in the orchard.” This announcement caused all the children to hurry up to the orchard, for everybody likes to “catch” a balloon.
“There’s a man in it,” John exclaimed as the big ball tossed around in the air.
“Yes, that’s the balloon that went up from the farmers’ picnic,” said Harry.
The next minute a parachute shot out from the balloon; and hanging to it the form of a man could be seen.
“Oh, he’ll fall!” cried Freddie, all excited. “Let’s catch him—in something!”
“He’s all right,” John assured the little boy. “That umbrella keeps him from coming down too quickly.”
“How does it?” Freddie asked.
“Why, you see, sonny, the air gets under the umbrella and holds it up. The man’s weight then brings it down gently.”
“Oh, maybe he will let us fly up in it,” Freddie remarked, much interested.
“Here he comes! here he comes!” the boys called, and sure enough the big parachute, with the man dangling on it, was now coming right down—down—in the harvest-apple tree!
“Hello there!” called the man from above, losing the colored umbrella and quickly dropping himself from the low tree.
“Hello yourself!” answered John. “Did you have a nice ride?”
“First class,” replied the man with the stars on his shirt. “But I’ve got a long walk back to the grove. Could I hire a bicycle around here?”
Harry spoke to his father, and then quickly decided to let the balloon man ride his bicycle down to the picnic grounds.
“You can leave it at the ice-cream stand,” Harry told the stranger. “I know the man there, and he will take care of it for me until I call for it.”
The children were delighted to talk to a real live man that had been up in a balloon, and the balloonist was indeed very pleasant with the little ones. He took Freddie up in his arms and told him all about how it felt to be up in the sky.
“You’re a truly fireman!” Freddie said, after listening to all the dangers there are so far above ground. “I’m a real fireman too!”
Just then the balloon that had been tossing about in the air came down in the other end of the orchard.
“Well, there!” exclaimed the man. “That’s good luck. Now, whichever one of you boys gets that balloon first will get ten dollars. That’s what we pay for bringing it back!”
With a dash every boy started for the spot where the balloon had landed. There were quite a few others besides the Bobbseys, and they tumbled over each other trying to get there first. Ned Prentice, Nettie’s brother, was one of the best runners, and he cut across the orchard to get a clear way out of the crowd.
“Go it, Bert!” called John.
“Keep it up, Harry!” yelled someone else.
“You’d get it, Tom!” came another voice.
But Ned was not in the regular race, and nobody noticed him.
“They’ve got it,” called the excited girls.
“It’s Harry!”
“No, it’s Bert!”
“’Tisn’t either—it’s Ned!” called John, as the only poor boy in the crowd proudly touched the big empty gas-bag!
“Three cheers for Ned!” called Uncle Daniel, for he and Mr. Bobbsey had joined in the crowd.
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” shouted all the boys good-naturedly, for Ned was a favorite companion, besides being one who really needed the money.
“Suppose we drive down,” Uncle Daniel suggested. “Then we can bring Ned back with his ten dollars.”
This was agreed upon as a good plan, and as quickly as John had hitched up the big wagon ail the boys piled in with the aeronaut and started for the grove.
CHAPTER XX
The Little Gardeners
When little Ned Prentice put the ten-dollar bill in his mother’s hand, on that pleasant Fourth of July evening, he felt like a man. His mother could hardly believe the story of Ned’s getting the money just for finding a balloon, but when it was explained how valuable the balloon was, and how it sometimes takes days of searching in the woods to find one after the balloonist lets go and drops down with his parachute, she was finally convinced that the money rightfully belonged to Ned.
“No one needs it more than I do,” Mrs. Prentice told Mr. Bobbsey, who had brought Ned home in the wagon, “for since the baby was sick we have hardly been able to meet our bills, it cost so much for medicine.”
“We were all glad when Ned got there first,”
Harry said politely, “because we knew he deserved the reward most.”
As Ned was a poor boy, and had to work on farms during vacation, his father being dead and only one brother being old enough to go to work, the reward turned out a great blessing, for ten dollars is a good deal of money for a little boy to earn at one time.
“Be sure to come up to our fireworks tonight,” Harry called, as they drove away, and Ned promptly accepted the invitation.
“It has certainly been a great Fourth of July!” Uncle Daniel exclaimed, later in the evening when the children fired off their Roman candles and sky rockets and burned the red fire. The little children had beautiful pinwheels and “nigger chasers” that they put off on the porch. Then Nan had a big fire balloon that she sent up, and they watched it until it was out of sight, away over the pond and clear out of Meadow Brook.
It was a very tired lot of children that rolled off to sleep that night, for indeed it had been a great day for them all.
For a few days after the Fourth it rained, as it always does, on account of all the noise that goes up in the air to shake the clouds.
“You can play in the coach house,” Aunt Sarah told the children, “but be careful not to run in and out and get wet.” The children promised to remember, and soon they were all out in the big wagon house playing merrily. Freddie climbed in the wagon and made believe it was a “big fire engine.” Bert attached a bell on the side for him, and when he pulled a rope this bell would clang like a chemical apparatus. Nan and Flossie had all their dolls in the pretty new carriage with the soft gray cushions, and in this the little girls made believe driving to New York and doing some wonderful shopping.
“Freddie, you be coachman,” coaxed Flossie, “because we are inside and have to have someone drive us.”
“But who will put out all the fires?” Freddie asked, as he clanged the bell vigorously.
“Make b’lieve they are all out,” Flossie told him.
“But you can’t make b’lieve about
