CHAPTER VIII
IN NEW YORK
The Bobbsey twins had been to so many places, and had so often ridden inrailroad trains, that this first part of their trip--journeying in thesteam cars--was nothing new to them. They were quite like old travelers;at least Nan and Bert were. For Flossie and Freddie there was alwayssure to be something new and strange on such a long railroad trip.
The two older twins had picked out a nice seat in the center of the car,and were comfortably settled, Bert kindly letting Nan sit next to thewindow.
"You may sit here after a while," Nan said to Bert. "We'll take turns."
"That will be nice," replied Bert.
But Flossie and Freddie were not so easily pleased. Each of the smallertwins wanted to sit next to the window, and their father and mother knewthat soon the little snub noses would be pressed close against theglass, and that the bright eyes would see everything that flashed by asthe tram speeded on.
But the trouble was that there were not enough seats for Flossie andFreddie each to have one, and, for a moment, it looked as though therewould be a storm, Freddie slipped into the only whole vacant seat andtook his place next the window.
"Oh, I want to sit there!" cried Flossie. "Mother, make Freddie give methat place! Please do!"
"No! I was first!" exclaimed the little boy, and this was true enough.
"I want to look out the window and see the cows!" went on Flossie, andher voice sounded as though she might cry at any moment. "I want to seethe cows!"
"And I want to see the horses," declared Freddie. "If I'm going to be afireman I've got to look at horses, haven't I?" he asked his father.
"Cows are better than horses!" half-sobbed Flossie. "Mother, makeFreddie let me sit where I can look out!"
"Children! Children! This isn't at all nice!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey."What shall I do?" she asked her husband in a low voice, for several ofthe passengers were looking at Flossie and Freddie, whose voices wererather loud.
"I'll let Flossie have my place," offered Nan. "I don't mind sitting inthe outside seat. Here, Flossie, come over here and sit with Bert, andI'll sit with Freddie."
"Thank you, very much, Nan," said her mother in a low voice. "You are agood girl. I'm sure I don't know what makes Flossie and Freddie act so.They are usually pretty good on such a journey as this."
But Nan did not have to give up her place at the window, for a gentlemanin the seat across the aisle arose and said to Mr. Bobbsey with a smile:
"Let your little girl take my seat near the window. I'm going into thesmoking car, and I get off at the next station. I know how I liked tosit near a window, where I could see the horses and cows, when I was alittle boy."
"Oh, thank you!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "That is very kind of you."
So the change was made. Flossie had a seat near one window, and Freddienear another, and Mr. Bobbsey sat with his "little fireman," while Mrs.Bobbsey took the other half of the seat with the "little fat fairy." Nanand Bert were together, and so there was peace at last. On rushed thetrain taking the Bobbsey twins to New York; and from there they were togo to Washington, where a strange adventure awaited them.
Nothing very much happened during the first part of the journey. Ofcourse, Flossie and Freddie wanted many drinks of water, as they alwaysdid, and for a time they kept Bert busy going to the end of the car tofill the drinking cup. But as it was winter and the weather was notwarm, the little twins did not want quite as much water as they wouldhave wanted had the traveling been done on a hot day in summer. And atlast Flossie and Freddie seemed to have had enough. They sat looking outof the window and speaking now and then of the many things they saw.
"I counted ten horses," announced Freddie after a while. "They weremostly on the road. I didn't see many horses in the fields."
"No, not very many horses are put out to graze in the fields in thewinter, except perhaps on an extra warm day when there isn't any snow,"said Mr. Bobbsey.
"And I saw two-sixteen cows!" exclaimed Flossie. "I saw them in abarnyard. Two-sixteen cows."
"There aren't so many cows as that; is there, Daddy?" asked Freddie.
"Well, perhaps not quite," agreed Mr. Bobbsey with a smile. "But Flossiesaw a few cows, for I noticed them myself."
Then the smaller twins tried to count the telegraph poles and the treesthat flashed past, and soon this made them rather drowsy. Flossie leanedback against her mother, and was soon sound asleep, while Freddiecuddled up in Daddy Bobbsey's arms and, in a little while, he, also, wasin by-low land.
Bert and Nan took turns sitting next to the window, until the train boycame through with some magazines, and then the older twins were eachallowed to buy one, and this kept them busy, looking at the pictures andreading the stories.
It was a rather long trip from Lakeport to New York, and it was eveningwhen the train arrived in the big city. It was quite dark, and thesmaller twins, at least, were tired and sleepy. But they roused up whenthey saw the crowds in the big station, and noticed the bright lights.
"I'm hungry, too!" exclaimed Freddie. "I want some supper. Oh, dear, Iwish Dinah was here!"
"So do I!" added Flossie. "I guess my cat Snoop is having a good suppernow."
"And I guess my dog Snap is, too!" went on Freddie. "Why can't we havesupper?" he asked of his father, and several of the passengers, hurryingthrough the big station, turned to laugh at the chubby little fellow,who spoke very loud.
"We'll soon have supper, little fireman," said Mr. Bobbsey. "We mighthave eaten on the train, but I thought it best to wait until we reachedour hotel, where we shall stay all night."
"How long are we going to be in New York?" asked Nan.
"Two or three days," her father replied. "I have some business to lookafter here. We may stay three days."
