CHAPTER II
"THERE'S A SNAKE!"
With the first cries of alarm, Bert Bobbsey had jumped to his feet, onearm had gone out toward his sister Nan, and the other toward Flossie andFreddie. But no boy has arms long enough to reach for three relatives atonce, especially when two of them, as Flossie and Freddie happened tobe, were some distance away.
Bert did, however, manage to put one arm around Nan, and he pulled hertoward him, though just why he hardly knew. As he did so there was afrightened movement on the part of all the other children aboard thetruck, for they seemed to be sliding down toward the front of it.
"Oh, Bert! what has happened?" cried Nan. "Get hold of Flossie andFreddie, can't you?"
"I'm trying to," he answered.
"What's the matter?" Flossie called to Nan and Bert. "We're all slippingdown!"
And this was just what was happening. The bridge over the stream seemedto have broken in the middle, just as the heavy truck got to that spot,and the auto's front wheels being lower than the rear ones, had slid theload of picnic merrymakers into a heap.
"Oh! Oh!" screamed Grace Lavine. "What is going to happen?"
"You'll be all right if you just keep quiet!" called the driver of theauto in a loud voice. "The bridge has only sagged a little! It isn'tgoing to fall!"
This was good news provided it was true.
"All of you get off, and do it quietly," advised the driver. "You'll beall right."
"Are you sure?" asked Mrs. Simpson, one of the ladies in charge of thechildren.
"Oh, yes, ma'am. There's no danger," declared the man. He had jumpedfrom his seat and was looking at the floor of the bridge under the frontwheels of the truck.
"Keep quiet, every one!" ordered Mr. Blake, one of the gentlemen who hadagreed to help the ladies look after the children. "Don't scream orcry, and move as quietly as you can. The easier you move the less dangerthere will be. The bridge hasn't quite broken in two yet."
But it was in grave danger of doing that, as Mr. Blake saw, and he wasfearful that a bad accident would soon happen.
However, the thing to do now was to get all the children off the truck,over the bridge, and safe on solid ground. After that it might bepossible to get the truck over and keep on to the picnic.
One by one the children, including the Bobbsey twins, started to get offthe truck. They moved as carefully as they could, for they felt thatthey were like skaters on thin ice. The least quick movement might breaksomething.
The truck that had gotten safely over the bridge had come to a stop, andchildren and grown folks were piling off it to see what they could do tosave those in danger on the broken bridge.
And while the work of rescue is going on I will take a moment or two totell my new readers something about the Bobbsey twins. Those of you whohave read the other books in this series do not need to be introduced toBert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie.
Those were the names of the four children. Bert and Nan were the oldertwins, and Flossie and Freddie the younger. You are first told aboutthem in the book called "The Bobbsey Twins," and in that you learn thatthe Bobbsey family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bobbsey and theirfour children, lived in Lakeport, an eastern city on the shore of LakeMetoka, where Mr. Bobbsey had a lumber business.
In the family, though not exactly members of it, were Dinah, the jolly,fat, colored cook, and Sam Johnson, her husband. Then we must not forgetSnap, the dog, and Snoop, the big cat.
Following the first book are a number of volumes telling of theadventures of the Bobbsey twins. They went to the country to visit UncleDaniel, and at the seashore they had fun at the home of Uncle William.After that the Bobbseys enjoyed a trip in a houseboat, they journeyedto a great city, camped on Blueberry Island, saw the sights ofWashington and even sailed to sea.
As if this was not enough Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey took their children on awestern trip among the cowboys, and just before the present story opensBert and Nan, with Flossie and Freddie, had come back from Cedar Camp,where they had had some exciting adventures.
Now it was summer again, and one of the first delights of that seasonwas the Sunday school picnic which had started off so well but whichseemed likely now to end in an accident.
It was too bad that one truck should have gotten safely over the bridge,and that the other had to break through. The second truck was heavierthan the first. The first may have cracked the bridge beams and thesecond one broken them.
"Careful now, children, careful!" warned Mr. Blake. "Don't jump down!Come to the end of the truck and I'll lift you down!"
"And as soon as you are down walk to the other side of the bridge;don't run--walk!" ordered the driver.
Bert remembered that it said this on the programs of the moving picturetheaters, and he decided it was good advice.
One by one the children made their way up the sloping floor of the truckto the tailboard, and there Mr. Blake, Mrs. Simpson, and other men andwomen helped the little ones down.
"Oh, I feel like fainting!" sighed Grace.
