Laura Lee Hope

“ Watson had said Nan might use the kitchen.
“And I want to make some, too,” put in Flossie.
“No, dear, you are too little,” Nan replied. “But you can watch me, and, when you get a little older, you will know how.”
“But I want to make some myself,” insisted Flossie. However, they would not let her, so she had to be content to sit in a chair near the kitchen table and watch while Nan’s mother showed her how to mix the dough and roll out the crust, cutting it into little circles which, when filled with cut-up peaches and baked, would be tarts. ”

“ Miss Skell smiled at the success of her plan.
“Now we will have some practice work in writing compositions,” she went on. “You will be better able to do the work this summer when there is no school if you practice a bit now. So we will begin!”
Every boy and girl was most eager now, especially Nan Bobbsey. She was always good at composition work—perhaps not the best in the room, but certainly better than Bert, though he tried. But, really, Bert cared more about playing games than about writing compositions. ”

“ Followed by the Bobbsey twins, their mother and Sam, Mr. Watson hurried to the little valley where he kept about a hundred hives of bees. Like little dog-houses the hives were, only with flat instead of peaked roofs, and of course only a small slit was needed in the bottom of each hive-house to let the bees fly in and out. The hives stood in rows in an orchard of apple trees near a small garden. There was a farmhouse in this valley in which lived a man and his wife who looked after the bees. ”

“ They always liked to come to the country, especially to a farm, for there were so many strange bits of machinery to see and so many things to do about a barn.
“Mr. Watson! Mr. Watson!” called Freddie, who had put his toy fire engine down in what he thought a safe place.
“Yes, little man, what is it?” asked the farmer.
“Could we please slide down on your hay—I mean Flossie and I?” Freddie asked. “We like to slide on hay, and we haven’t done it for a long time.”
“Slide all you like,” Mr. Watson kindly gave permission. “That is, if your mother says so,” he added, with a look at Mrs. Bobbsey. ”

“ In the days that followed the experience of Flossie and Freddie with the “bear,” the children often visited the orchards, where they helped pick the red and yellow fruit. At other times they would help sort it in the barn, and once they rode with Zeek to the canning factory with a load of soft peaches which must quickly be made up into marmalade lest they spoil.
One day, when a lull came in the hard-and-fast work of picking and sorting the peaches, Nan, passing through the kitchen, saw Mrs. Watson getting ready to make some biscuits. ”

“ Bert said. “The only place where the water tumbles over the rocks enough to turn the paddle is where it’s deep. But we’ll be careful.”
“Yes, we’ll be careful,” agreed Nan. “And Mother won’t mind our going there if it’s to try your mill. For she likes to be cool, and maybe she will like your fan, Bert.”
“Maybe,” he assented. “But I haven’t got the fan part done yet—just the water mill paddle part.”
As Bert and Nan made their way to a little waterfall in the brook, they heard the shouts of Flossie and Freddie, who had gone some time before to sail toy boats. ”

“ After dinner Mrs. Watson pleaded with Mrs. Bobbsey that the boys be permitted to put on overalls and the girls old dresses and run out in the rain to play. Mrs. Bobbsey thought the children might catch cold, but Mrs. Watson laughed and said that such a warm summer rain would never hurt running children, if they came in and dried themselves as soon as they stopped playing.
So out in the falling rain rushed Nan and Bert, Freddie and Flossie, and such a game of tag as they had, the smaller twins not always being caught, either! ”

“ So the two smaller twins, with shouts of delight, climbed up in the haymow where there were great piles of the dried, sweet-smelling grass which the horses, cows, and [Pg 106] sheep would eat when winter came, and when there was no longer green fodder in the fields.
Bert and Nan thought themselves a little too old for this kind of fun—at least, when there were older folks around. Though undoubtedly if just the four twins had been in the barn, the two larger ones would have enjoyed doing what Flossie and Freddie were doing. ”

“ Bobbsey.
“Yes, and my twins are growing up, too,” said their mother. “Though sometimes, when they act foolishly, fall into brooks and ride on hay forks, I fear they are growing younger instead of older,” she concluded, with a laugh.
“They can’t be young but once,” Mrs. Martin said, as she took off her glasses to wipe them on a piece of silk she carried in her pocket. Baby Jenny had reached up and put her fingers on the glass, making a blurred place. “No, they can’t be young but once—more’s the pity. ”

