"Oh, may we take them both, mamma?" begged Nan.

"Well, I guess so," was the answer, as Mrs. Bobbsey looked at her husband.

"That will be all right," he nodded. "The country is just the place for dogs and cats--it's better for them than houseboats."

"Oh, what fun we'll have!" sang Flossie. "What lovely times!"

"And I'm going to take my fire engine, and squirt water in it from the brook," declared Freddie.

"Well, be careful not to fall in," his father said. "And now I shall have to go back to the office again, to do a little work so as to get ready for going away again. So I'll leave my little fat fireman and fat fairy for a while," and he smiled at Freddie and Flossie, as he called them by their pet names.

As the Bobbseys were to leave town soon, they did not unpack very much from the valises they had brought from the houseboat.

This boat was tied up at a dock in the lumber yard, which was on the edge of the lake. The children spent the morning playing about in the yard, some of their friends, who had not gone away for the summer, coming to join in their games.

After lunch Mr. Bobbsey came up to the house in an automobile, bringing his wife some things she had asked him to get from the store.

"Oh, may I have a ride?" begged Freddie, when he saw his father in the machine, which Mr. Bobbsey and some of the other members of his lumber firm used when they were in a hurry.

"Yes, jump in!" invited his father. "Want to come, Bert?" he asked of the older Bobbsey boy.

"Yes, thank you," was the answer. "Where are you going?"

"I have to go up the lake sh.o.r.e, to a place called Tenbly, to see another lumber dealer on some business," Mr. Bobbsey said. "Where are Nan and Flossie?" he asked his wife, who had come out on the porch just then. "I could take them along also. There is plenty of room."

"Flossie and Nan have gone over to Mrs. Black's house," Mrs. Bobbsey said. "Run along without them. It's just as well. I'd rather they wouldn't be out in the hot sun, as we have to take a long train journey to-morrow."

"All right," agreed Mr. Bobbsey, as he started off in the automobile with Freddie and Bert. "We'll soon be back."

Neither Mr. Bobbsey nor the boys knew what was to happen on that ride, nor how it was to affect them afterward.

CHAPTER III

THE RUNAWAY BOY

It was a pleasant trip for Freddie and Bert to ride with their father in the automobile along the shady sh.o.r.es of the lake. The little twin, and the bigger one, sat back on the cushions, now and then bouncing up and down as the machine went over a rough place in the road.

Freddie, being lighter than Bert, bounced up and down oftener, but then he was so fat, almost "like a lump of b.u.t.ter," as his mother used to say, that he did not much mind it.

"I wish we could take this machine to Meadow Brook Farm with us," said Bert, as they neared the lumber yard of Mr. Mason, with whom Mr.

Bobbsey had business that day.

"We can ride in one of Uncle Daniel's carriages," said Freddie. "Or maybe I can ride horse-back. That would be fun!" he cried, his bright eyes sparkling.

"It's fun--if you don't fall off," Bert said.

As the automobile pa.s.sed around a curve in the road, where the lake could be seen stretching out its sparkling waters in the bright sun, Bert suddenly uttered a cry, and pointed ahead.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "There are two little girls drifting out in that boat, and they don't seem to know how to row to sh.o.r.e."

Mr. Bobbsey steered the machine down to the edge of the lake, over the gra.s.s at one side of the road. As he did so he and the two boys heard voices faintly calling:

"Help!! Help! Oh, somebody please come and get us!"

"I'll get them--I can row, and there's another boat on sh.o.r.e," said Bert, pointing to a craft drawn up on the sand.

"I guess I'd better go out--you stay with Freddie," directed the lumber merchant, as he brought the automobile to a stop, and jumped out.

"I'm coming!" he called to the two little girls in the drifting boat.

"Don't be afraid, and sit still! Don't stand up!"

He needed to caution them thus, for one of the girls, seeing that help was on the way, grew so excited that she stood up, and this is always dangerous to do in a rowboat on the water. Rowboats tip over very easily, and sometimes even good swimmers may be caught under them.

"I wish I could help get them," sighed fat Freddie, as he saw his father run down to the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and shove the other boat into the water.

"It's best to let papa do it," said Bert, though he himself would have liked to have gone to the rescue.

"They'll mind papa, and sit down and keep still, but they wouldn't mind us," went on Bert, explaining matters to his little brother.

"That's right," agreed Freddie. "Girls are awful 'fraid in a boat, anyhow. I'm not afraid."

"Well, not all girls are afraid, either," said Bert with a smile. "Nan isn't afraid."

"Of course not--she's our sister, and so is Flossie!" exclaimed Freddie, as if that made a difference!

Mr. Bobbsey was now rowing out to the two small girls in the drifting boat. They did not seem to have any oars, and Bert and Freddie heard their father call to them again to sit down, so they would not tip over.

Then the lumber man reached the drifting craft, and carefully fastened it by a rope to the boat he was in.

"Now sit quietly and I'll pull you to sh.o.r.e," he said to the girls.

"You must not come out in a boat all alone. Where is your home?"

"Up there," replied the older girl, pointing to a house back of the lake sh.o.r.e road. "We didn't mean to come out," she went on. "We just sat in the boat when it was tied fast to the dock, but the knot must have come loose, and we drifted out. We're ever so much obliged to you for coming out to us."

"Well, don't get in boats again, unless some older person is with you," cautioned Mr. Bobbsey. By this time he had towed the boat, with the girls in it, to sh.o.r.e. As he did so a woman came running from the house, calling out:

"Oh, what has happened? Oh, are they drowned?"

"Nothing at all has happened," said Mr. Bobbsey, quietly. "Your children just drifted out, and I went and got them."

"Oh, and I've told them never, never to get into a boat!" cried the mother. "Girls, girls! What am I going to do to you?" she went on.

"You might have fallen overboard."

"Yes, that is true, they might have," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But I think this will be a lesson to them, and no harm has come to them this time.

But it is best for children to keep out of boats."