"Oh, yes'm!" exclaimed Charley. "From my house up on the hill I can look right down into the railroad cut. I was out feeding my dog, and I heard the noise and I looked and I saw the two engines all smashed together and cars off the track and a lot of people running around and--and--everything!"

Charley had to stop to catch his breath.

Mrs. Bobbsey looked down the street and saw a number of men and women and some girls and boys hurrying to the railroad tracks.

"We want to go to see it!" begged Bert.

"And we want to go, too!" pleaded Freddie.

Sam Johnson, the husband of Dinah, the cook, came around the corner of the house.

"There's somethin' must 'a' happened down by the railroad," he said to Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Yes, it's a wreck," she answered. "The children want to go, but I can't have them going alone. You may take them down, Sam, but if it is too bad--you know what I mean, too many people hurt--bring them right back."

"Ya.s.sum, I'll do that there!" agreed Sam, glad himself to get the chance to see what all the excitement was about. "Come along, chilluns!" he added, with a smile.

"Oh, now we can go!" cried Flossie, as she raced over and took one of Sam's hands. "Now we can go!"

"Yep! Sam'll take care of us. Won't you, Sam?" asked Freddie as he took the other hand. "And if there's a fire I can go near tie firemen, can't I?" he begged.

"We'll see," said the colored man, with a nod to Mrs. Bobbsey to show that he understood how to look after the smaller twins.

"Come on!" cried Charley. "I want to see that wreck!"

"So do I!" added Bert, as he hurried on ahead with Nan and Charley.

Sam, leading Flossie and Freddie by the hands, followed more slowly out into the street, where the sidewalks had been cleared of snow so the walking was easier. Snap, the dog, tried to follow, but fearing that he might get hurt, Bert drove him back.

The railroad ran at the foot of the street on which the Bobbsey house stood. The street went downhill to the tracks, and the railroad pa.s.sed through what Charley had called a "cut."

That is, a cut had been made through the side of the hill so the tracks would be as nearly level as possible. Sometimes, when a hill is too high the railroad has to go through it in a tunnel. And a "cut" is a tunnel with the top taken off.

As Bert, Nan, and the others hurried along the street they saw many other persons hastening in the direction of the wreck. In a cutter, drawn by a horse that had a string of jingling bells on, Dr. Brown pa.s.sed, waving to the Bobbsey twins.

"I guess there must be somebody hurt, or Dr. Brown wouldn't be going,"

said Charley Mason.

"I guess so," agreed Bert. "I never saw a big wreck."

"Well, this is a big one!" cried Charley. "I saw the two engines all smashed up."

A little later the Bobbsey twins, in charge of Sam, came to the edge of the cut. They could look down to the railroad tracks and see the wreck. Surely enough, two trains had come together, one engine smashing into the other. Both trains were on the same track, and had been going in opposite directions. There was a curve in the cut, and neither engineer had seen the other train coming until it was too late to stop.

"Why--why, they just bunketed right together, didn't they?" cried Freddie. "They just bunketed right together, like my express wagon when it ran into Henry Watson's push-o-mobile the other day."

"That's just what happened," said Bert.

For a moment the Bobbsey twins stood and looked down at the wreck.

Just as Charley had said, the two engines were smashed and there were some cars knocked off the track. But the wreck was not as bad as it had seemed at first, and I am glad to say no one was killed, though a number of people were hurt.

The Bobbsey twins could see these persons, who had been pa.s.sengers on one or the other of the trains, moving about down in the railroad cut.

Some of them did not seem to know just what had happened. The accident had so frightened them that they were in a daze.

Trainmen, policemen, and even some firemen, were helping the injured persons away from the wreck. There had been no fire, and, much as Freddie liked to see the engines, he was glad there was no blaze to make matters worse for the poor people who were hurt.

"Dat suah is a smash!" declared Sam, as he stood on the bank, holding the hands of Freddie and Flossie. "Dey suah did b.u.mp togedder lickity-smash!"

"Let's go down closer!" suggested Charley Mason.

Bert looked at Sam, as if asking if this might be done.

"No, indeedy!" exclaimed the faithful colored man. "Yo'all jest stay right yeah! Yo'all's ma tole me to look after yo', an' I'se gwine to do it! Yo'all kin see whut dey is to see right yeah! If you goes any closter one ob dem bullgines might blow up!"

"I don't want to be blowed up; do I, Sam?" put in Flossie.

"No, indeedy!" he answered.

"Well, I'm going down!" declared Charley.

And, not having any one with him to make him mind, he slid down the snow-covered bank to the tracks, where there was quite a large crowd now gathered.

The railroad men were starting to work to get the wreck off the tracks, so other trains might pa.s.s. The injured persons were being cared for by Dr. Brown and others, and the worst of the wreck seemed over. Still there was much for the Bobbsey twins to look at.

Flossie and Freddie kept tight hold of Sam's hand, and Bert and Nan stood a little way off, gazing down into the cut. As the Bobbsey twins stood there they saw, climbing up a narrow foot-path on the side of the railroad hill, a queer old man. He was dressed somewhat as the children had seen Uncle Daniel Bobbsey dress on a cold day at the farm, with a red scarf about his neck. And this man was carrying his hat in one hand while in the other he held a banana half-pealed and eaten.

The queer man seemed very much frightened, and he was hurrying up the hill path as though trying to run away from something. Bert had just time to see that there was a cut on the man's head, which was bleeding, when, all at once, the queer character cried:

"There! I forgot my satchel! I thought this was it!" and he looked at the banana he was carrying. He turned, as though to hurry back down toward the wreck, and then he slipped and fell in the snow.

"Mah goodness!" cried Sam, as he dropped the hands of the smaller Bobbsey twins and sprang toward the man. "You's gwine to slide right down on de tracks ag'in ef you don't be keerful!" And Sam caught the queer man just in time.

CHAPTER III

MR. BOBBSEY REMEMBERS

The Bobbsey twins at first did not know what to think of the queer man who had fallen down in the snow just as he reached the top of the hill, at the bottom of which was the train wreck. But when Bert noticed the bleeding cut on the head he guessed what had happened.

"I guess he was one of the pa.s.sengers, and got hurt," said the boy to Nan.

"I guess so, too." she said.

Flossie and Freddie, not having Sam's hand to take hold of now, were holding each other's and watching the colored man help the stranger.

"Hold on now! Jest take it easy!" advised Sam, in, a soothing voice.