However he did not mind. Holding the newspaper in front of his face, Freddie's father reached the fire engine, and turned off the machinery that pumped the water.

"There!" he cried. "The fire's out! The only damage is from water,"

and he laughed, for he was wet, and so were Mrs. Bobbsey, Flossie and Freddie; and the kitchen itself was pretty well sprinkled.

"What's it all about?" asked Bert, for he and Nan, who had been studying their lessons, had heard the noise of the excitement, and had run to the kitchen to see what had caused it.

"Oh, Freddie turned in a false alarm," said Mr. Bobbsey. "How did you come to put water in your engine, when mamma has told you not to do so in the house?" he asked the little boy.

"Be--be--cause," said Freddie slowly, "I wanted to see if it would--work. I'm going to take it on the houseboat with me."

"Well, I guess it WORKED all right," Bert said, as he looked around at the wet kitchen. Luckily there was oil cloth on the floor, and the walls were painted, so the water really did no harm.

Dinah slowly opened the door of the dish-closet, and peered out.

"Am it all done, honey lamb?" she asked, looking at Freddie.

"Yes, Dinah! It's all done squirtin'," he said. "I guess there isn't any more water, anyhow."

"No," said Mr. Bobbsey, with a smile, as he looked in the tank of the engine, "it's all pumped out."

Freddie's toy fire engine was a large and expensive one his uncle had given him on Christmas. It was made as nearly like a real engine as possible, only instead of working by steam, it worked by a spring.

When a spring was wound up, it operated a small pump in the engine.

The pump made water spurt out through a little rubber hose, and the water for the engine was poured into a tank. The tank held about two gallons, so you see when it was all pumped out in the kitchen, and spurted on those in the room, it made them pretty wet.

"It's clean water," said Nan, when every one had somewhat cooled down, "and it's so warm to-night, I wouldn't mind being sprayed with a hose myself."

"Still, Freddie shouldn't have done it," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "I have told you not to play with your engine in the house, when it had water in it, Freddie. How did you come to disobey me?" she asked, for usually the little fellow was very good about minding.

"I--I didn't mean to, mamma," he said "First I just wanted to see if the engine tank leaked, so I put in some water. I didn't think it would hurt, out here on the kitchen oil cloth, and honestly I wasn't going to squirt it."

"No, I suppose not," said Mr. Bobbsey, wiping the water from his face, and glancing at his soaked newspaper.

"So I just filled the tank with water from the sink," explained Freddie.

"I--I helped him," confessed Flossie, ready to take her share of the blame.

"What happened next?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Why--er--I just wanted to see if the spring was all right, so I wound that up," Freddie went on. "Then I sort of forgot about the water in the tank, and before I knew it, why it--it went off--sudden like."

"Land ob ma.s.sy! I should say it done did go off--suddint laik!"

exclaimed Dinah. "Fust I knowed I was dryin' de dishes an' den I got a mouth full ob watah. I shuah did t'ink a watah pipe had done gone an'

busted. I shuah did!"

"It--it just kept on squirtin'!" said Freddie. "I couldn't stop it like it always used to stop."

"No, the pump is out of order," said Mr. Bobbsey, as he looked at the now empty fire engine. "It wouldn't stop pumping. Well, I'm glad it wasn't a real fire, and glad that no one is hurt. Put your engine away now, Freddie, and, after this, don't play with water in the house, when mamma has told you not to."

"I won't," promised Freddie. "But it's a good engine, isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it's a good engine, all right."

"And I can take it on the houseboat, can't I?"

"Yes, but you won't need to put any water in. There'll be enough in the creek and lakes," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a smile. "Come now, Flossie and Freddie, you are wet, so you might as well get undressed and go to bed. It is nearly time, anyhow, and you have had quite a day of it. Off to bed!"

Off to bed the twins went.

Dinah wiped up the kitchen, and, as she did so, she murmured over and over again: "It shuah did go off suddint laik! It shuah did!"

Flossie and Freddie, little the worse for their wetting, went off to school next day, with Nan and Bert. The two sets of twins talked of many things on their way to their cla.s.ses, but, most of all, they talked of the coming trip on the houseboat, and of the accident to the fire engine the night before.

"I do hope Cousin Dorothy can come with us," said Nan, as she left Bert to walk along with Nellie Parks.

"And I hope Harry can go," said Bert. "Better hurry along, Freddie,"

he called to his little brother. "There goes your bell, and yours, too, Flossie."

The two little tots turned into the gate of the school that led to the yard where the smallest pupils formed in line.

"Well, even if Harry and Dorothy can't go, I'll take my fire engine,"

said Freddie.

"And we'll take Snoop and Snap, so we won't be lonesome," suggested Flossie. "Oh, won't it be fun, Freddie!"

"Yes, I wish it was time to go now. I'm tired of school," said the little fellow.

But school must go on, whether there are houseboat parties or not, so the Bobbsey twins had to study their lessons. I think that day, however, Bert must have been thinking of other things than his books, for when the teacher asked him what an island was, Bert gave a queer answer. Instead of saying it was a body of land, surrounded by water, Bert said:

"An island is a fire engine in the kitchen."

"Why, Bert Bobbsey! What ARE you thinking of?" asked the teacher.

"Oh, I--I was thinking of something that happened at our house last night," Bert went on, while all the children in the room laughed.

"Then you'd better tell us about it," suggested Miss Teeter, the instructor, for she was very kind. So Bert told of Freddie's mishap, and how it was he happened to be thinking of that instead of the right answer to the question about the island.

"I hear you have a houseboat, Bert," said John Blake, a boy in the same room, as the children came out of school that afternoon.

"Yes, my father bought the one Mr. Marvin owned," said Bert. "It's a fine one, too. We're going to have a trip in her soon."

"You're a lucky boy!" exclaimed John. "Can't you take me down and show me over the boat?"

"I'd like to," said Bert, "but father said I wasn't to go aboard, when he was not with me."

"Pooh! He'll never know," suggested Danny Rugg, a boy with whom Bert had had more or less trouble. "You needn't tell your father you went to the boat. Come on, take us down and let's see it."

"No," said Bert, quietly but firmly. "Maybe my father wouldn't know I had been on board, but I'd know it."

"Aw, you're a fraid-cat!" sneered Danny. "Come on, take us down, and we'll have some fun."