"I'll do it," offered Bert, and as he and Charley had often pasted paper on their kite frames they had better luck, and soon the hoop was ready.

"Come, Snap!" called Freddie, it having been settled that he and Flossie were to hold the hoop for the dog to leap through. Snap, always ready for fun, jumped up from the gra.s.s where he had been sleeping, and frisked about, barking loudly.

"Now you hold him there, Charley," directed Bert, pointing to a spot back of where Freddie and Flossie stood. "Then I'll go over here and call him. He'll come running, and when he gets near enough, Freddie, you and Flossie hold up the paper hoop. He'll go right through it."

It worked out just as the children had planned. Snap raced away from Charley, when he heard Bert calling. He ran right between Flossie and Freddie, who raised the hoop just in time.

"Rip! Tear!" burst the paper, and Snap sailed through the hoop just as he probably had often done in the circus, perhaps from the back of a horse.

"Oh, that was fine!" cried Flossie. "Let's make another hoop!"

"Let's make a lot of 'em, and have a circus with Snap, and charge money to see him, and then we can buy a lot of ice cream for our party!" said Freddie.

"Oh, yes!" agreed his sister.

Well, they did make more hoops, and Snap seemed to enjoy jumping through them. But when Mrs. Bobbsey heard about the circus plans she decided it would make too much confusion.

"Besides, you have to help me get ready for your party," she said to the two little twins.

This took their mind off the proposed circus, but for several days after that they had much fun making hoops for Snap to jump through.

Bert and Charley got a long plank from the lumber yard, and spent much time after school in the Bobbsey barn, working over their bob sled. It was harder than they had thought it would be, and they had to call in some other boys to help them. Mr. Bobbsey, too, gave his son some advice about how to build it.

Flossie and Freddie liked it very much in school. The kindergarten teacher was very kind, and took an interest in all her pupils.

"Oh, mamma!" cried Flossie, coming in one day from school, "I've learned how to make a house."

"And I can make a lantern, and a chain to hang it on, and I can put it in front of Flossie's house!" exclaimed Freddie. "And, please, mother, may I have some bread and jam. I'm awful hungry."

"Yes, dear, go ask Dinah," said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile. "And then you may show me how you make houses and lanterns and a chain.

Are they real?"

"No," said Flossie, "they're only paper, but they look nice."

"I'm sure they must," said their mother.

After each of the twins had been given a large slice of bread and b.u.t.ter and jam, they showed the latest thing they had learned at school. Flossie did manage to cut out a house, that had a chimney on it, and a door, besides two windows.

Freddie took several little narrow strips of paper, and pasting the ends together, made a lot of rings. Each ring before being pasted, was slipped into another, and soon he had a paper chain. To make the lantern he used a piece of paper made into a roll, with slits all around the middle of it where the light would have come out had there been a candle in it. And the handle was a narrow slip of paper pasted over the top of the lantern.

"Very fine indeed," said Mamma Bobbsey. "Run out now to play. If you stay in the house too much you will soon lose all the lovely tan you got in the country, and at the seash.o.r.e."

"Children," said the princ.i.p.al to the Bobbseys and all the others in school the next day, "I have a little treat for you. To-morrow will be a holiday, and, as the weather is very warm, we will close the school at noon, and go off in the woods for a little picnic."

"Oh, good!" cried a number of the boys and girls, and, though it was against the rules to speak aloud during the school hours, none of the teachers objected.

"But I expect you all to have perfect marks from now until Friday,"

Mr. Tetlow went on. "You may bring your lunches to school with you Friday morning, if your parents will let you, and we will leave here at noon, and go to Ward's woods."

It was rather hard work to study after such good news, but, somehow, the pupils managed it. Finally Friday came, and nearly every boy and girl came to school with a basket or bundle holding his or her lunch. Mrs. Bobbsey put up two baskets for her children, Nan taking one and Bert the other.

"Oh, we'll have a lovely time!" cried Freddie, dancing about on his little fat legs.

Twelve o'clock came, and with each teacher at the head of her cla.s.s, and Mr. Tetlow marching in front of all, the whole school started off for the woods.

CHAPTER X

A SCARE

The way to the woods where the little school outing was to be held ran close to the road on which the Bobbsey house stood. As Freddie and Flossie, with Nan and Bert, marched along with the others, Freddie cried out:

"Oh, I hope we see mamma, and then we can wave to her."

"Yes, and maybe she'll come with us," suggested Flossie. "Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Pooh!" exclaimed Bert "Mamma's too busy to come to a picnic to-day.

She's expecting company."

"Yes," added Nan, "the minister and his wife are coming, and mamma's cooking a lot of things."

"Why, does a minister eat more than other folks?" asked Freddie.

"If they does, I'm going to be a minister when I grow up."

"I thought you were going to be a fireman," said Bert.

"Well, I can be a fireman week days and a minister on Sundays,"

said the little fellow, thus solving the problem. "But do they eat so much, Nan?"

"No, of course not, only mamma wants to be polite to them, so she has a lot of things cooked up, so that if they don't like one thing they can have another. Folks always give their best to the minister."

"Then I'm surely going to be one, too," declared Flossie. "I like good things to eat. I hope our minister isn't very hungry, 'cause then there'll be some left for us when we come home from this picnic."

"Why, Flossie!" cried Nan. "We have a lovely lunch with us; plenty, I'm sure."

"Well, I'm awful hungry, Nan," said the little girl. "Besides, Sammie Jones, and his sister Julia, haven't any lunch at all. I saw them, and they looked terrible hungry. Couldn't we give them some of ours; if we have so much at home?"

"Of course we could, and it is very kind of you to think of them,"

said Nan, as she patted her little sister on her head. "I'll look after Sammie and Julia when we get to the grove."

In spite of what Nan and Bert had said about Mrs. Bobbsey being very busy, Flossie and Freddie looked anxiously in the direction of their house as they walked along. But no sight of their mother greeted them. They did see a friend, however, and this was none other than Snap, their new dog, who, with many barks and wags of his fluffy tail, ran out to meet his little masters and mistresses.

"Here, Snap! Snap!" called Freddie. "Come on, old fellow!" and the dog leaped all about him.