"But you don't know your way about St. Augustine," said Mr. Bobbsey.

"You've never been here before."

"Neither have you," returned his wife with a laugh, for she was not very much alarmed about Freddie--he had slipped away too often before.

"I can find my way about as well as you can, d.i.c.k," went on Mrs.

Bobbsey. "You stay here and I'll get our little fat fireman."

"Maybe he has gone to see a fire engine," suggested Nan.

"I don't believe so," answered her father. "I didn't hear any alarm, but perhaps they don't sound one here as we do back in Lakeport."

"I guess he's just gone out to look at the things in the streets here,"

said Bert. "They're a lot different from at home."

"Indeed they are!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I'll stay here," he said to his wife, "and you go and look for Freddie. But if you don't soon find him come back and I'll go out."

"I'll find him," she said, and one of the porters from the hotel offered to go with her to show Mrs. Bobbsey her way about the strange streets of St. Augustine--the little, narrow streets that had not been changed much in three hundred years.

"Oh, what a lovely place this is," said Nan to Bert, while their father was talking with the hotel clerk. "It's like a palace."

"It looks like some of the places you see in a moving picture," said Bert.

And indeed the beautiful hotel, with the palms and flowers set all about, did look like some moving picture play. Only it was real, and the Bobbsey twins were to stay there until they had seen Cousin Jasper, and found out what his strange story was about.

Soon after Mr. Bobbsey had finished signing his name and those of the members of his family in the hotel register book, Mrs. Bobbsey came back, leading Freddie by the hand.

The little boy seemed to be all right, and he was smiling, while in one hand he held a ripe banana.

"Where've you been, Freddie?" asked Flossie. "I was afraid you had gone back home."

"Nope," Freddie answered, as he started to peel the banana. "I was seeing how they did it."

"How who did what?" asked his father.

"Carried the big baskets on their heads," Freddie answered, and by this time he had part of the skin off the yellow fruit, and was breaking off a piece for Flossie. Freddie always shared his good things with his little sister, and with Bert and Nan if there was enough.

"What does he mean?" asked Bert of his mother. "Was he trying to carry something on his head?"

"No," answered Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh, "but he was following a big colored woman who had a basket of fruit on her head. I caught him halfway down the street in front of another hotel. He was walking after this woman, and he didn't hear me coming. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was waiting to see it fall off."

"What fall off?" asked Nan, coming up just then.

"I thought maybe the basket would fall off her head," Freddie answered for himself. "It was an awful big basket, and it wibbled and wobbled like anything. I thought maybe it would fall, but it didn't," he added with a sigh, as though he had been cheated out of a lot of fun.

"If it did had fallen," he went on, "I was going to pick up her bananas and oranges for her. That's why I kept walking after her."

"Did she drop that banana?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, while several smiling persons gathered about the Bobbsey twins in the hotel lobby.

"No, I bought this with a penny," Freddie answered. "The colored lady didn't drop any. But if her basket did had fallen from off her head I could have picked up the things, and then maybe she'd have given me a banana or an orange."

"And when that didn't happen you had to go buy one yourself; did you?"

asked Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "Well, that's too bad. But, after this, Freddie, don't go away by yourself. It's all right, at home, to run off and play in the fields or woods, for you know your way about. But here you are in a strange city, so you must stay with us."

"Yes, sir," answered Freddie, like a good little boy.

"I will, too," promised Flossie.

The Bobbsey family was together once again, and when Flossie and Freddie had eaten the banana, and porters had taken charge of their baggage, they all went up to the rooms where they were to stay.

"We don't know just how long we'll be here," said Mr. Bobbsey, as they were getting ready to go down to supper, as the children called it, or "dinner," as the more fashionable name has it.

"Are we going out on the ocean again?" asked Nan.

"Did you like it?" her father wanted to know.

"Oh, lots!" she answered.

"It was great!" declared Bert.

"I want to see 'em catch some more sharks," Freddie said.

"I like to see the blue water," added Flossie, who had got out a clean dress for her rubber doll.

"Yes, the blue water is very pretty," remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, we shall, very likely, sail on it again. I don't know just what Cousin Jasper wants to tell me, or what he wants me to do. But I think he is planning an ocean trip himself. I'll go to see him this evening, after we have eaten, and then I can tell you all about it."

"May I come with you?" asked Bert.

"Well, I think not this first trip," answered Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I am going to the hospital where Cousin Jasper is ill, and he may not be able to see both of us. I'll take you later."

"We can stay and watch the colored people carry things on their heads,"

put in Freddie. "That's lots of fun, and maybe some of 'em will drop off, and we can help pick 'em up, and they might give us an orange."

"I guess I'd rather buy my oranges, and then I'll be sure to have what I want," said Bert with a laugh.

"There are plenty of things you can look at while I'm at the hospital,"

said Mr. Bobbsey, and after the meal he inquired the way to the place where Cousin Jasper was getting well, while Mrs. Bobbsey took the children down to the docks, where they could see many motor boats, and fishing and oyster craft, tied up for the night.

It was a beautiful evening, and the soft, balmy air of St. Augustine was warm, so that only the lightest clothing needed to be worn.

"It's just like being at the seash.o.r.e in the summer," said Nan.

"Well, this is summer, and we are at the seash.o.r.e, though it is not like Ocean Cliff," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a smile. She was glad the children liked it, and she hoped they would have more good times if they were again to go sailing on the deep, blue sea.

When they got back to the hotel Mr. Bobbsey had not yet returned from the hospital, but he came before Flossie and Freddie were ready for bed, for they had been allowed to stay up a little later than usual.

"Well, how is Cousin Jasper?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Much better, I am glad to say," answered her husband. "He will be able to leave the hospital in a few days, and then he wants us to start on a trip with him."