"That'll be fun!" exclaimed Bert. "There's a lot of things I want tosee, and we didn't have time when we were here before."
The twins had been in New York before, as those of you know who haveread the book called "The Bobbsey Twins In a Great City."
The hotel was soon reached, and, after being washed and freshened up inthe bathroom of their apartment, the Bobbsey twins and their father andmother were ready to go down to supper. And not all the bright lights,nor the music which played all during the meal, could stop Flossie andFreddie from eating, nor Bert and Nan, either. The twins were veryhungry.
The next day Mrs. Bobbsey took Nan and Flossie shopping with her, whileMr. Bobbsey took Bert and Freddie down town with him as the lumbermerchant had to see some men on business, and he knew the two boys couldwait in the different offices while he talked with his men friends.
"We will meet you in the Woolworth Building," said Mr. Bobbsey to hiswife. "You bring Flossie and Nan there, and after we go up in the hightower we'll have lunch, and then go to the Bronx Park to see theanimals."
"Oh, that will be fun!" cried Freddie. "I want to see a bear--twobears!"
"And I want to see ten--fifteen monkeys!" cried Flossie.
"Well, I hope you all get your wishes!" laughed Mother Bobbsey.
In one of the downtown offices where he had to stop to see a man, Mr.Bobbsey was kept rather a long time talking business, and Freddie andBert got tired, or at least Freddie did. Bert was so interested inlooking out of the high window at the crowds in the streets below, thathe did not much care how long his father stayed. But Freddie wanderedabout the outer office, looking at the typewriter which a pretty girlwas working so fast that, Bert said afterward, you could hardly see herfingers fly over the keys. The girl was too busy to pay much attentionto what Freddie did until, all of a sudden, she looked down at the floorand exclaimed:
"Oh, it's raining in here! Or else a water pipe has burst!" She pointedto a little puddle of water that had formed under her desk, whileanother stream was running over the office floor.
"Why, it isn't raining!" declared Bert, for the sun was shining outside."It can't be!"
"Then where did the water come from?" asked the girl.
/> "I--I guess I made it come!" confessed Freddie, walking out of a corner."I got a drink from the water tank, but now I can't shut off the handle,and the water's comin' out as fast as anything!"
"Oh, my!" cried the girl, jumping up with a laugh, "I must shut it offbefore we have a flood here!"
"Freddie! what made you do it?" asked Bert.
"I couldn't help being thirsty, could I?" asked the little boy. "And itwasn't my fault the handle got stuck! I didn't know so much water wouldcome out!"
And I suppose it really wasn't his fault. The girl soon shut oft thewater at the faucet, and a janitor mopped up the puddle on the floor, sothat when Mr. Bobbsey came out with his friend from the inner office,everything was all right again. And the business man only laughed whenhe heard what Freddie had done.
"Now we'll go to the Woolworth Building," said Mr. Bobbsey to Freddieand Bert, as they went out on Broadway. "I think mother and the girlswill be there waiting for us, as I stayed talking business longer than Imeant to."
And, surely enough, Mrs. Bobbsey, Nan, and Flossie were waiting in thelobby of the big Woolworth Building when Mr. Bobbsey came up with thetwo boys. This building is the tallest one in the world used forbusiness, and from the top of the golden tower one can look for milesand miles, across New York Bay, up toward the Bronx, over to Brooklynand can see towns in New Jersey.
"We'll go up in the tower and have a view," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and thenwe'll get lunch and go to the Bronx, where the animals are."
They entered one of the many elevators, with a number of other personswho also wanted to go to the Woolworth tower, and, in a moment, thesliding doors were closed.
"Oh!" suddenly exclaimed Nan.
And Flossie, Freddie and Bert all said the same thing, while Mrs.Bobbsey clasped her husband's arm and looked rather queer.
"What's the matter?" asked her husband.
"Why, we're going up so fast!" exclaimed the children's mother. "Itmakes me feel queer!"
"This is an express elevator," said Mr. Bobbsey. "There are so manyfloors in this tall building that if an elevator went slowly, andstopped at each one, it would take too long to get to the top. So theyhave some express elevators, that start at the bottom floor, and don'tstop until they get to floor thirty, or some such number as that."
"Are there thirty floors to this building?" asked Bert, as the elevatorcar, like a big cage in a tunnel standing on end, rushed up.
"Yes, and more," his father answered.
"I like to ride fast," said Freddie, "I wish we had an elevator likethis at home."
They had to take another, and smaller elevator, that did not go so fast,to get to the very top of the tower, and from there the view was sowonderful that it almost took away the breath of the Bobbsey twins.
"My, this is high up!" exclaimed Bert, as he looked over the edge of therailing, and down at the people in the streets below, who seemed likeants crawling around.
"Well, I guess we'd better be going now," said Mr. Bobbsey, after a bit."Come, children! Nan--Bert--Flossie--Why, where is Freddie?" he asked,looking around.
"Isn't he here?" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, her face turning white.
"I don't see him," went on Mr. Bobbsey. "He must have gone inside." ButFreddie was not there, nor was he anywhere on the outside platform thatsurrounded the topmost peak of the tall building.
"Oh, where is he? What has happened to Freddie?" cried his mother. "Ifhe has fallen! Freddie!"