“ Nan Bobbsey and some of her girl chums, as well as Danny Rugg and the boys with whom Bert Bobbsey played, also wondered why Bert had to go to the principal’s office.
“Did Bert do anything?” whispered Grace Lavine, who sat behind Nan.
“I don’t know,” was the low-voiced reply. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see him.”
“Well, anyhow, he couldn’t have thrown any snowballs,” said Nellie Parks. “I mean like the time he once did and Danny said he broke the church window.”
“No,” agreed Nan, remembering the winter when she and her brother and the smaller twins “kept house,” with Mrs. Pry ill in bed. ”

“ But the farmer knew that young people must have a chance to learn, and so he was patient.
“Whoa!” called Bert, as he drove Tramper into the barn with the load of soft fruit and stopped the cart where Mr. Watson told him to. Then the fruit was put into wooden bins and the sorting went on.
“Do you want to bring in another load?” asked the farmer.
“Do you think it safe to trust him?” inquired Mr. Bobbsey. “I don’t want him to make a lot of work for you.”
“He can’t hurt the soft peaches much, anyhow,” the farmer went on, “and there’s nothing like letting a boy know how to handle a horse. ”

“ Mrs. Bobbsey asked her husband.
“A little,” he replied. “But it cannot be helped. However, the roads are good and we can make a little faster time the remainder of the day. I wish we didn’t have to, but I feel that it is the best thing to do—take the kittens back.”
Flossie and Freddie felt a bit sad over this, and even Bert and Nan would have liked one of the pets. But they thought their father and mother knew best.
“Very likely Mr. Watson will have plenty of animals at Cloverbank,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, to console the sorrowing small twins.
“And, anyhow, there’s the baby,” said Nan. ”

“ Soon he had enough, he thought, with the worms he had brought, and he made his way to the edge of the creek, picking out a spot where the water foamed and bubbled over the stony bottom.
As worms were easier to put on the hook than the grasshoppers, which were very lively, Bert baited with one of the crawling creatures and cast in his hook. The Bobbsey boy was about as patient as most lads, but when he had pulled out several times, thinking he had bites, and found nothing on his hook, Bert began to think perhaps it would be well to change the bait. ”

“ She led the way to the dining room, with Flossie and Freddie whispering on the way:
“When can we give Daddy his presents?”
“You might as well get them now, I suppose,” [Pg 31] said Mrs. Bobbsey, with a laugh as she glanced at her husband. “There will be no peace at the table until you do, and you won’t eat anything until this excitement is over. Get the presents now!”
“Whoopee!” yelled Bert, who was almost as excited as were the smaller twins.
“Mine’s in the cellar!” cried Freddie, as he made a dash for the kitchen.
“Be careful going down the stairs!” warned his mother. ”

“ Then some one called Zeek away and Nan was left alone in the mow. As she stood there the horse on the ground below started off, raising a fork full of hay and pulling it toward the open mow door.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Nan. “Here’s a lot of hay coming and no one to open the fork. I wish I could do it. I think I could. I watched Zeek. All he does is to pull the short rope. I’ll do it!”
And so, when the fork full of hay swung into the barn, Nan made a jump for the dangling short rope and pulled on it. But the hay fork did not open. ”

“ As Bert hoped, Nan and the smaller twins were in the doorway and saw him coming.
“Oh, look at Bert!” cried Flossie.
“He’s driving a real horse!” added Freddie.
“So he is!” exclaimed Nan.
Bert “began to put on airs,” then, as his father said later. But just as he was urging the horse up the little slope that led into the barn, Bert saw a turtle crawling across the lane in front of him. The wheels of the cart would almost surely pass over the turtle’s shell, crushing it.
“Look out there, Mr. Mud Turtle!” cried Bert. But the turtle, like all of its kind, [Pg 133] was a slow mover. ”

“ Bobbsey beginning to take articles out of the car.
“I guess I better carry my doll,” explained Flossie. “You might drop her, Mr. May—I mean Mr. Watson,” she quickly corrected herself.
“All right, little lady!” chuckled Baby Jenny’s father. “I’m used to carrying my own little girl, and I don’t drop her; but maybe your doll is so heavy she might slip out of my arms. Though I could wrap her in a bundle of hay and carry her like that,” he added, as he caught up a wisp of hay from the barn floor and pretended it was a doll. ”

