CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRE BELL
Mrs. Bobbsey's cries of alarm, of course, excited all the otherpassengers who had got back on the sight-seeing auto, ready to start offagain. They had had a little rest while the water was being put into theradiator, and the man had "stretched his legs" all he wanted to, itseemed.
"The children can't be far away," said Mr. Bobbsey. "They were here onlya moment ago. Even if they have wandered off, which is probably whatthey have done, they can't be far."
"They're all right," the man who drove the car assured Mr. Bobbsey. "Ididn't see 'em go away, of course, as I was busy, but I'm sure nothinghas happened."
"But what shall we do?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, and tears came into hereyes. "It does seem as if more things have happened to Flossie andFreddie since we started on this trip than ever before."
"Oh, they'll be all right," declared Mr. Bobbsey. "I'll look around.Perhaps they may have gone into one of these houses."
"Did you look under the seats?" asked Bert.
"Under the seats!" exclaimed Billy. "What good would that do? Yourbrother and sister couldn't be under there!"
"Pooh, you don't know much about Flossie and Freddie!" answered Bert."They can be in more places than you can think of; can't they, Nan?"
"Yes, they do get into queer places sometimes. But they aren't under myseat," and Nan looked, to make sure.
"Nor mine," added Nell, as she looked also.
Some of the other passengers on the auto did the same thing. Mr. Bobbseyreally thought it might be possible that Freddie and Flossie, for somequeer reason, might have crawled under one of the seats when the bigmachine stopped for water. But the children were not there.
"Oh, what shall we do?" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
"They'll be all right," her husband answered. "They can't be far away."
"That's right ma'am," said a fat, jolly-looking man.
"Some of you go and inquire in the houses near here," suggested the manwho drove the auto. "And I'll go and telephone back to the office, andsee if they're there."
"But how could they be at your automobile office?" Mrs. Bobbsey wantedto know.
"It might easily happen," replied the man. "We run a number of these bigmachines. One of them may have passed out this way while I was stoppinghere for water, and perhaps none of us notice it, and the children mayhave climbed on and gone on that car, thinking it was this one."
"They couldn't get on if the auto didn't stop," said Billy.
"Well, maybe it stopped," returned the driver. "Perhaps it passed up thenext street. The children may have gone down there and gotten on.Whatever has happened, your little ones are all right, ma'am; I'm sureof that."
"I wish I could be!" sighed Mrs. Bobbsey.
Several men volunteered to help Mr. Bobbsey look for the missing twins,and they went to the doors of nearby houses and rang the bells. But toall the answer was the same. Flossie and Freddie had not been seen.
And the reason for this was that the small Bobbsey twins, in followingthe stray cat, had turned a corner and gone down another street, andwere on the block next the one where the auto stood. That was the reasonthe Walker cook, looking out in front, could see no machine, and why itwas that none of those who helped Mr. Bobbsey look for the missingchildren could find them.
"Well, this is certainly queer!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey, when at none ofthe houses was there any word of Flossie and Freddie.
"But what are we to do?" cried his wife.
"I think we'd better notify the police," said Mr. Bobbsey. "That will bethe surest way."
"Yes, I think it will," agreed the auto man. "I telephoned to theoffice, but they said no lost children had been turned in. Get aboard,every one, and I'll drive to the nearest police station."
Away started the big auto, leaving Flossie and Freddie behind in thehome of Tom Walker on the next street. And though Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey,with Nan and Bert and Billy and Nell were much worried, Flossie andFreddie themselves, were having a good time.
For they were playing with Tom, who showed them his toys, and he toldthem about the rabbits he used to keep.
"I have had as many as six big ones at a time," Tom said. "And I had onepair that had the finest red eyes you ever saw."
"Red eyes!" cried Flossie. "What funny rabbits they must have been!"
"Oh, I know some rabbits have red eyes," declared Freddie. "But not verymany. Bert said so."
"I don't believe I'd like to have red eyes," answered his twin sister."Everybody'd think I'd been crying."
"They're not red that way," explained Tom. "They just have the color redin them; just as some people have black eyes, blue eyes, and browneyes--like that."
"Oh! Say, I heard Nan say once that a girl in her room at school had oneblack eye and one grey eye. Wasn't that funny?"
"It certainly was," answered Tom. And then he showed the little Bobbseytwins a number of picture books and a locomotive which went around alittle track.
Freddie and Flossie were having such a good time that they never thoughttheir father and mother might be worried about them.
But, after a while, Mrs. Walker came home. You can well imagine howsurprised she was when she found the two lost, strayed children in herhouse.
"And so they got off one of the sight-seeing autos, did they?" criedTom's mother. "Oh, my dears! I'm glad you're here, of course, and gladyou had a good time with Tom. But your mother and father will be muchfrightened! I must telephone to the police at once."
"We'll not be arrested, shall we?" asked Freddie anxiously.
"No, indeed, my dear! Of course not! But your parents have probablyalready telephoned the police, who must be looking for you. I'll letthem know I have you safe."
"Why, course we're safe!" cried Flossie.
So Mrs. Walker telephoned. And, just as she guessed, the police werealready preparing to start out to hunt for the missing children. But assoon as they got Mrs. Walker's message everything was all right.