"Don't be silly!" exclaimed Nan. "Nothing is going to happen!"
It was a good thing Nan felt this way, though, as a matter of fact,something dreadful might happen at any moment. If the cracked beams ofthe bridge should break all the way through, the auto would slide downinto the water. And, though the creek was not very deep, still manywould be hurt in the crash.
The Bobbsey twins, being nearest the rear of the auto, were among thefirst off. They did what the driver told them--walked quietly off thebridge.
At the farther end they joined the picnic party that had gotten off thefirst truck. And there, almost breathless, they watched the work ofrescue going on.
One by one little boys and girls were lifted down off the truck, andthen, when the last had reached safely the far shore, Mr. Blake, Mrs.Simpson, and the other men and women made their way carefully to land.
"Aren't you coming?" asked Mr. Blake of the truck driver, for the manwas still close to his big car, looking at it and the sagging floor ofthe bridge.
"I want to see if I can get this truck off," he answered. "The machineisn't damaged any--it's only the bridge. I guess the load was too heavyfor it."
"I heard it cracking as I went over," called the driver of the firsttruck. "I shouted a warning to you, but it was too late."
"Yes, it was too late to save the bridge, but maybe I can get my truckoff," the other driver went on. "Anyhow, none of the children is hurt."
And this was so--something for which the Sunday school officers werevery glad, indeed.
"If we had some pieces of wood to put under the bridge, to brace it up,maybe you could get the truck over," said the driver of the big autothat was safe on the far shore.
"Why don't you take fence rails?" asked Bert, who felt better, now thathis sisters and brother were all right.
"Yes, we could do that," agreed the driver of the second auto. "Comeon--give me a hand!" he called to his companion.
The two men worked away for a time, and braced up the bridge so that theauto could be driven carefully over it, though it was not easy to get itup the hill made when the bridge had sunk into the shape of the letterV.
But finally the empty second truck was safe on the other side of thestream, near the first one, and rails were put across the road to warnother vehicles not to try to cross the bridge. It was safe enough for aperson to walk across, but it would not hold up an auto or a horse andwagon.
"We may as well go on to the picnic grounds," said Mr. Blake, when thesmaller, frightened children had gotten over their crying.
"How we going to get home again if we can't cross the bridge?" askedFlossie, looking at the sagging structure.
"Oh, there's another bridge over the creek, about two miles down," thedriver of the second truck said. "That will be all right."
Soon the children and grown folks were on the autos again, and movingtoward the picnic grounds. This time there was not so much merrylaughter and singing, for all felt that there had be
en a narrow escapefrom a terrible accident.
But gloom does not long remain with a party of jolly boys and girls, andby the time they alighted at Pine Grove each one was in high spiritsagain.
There were plenty of amusements at the picnic grounds. Little rusticpavilions here and there formed places where one could sit in the shadeand eat lunch. There were swings for those who liked them, and boats forthe older ones.
A green meadow, not far away, made a fine baseball field, and Bert,Charlie, and Dannie, with some of the older boys, at once made a rushfor the field to start a baseball game.
"You take care of the lunch, Nan," Bert begged his older sister. "I'llcome back when it's time to eat."
"Oh, I know that all right!" laughed Nan.
"Can't I play ball?" Freddie called, starting to follow Bert.
"You stay and sail your boat," Bert advised. "I made it for you to sailon the lake."
"That means I'll have to stay and watch him so he doesn't fall in,"sighed Nan. "Well, you can't sail it all day, Freddie. I want to havesome fun, too."
"You can sail it when I get tired," Freddie offered.
"I want to go in a big boat--a rowboat!" declared Flossie.
"I'll take you all for a row after the ball game," Bert promised, andNan held this pleasure out to them to get them to do what she wanted.
The fun was now in full sway at the picnic grounds. Over in the meadowthe boys were playing ball and shouting, and out on the little lakewere many rowboats containing jolly parties. Some of the picnic folkshad already started to eat their lunches.
"I'm hungry!" declared Freddie, seeing some children with sandwiches.
"So'm I!" added Flossie.
"Well, we can eat a little," decided Nan. She opened one of the smallerboxes, and took out a few sandwiches. "Let's go over under that tree andeat," she suggested, and soon they were sitting beneath a big pine tree,where the ground was covered with the smooth, brown needles.
Flossie had taken only a few bites of her sandwich when she suddenlyjumped up and ran to Nan.
"Oh!" cried the little girl. "There's a snake! A snake!"