“ Bert started Tramper back on the trip to the orchard, and this time he made the return with a load of peaches in safety, driving proudly into the barn, almost as well as one of the men could have done.
The barn and the orchard were now busy places, for Mr. Watson wanted to get as much fruit to market as he could while the weather was good. He expected to make two or more pickings, as more and more peaches were ripened by the sun. And the earlier he could haul his fruit to market the more money he would get.
“It’s the early fruit that sells best,” he said. ”

“ Watson. “It’s very pretty when the water is high; and in winter, when it freezes, it is even more beautiful. But I know some one who is sleepy!” she went on in a singing voice.
“I’m not!” quickly cried Flossie. “I didn’t come here to sleep.”
“She means Jenny,” whispered Nan, and, sure enough, the little one’s head was nodding and her eyes were closing. Her mother wrapped Jenny in a blanket and put her down under a tree, while Mr. Bobbsey got out the lunch baskets and the Bobbsey twins scattered here and there to play. ”

“ Watson sold to the man who would give him the most money. He will now put his peaches into a freight car and later they will be hauled by the engine to some distant city. There they will go to what is called a wholesale dealer. He has bought them here, through his agent or a commission man, as he is called. The wholesale man will sell them to stores and the stores will sell them to people who want a quart or a single basket. That is how the peach business is carried on.”
“When I grow up,” said Freddie, as he looked at all that was going on, “I guess I’ll be a peach-man instead of a fireman!” ”

“ Around and around went the wooden blades, just like the larger wheel in a big mill that grinds grist for the farmers.
“Now all I have to do,” said Bert, as he and the others watched how regularly the paddles turned, “is to make my fan and then connect it with this water mill by a string belt on the two pulley wheels. Then we can sit down on the porch and we’ll keep cool by the fan which will be turned by this water wheel.”
“Oh, Bert!” exclaimed Nan, “you can [Pg 171] never make the fan run so far away from the brook.” ”

“ Bobbsey of the farmer when Freddie had returned to the orchard.
“Over in Hitchville,” was the answer. “There’s a peach market there, where the wholesale buyers come and buy them by the truck load. I’ll have about two loads ready to go in to-morrow.”
“Could we go with you and see how they sell peaches?” asked Bert, who hoped, when he grew up, to become a business man like his father.
“Yes, you children can ride on the truck [Pg 128] if you like,” the farmer said. “But you’d be more comfortable going in your own car. The trucks are big and heavy and aren’t easy riding.” ”

“ But the barriers held, and when the runaway cattle were driven back to the highway, the Cloverbank cows quieted down.
Bert did good work, running here and there after stray animals and preventing them from turning back up the lane again. The cows did not seem to know what to do nor where to go.
“Bees and a barking dog are a bad combination in a herd of cattle,” remarked Mr. Watson, when the drover was thanking him for having helped to get the animals started on their way again. “It’s a good thing your animals didn’t overrun my farm.” ”

“ I’m glad you saw this swarm and came to tell me, boys,” he said to Sam and Bert. “It’s worth quite a few dollars, or will be this fall when the hive is filled with honey.”
[Pg 216]
“I like honey,” remarked Freddie, looking carefully at Mr. Watson to make sure no bees had followed him. But none had.
“Well, I’ll send you some when you get back home,” promised the peach-grower.
“That was very interesting,” said Mrs. Bobbsey as she turned to take the path across the fields to Cloverbank. “Bees are very smart little creatures.”
“And they’ll make you smart if they sting you!” said Bert. ”

“ Though the paddle wheel turned under the falling water, the long string belt would not move, and neither would the fan. Besides, the string got tangled on bushes and once Freddie reported he found a grasshopper sitting on it taking a sun bath.
“I guess I’ll just work the paddle wheel in the water and nothing else,” decided Bert.
“I believe that will be best,” agreed his mother. “We don’t really need a fan to keep cool on the porch. There are lovely cool breezes at Cloverbank.”
Mr. Bobbsey returned from a trip to the city, and he and the twins and their mother had another happy day on the farm. ”