"They're found!" cried Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, when a police officertelephoned to the hotel to let the father of the small Bobbsey twinsknow that the children were safe. "They're all right!"
"Where were they?" asked his wife,
"All the while they were right around the corner and just in the nextstreet from where our auto was standing."
"Oh, dear me!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, "what a relief."
"I should say so!" agreed Mrs. Martin, who had gone to the hotel, whereher friends were staying, to do what she could to help them.
"I'll get a taxicab and bring them straight here," said Mr. Bobbsey.
A little later Flossie and Freddie were back "home" again. That is, ifyou call a hotel "home," and it was, for the time, to the travelingBobbseys.
"What made you do it?" asked Flossie's mother, when the story had beentold. "What made you go after the stray cat?"
"It was such a nice cat!" said the little girl,
"And we wanted to see if it was like our Snoop," added Freddie.
"Well, don't do such a thing again!" ordered Mr. Bobbsey.
"No, we won't!" promised Freddie.
"No, but they'll do something worse," said Bert in a low voice to hisfriend Billy, who had also come to the hotel.
So the little excitement was over, and soon the Bobbsey twins were inbed. Not, however, before Nan had asked her father:
"Where are you going to take us to-morrow?"
"To Mount Vernon, I think," was his answer.
"Oh, where Washington used to live!" remarked Bert.
"Where--" But right there Freddie went to sleep.
"Yes, and where he is buried," added Nan.
And then she, too, fell asleep. And she dreamed that Flossie and Freddiewere lost again, and that she started out to find them riding on theback of a big cat while Bert rode on a dog, like Snap.
"And I was so glad when I woke up and, found it was only a dream," saidNan, telling Nell about it afterward.
There are two ways of going to
Mount Vernon from the city of Washington.Mount Vernon is down on the Potomac River, and one may travel to it bymeans of a small steamer, which makes excursion trips, or one can getthere in a trolley car.
"I think we'll go down by boat and come back by trolley," said Mr.Bobbsey. "In that way we can see more."
"I'd rather go on the boat all the while," said Freddie. "Maybe I couldbe a fireman on the boat."
"Oh, I think they have all the firemen they; need," laughed his father.
"Is Mount Vernon an old place?" asked Nan, as they were getting ready toleave their hotel after breakfast.
"Quite old, yes," her father answered.
"And do they have old-fashioned things there, like spinning wheels, andold guns and things like those in Washington's headquarters that we wentto once?" Nan went on.
"Why, yes, perhaps they do," her father said. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, I was just thinking," went on Nan, "that if they had a lot ofold-fashioned things there they might have Miss Pompret's sugar bowl andcream pitcher, and we could get 'em for her."
"How could we?" asked Bert. "If they were there they'd belong toWashington, wouldn't they, Daddy?"
"Well, I suppose all the things in the house once belonged to him or hisfriends," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But I don't imagine those two missingpieces of Miss Pompret's set will be at Mount Vernon, Nan."
"No, I don't s'pose so," sighed the little girl. "But, oh, I would liketo find 'em!"
"And get the hundred dollars reward!" added Bert.
"Don't think too much of that," advised their mother. "Of course itwould be nice to find Miss Pompret's dishes, and do her a favor, but Ithink it is out of the question after all these years that they havebeen lost."
The weather was colder than on the day before, when Flossie and Freddiehad been lost, and the sun shone fitfully from behind clouds.
"I think we are going to have a snow storm," said Mr. Bobbsey, on theirway to take the boat for Mt. Vernon.
"Oh, goodie!" cried Flossie. "I hope it snows a lot!"
"So do I!" added Freddie. "Could we send home for our sled if there'slots of snow, Daddy?" he asked.
"I hardly think it would be worth while," said his father. "We are notgoing to be here much more than a week longer. And it would be quite alot of work to get your sleds here and send them home again. I thinkyou'll get all the coasting and skating you want when we get back toLakeport."
"Anyway, we're having a nice time while we're here," said Nan, with ahappy little sigh.
"It's fun when Freddie and Flossie don't get lost," added Bert. "I'mgoing to keep watch of 'em this time."
"I'll help," added Nan. "Oh, here are Billy and Nell!" she called,waving her hand to their new friends. The Martin children were to go toMount Vernon with the Bobbsey twins, and they now met them near theplace from which the boat started.
"All aboard!" cried Freddie, as they went on the small steamer that wasto take them to Mount Vernon. "All aboard. I'm the fireman!"
"There aren't any fires to put out," said, Nell, teasing the small chapa little.
"Yes, there is--a fire in the boiler, and it makes steam," said Freddie,who had often looked in the engine room of steamers. "But I'm not thatkind of fireman. I put out fires. I'm going to be a real fireman when Igrow up," he added.
Soon they were comfortably seated on board the boat, which after a bitmoved out into the Potomac. Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey were talking together.Nan, Bert, Billy and Nell were watching another boat which was passing,and Flossie was near them. But Freddie had slipped away, in spite ofwhat Bert had said about going to keep a watchful eye on his smallbrother.
Suddenly, when the steamer was well out in the river, there was the loudclanging of a bell, and a voice cried:
"Fire! Fire! Fire!"
At once every one on the boat jumped up. The women looked frightened,while the men seemed uncertain what to do.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!" rang the fire alarm bell.