CHAPTER X
FREDDIE, AS USUAL
"Dinner for two! Little children!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey.
"It is Flossie and Freddie!" cried his wife. "Where is the diningcar?"
The waiter from the dining car, who had come back to the sleeping carwhere the Bobbseys had their places, smiled as he finished tellingabout the two children.
"Dey's right up forward in my dinin' car," he said to Mrs. Bobbsey."An' dey is all right, too, lady! I tooked good keer ob 'em. Dey jestwalked right in, laik dey owned de place, an' I says to 'em, what willdey hab?
"Dey tells me dat dey done want dinnah fo' two, an' I starts to gib itto 'em, but de conductor says as how dey belonged to a party backheah, an' mebby de odder folks would want somethin' to eat, too. An',as anyhow, dey had bettah be tol'."
"I'm hungry!" exclaimed Bert.
"So'm I!" added Nan.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "I must go and see about them."
"We will all go," said Mr. Bobbsey. "I did not know it was so nearlunch time. But I suppose Freddie and Flossie never forget anything soimportant as that."
"Trust children to remember their meals!" said Mrs. Powendon. "I fearI am to blame for your two little ones running away."
"Oh, no," murmured Mr. Bobbsey.
"How?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"By coming in here, and talking to you. Probably I left the door ofyour drawing room open. Flossie and Freddie must have slipped out thatway."
"Very likely they did," said their father. "But no great harm is done.We will all go to lunch now. Won't you come with us, Mrs. Powendon?"
"Thank you, I will," answered the lady who had come visiting, and sothe rest of the Bobbseys and their friend went to the dining car.
There, surely enough, seated at a little table all by themselves, wereFlossie and Freddie. The two tots looked up as their father andmother, with Nan and Bert and Mrs. Powendon, came into the car.
"I'm going to have a piece of pie!" shouted Freddie so loudly thatevery one in the car must have heard, for nearly every one laughed.
"So am I going to have pie!" echoed Flossie, and there was anotherlaugh.
"Well, what have you children to say for yourselves?" asked Mrs.Bobbsey, in the voice she used when she was going to scold just alittle bit. "What have you to say, Freddie?"
"I like it in here!" he said. "It's a nice place to eat."
"And I like it, too!" added Flossie.
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey tried not to laugh.
"But you shouldn't have slipped away while we were talking and come inhere all alone," went on Mother Bobbsey. "Why did you do it?"
"I was hungry," said Freddie, and that seemed to be all there was toit.
"Our cookies were all in crumbs," explained Flossie. "They wasn't aone left in my basket. I was hungry, too."
"I presume that's as good an excuse as any," said Mr. Bobbsey, with alaugh. "And so we'll all sit down and have lunch."
And while they were eating Flossie and Freddie told how they hadslipped out, when their mother and father were busy talking to Mrs.Powendon, and while Bert and Nan were looking out of the window. Theyhad been in dining cars on railroad trains before, and so they knewpretty nearly what to do.
But when they ordered dinner for themselves, or at least told thesmiling, black waiter to bring them something to eat, the Pullmanconductor, who had seen the children in the sleeping coach, suspectedthat all was not right, so he sent the waiter back to tell Mrs.Bobbsey about Flossie and Freddie.
"And you mustn't do it again," said Mrs. Bobbsey, when the story hadbeen told.
"No'm, we won't!" promised Freddie.
"No, he won't do just this again," said Bert with a laugh to Nan. "Buthe'll do something else just as queer."
And of course Freddie did.
After lunch Mrs. Powendon went back to her car, and the Bobbseys tooktheir seats in the drawing room which they occupied. The meal and theriding made Flossie and Freddie sleepy, so their mother fixed a littlebed for them on the long seat, and soon they were dreaming away,perhaps of cowboys and Indians and big trees being cut down in theforest to make lumber for playhouses.
The train rumbled on, stopping now and then at different stations,and, after a while, even Bert and Nan began to get tired of it, thoughthey liked traveling.
"How much farther do we have to go?" asked Bert, as the afternoon sunbegan to go down in the west.
"Oh, quite a long way," his father answered. "We are not even inChicago yet. We shall get there to-morrow morning, and stay there twodays. Then we will go on to Lumberville. How long we shall stay thereI do not know. But as soon as we can attend to the business and getmatters in shape, we will go on to Cowdon."
"That's the place I want to get to!" exclaimed Bert. "I want to seesome Indians and cowboys."
"There may not be any there," said his mother.
"What! No cowboys on a ranch?" cried the boy.
"Why, Mother!" exclaimed Nan.
"I meant Indians," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Of course there'll be cowboysto look after the cattle, but Indians are not as plentiful as theyonce were, even out West."
"I only want to see an Indian baby and get an Indian doll," put inNan. "I don't like grown-up Indians. They have a lot of feathers on,like turkeys."
"That's what I like!" Bert declared. "If I wasn't going to be a cowboyI'd be an Indian, I guess."
Night came, and when the electric lights in the cars were turned onFreddie and Flossie awakened from their nap.
"How do you feel?" asked his mother, as she smoothed her little boy'srumpled hair.
"I--I guess I feel hungry!" he said, though he was still not quiteawake.
"So'm I!" added Flossie. You could, nearly always, depend on her tosay and do about the same things Freddie did and said.
"Well, this is a good time to be hungry," said Mr. Bobbsey with alaugh. "I just heard them say that dinner was being served in thedining car. We'll go up and eat again."
After dinner the porter made up the funny little beds, or "berths," asthey are called, and soon the Bobbsey twins had crawled into them andwere asleep.
It must have been about the middle of the night that Mrs. Bobbsey, whowas sleeping with Flossie on one side of the aisle, heard a noise justoutside her berth. It was as if something had fallen to the floor witha thud. She opened the curtains and looked out. Freddie and his fatherhad gone to sleep in the berth just across from her, but now she saw alittle white bundle lying on the carpeted floor of the car.
"What is that? Who is it?" the mother of the twins exclaimed.
Mr. Bobbsey poked his head out from between his curtains.
"What's the matter?" he asked. "Anything gone wrong?" he addedsleepily.
"Look!" exclaimed his wife. "What's that?" and she pointed to thebundle lying on the floor.
"That? Oh, that must be _Freddie_," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "Asusual he's done something we didn't expect. He's fallen out of his carbed."