foot. At the sight of it Flossie, on the bank, set up a shout.

“Oh, it isn’t a turkle after all!” cried the little girl. “It’s a big jug!”

And so it was. Freddie, wading about in the pond, had stuck his big toe in the mouth of a brown jug that some one had thrown into the duck pond. The jug had stuck to the little boy’s foot, and to him it seemed exactly as if a “turkle” had him.

As Mrs. Bobbsey raised Freddie up in her arms, the jug fell from his toe and splashed back into the pond.

“There goes your turtle,” said his mother. “My! what a time you’ve had! You shouldn’t have gone in wading, Flossie and Freddie!”

“I told him you said not to,” remarked the little girl.

“But I didn’t think you meant to-day,” observed Freddie, as he sat down on the grass and looked carefully at his big toe. Aside from being red, like Flossie’s nose, it was not cut or hurt.

“I didn’t want you to go in wading any time in this pond,” said the children’s mother. “There is broken glass in it and pieces of tin on which you might cut your feet. That’s why I wanted you to stay out.”

“Oh!” murmured Freddie. “I thought it was ’cause you didn’t want us to get wet.”

“Don’t go in again!” warned Mrs. Bobbsey, and thinking Freddie had been frightened enough she did not punish him any more.

“I—I tore my stocking a little,” confessed Flossie, wanting to have all the unpleasant things over with at once.

“That’s too bad,” said her mother. “You should have minded me. Well, put on your shoes and we’ll go back to the house.”

One might have thought this would be the last of the adventures of Flossie and Freddie for that day, but it was not. Just before sunset they went out in the barn to play in the hay. They slid on the sweet-smelling dried grass for a time, coasting down from the mow to the barn floor.

Then Flossie had an idea.

“Let’s hunt where the hens lay their eggs and bring in some,” proposed the little girl.

“That’ll be fun,” agreed Freddie.

They crawled about in the hay, looking here and there for nests with white eggs in them. Suddenly Flossie gave a cry as she felt herself slipping on the smooth hay into a hole.

“What’s the matter?” asked Freddie, who was in another part of the barn. “Did you find a nest?”

Flossie answered “yes,” for she had found a nest. She had slid right into one containing nearly a dozen eggs. She had sat down on them, smashing the eggs and covering herself with broken shells and sticky whites and yellows.

“Oh, you’d better call mother!” sighed Flossie, when she saw what had happened.

“This is worser than when the jug-turkle caught me by the toe!” shouted Freddie, as he dashed for the house.

“Oh, my goodness, what will happen next?” sighed Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw the woeful sight of Flossie, very dirty, sitting in the nest, for right there the little girl had stayed, waiting for her mother to come to her. She took the little girl into the house to clean her, and when Flossie had on dry clothes her mother said:

“Now you and Freddie stay on the porch until bedtime.”

“Do you think Daddy and Bert will come back soon?” asked Freddie.

“Perhaps,” said their mother. “At any rate, I hope so.”