CHAPTER VII

THE SNAP-CRACKER

Freddie Bobbsey dashed away from the front gate, no longer trying to open it. He almost knocked Flossie down, so great was his hurry.

“Oh, what you going to do?” cried the little girl.

“I have to get that carriage and Baby May!” cried Freddie. “If I don’t, the horses will run over her!”

“Oh! Oh!” half sobbed Flossie, for she could think of nothing else to do.

The carriage with the baby in it kept on slowly rolling toward the middle of the street. And up the street, running faster and faster, came the excited horses hitched to the empty coal wagon.

“Freddie! Freddie! Don’t go out there!” shrilly cried Flossie, as she saw her little brother about to spring into the street.

“But I have to get the baby!” he insisted.

“All right! Then I’ll come with you!” decided Flossie, who had now stopped crying.

She made a dash to join her brother. There was still time to get Baby May and the carriage out of danger if the children hurried. But if they should stumble and fall—

As it happened, Bert Bobbsey came whistling around the corner just at that moment. Bert was thinking of going fishing, and he always whistled at such times. When Flossie and Freddie caught sight of their brother, they stopped running, feeling sure he could and would save Baby May.

Bert’s whistle died away when he caught sight of the dashing, runaway horses and saw them swaying the empty wagon from side to side. Several men and boys were racing after the runaways, shouting, as if that would stop them. Other men and boys dashed out in front, waving their hats and arms, which only frightened the horses the more.

Then Bert saw the baby carriage, now almost in the middle of the street and directly in the path of the runaways.

“Crickity grasshoppers!” shouted Bert. “It’s Baby May! I’ve got to save her!”

Wisely, he did not try to stop the runaways. This was more than a boy of Bert’s age could have done. Instead, he gave his whole attention to getting the carriage out of the way. This was easy enough to do if, as Bert said afterward, you had “nerve” enough. It meant dashing across the street, pushing the carriage ahead of him, right across the path of the runaways.

But Bert did just that! He ran as fast as he could—faster than he had ever run when playing ball—and reached the carriage just in time. He could hear Baby May cooing and gurgling to herself amid the blankets. She never knew what danger she was in. She liked the easy, rolling motion of the baby carriage.

“Look out there, little boy!” cried a man, who was racing after the runaways.

“I must get our baby!” shouted Bert.

The next moment he had hold of the handle of the carriage. Never slacking his fast run, he pushed it out of danger, to the other side of the street. There was not much time to spare, either, for before Bert reached the opposite gutter the runaway team dashed past his heels. But he was safe and so was Baby May.

“Hey, boy, that was a brave thing to do!” cried one of the several men who were trying to stop the runaways.

“Um!” was all Bert could answer, for he was out of breath.

Then, as the coal wagon team dashed on up the street, Bert wheeled the carriage back to where Flossie and Freddie waited.

“Who had Baby May out?” Bert wanted to know.

“I did,” answered Flossie. “Mother said I could, and—”

“Well, what do you want to take her out in the street for when runaways come along?” asked Bert, who seemed a bit angry.

“I didn’t take the baby carriage out in the street!” whimpered Flossie, half crying. “It—now—it rolled there when I was trying to help Freddie open the gate.”

“And I was going out to get her,” added Freddie.

“Well, you two want to be careful,” said Bert, more kindly, as he noticed how frightened the younger twins were. “Come on now, we’ll go back to the house.”

“I want to see if they caught the runaways,” insisted Freddie.

Bert looked up the street and saw a man leading the team back. The horses were quiet enough now. They had become tired, had slowed down, and had easily been stopped.

“They’re all right—no damage done,” said Bert. “But you two have got to be more careful with Baby May. She might have been run over.”

“I’ll be more careful after this,” promised Flossie.

“So will I,” added Freddie, though it really was not his fault.

Mrs. Bobbsey was told what had happened—or rather, what had so nearly happened—and she decided that Flossie was too young to take Baby May out unless some older person was at hand to watch for danger.

Baby May cooed and smiled when she was lifted out of the baby carriage to be fed, and she made funny faces at Freddie and clutched at his nose with her soft little hand, causing Freddie to squirm, partly in delight and partly because she tickled him.

The days passed with no word as to who Baby May was. All that Mr. Bobbsey and the police did to find the parents of the little baby went for nothing.

“I guess, Mother,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, “we’ll have to keep this baby a long time.”

“I don’t care how long we keep her,” was the answer. “I’ve grown to love her!”

Bert and Nan, as well as Flossie and Freddie, also loved Baby May, and they hoped nothing would ever take her from them. Though of course they agreed with their father that if the child’s mother and father could be found, they must have Baby May.

“Shall we take her with us when we go on our vacation, after school stops?” asked Bert of his mother, one morning.

“Perhaps,” she answered. “But you’d better hurry now, or you may be late for school.”

But, to tell the truth, Bert did not hurry very much. The days were getting more like summer all the while—warm and filled with sunshine—and perhaps this is the reason why Bert lingered on the way to school. But so did other boys and girls.

And perhaps this is the reason why Bert, in class that day, did not pay much attention to what was going on. It was the time for geography study, and the boys and girls had on their desks in front of them the large books, for they were learning to pick out places on the map of Africa.

Now the big geographies were large enough to hide behind, and perhaps you have done what many children have done at times—that is, you have read or written notes in the shadow of the covers of the big books held up in front of you.

Bert did not care about writing any notes, and he had none written by any other boy to read. But he had in his pocket a piece of tough, brown paper, and, almost before he knew it, Bert was folding this paper into what he called a “snap-cracker.”

As you boys and girls must know how to make them I will not take the time to tell you how it is done. But by folding his paper in a certain way, Bert at length had it in the shape of a triangle, with an inner fold that, when he brought the hand holding the paper down quickly and stopped it suddenly, would snap out with a pop like that of a bursting paper bag.

Bert made this snap-cracker and then he looked across the aisle. Danny Rugg sat there, and Danny was a mischievous fellow.

“I dare you to crack that!” whispered Danny to Bert.

“I will after school!” Bert whispered back. It was safe to whisper behind the big geographies.

“No, I mean crack it now!” went on Danny. “I double-dare you!”

Bert did not like to take a dare. Much less did he like to be “double-dared.” He peered over the top of his big book. The teacher was busy at some papers on her desk.

Slowly Bert raised the paper snapper as high as he dared. Then, swinging his arm put into the aisle, where there was plenty of room, he brought his hand down smartly, checking it half way.

Bang! went the snap-cracker, with a noise like a pistol shot.

“Oh!” gasped a number of the pupils.

Some of them laughed out loud.

The teacher looked up quickly from her desk.

“Who did that?” she asked quietly.

There was no answer for a moment.

“I want the boy or girl who did that to come up here to my desk,” went on the teacher.

The room was very still and quiet.