long can you stay?” Freddie asked his little friend, while they were swinging.
“I don’t know,” Sandy replied vaguely.
“Maybe you could go to the seashore with us,” Freddie ventured. “We are only going to stay in the country this month.”
“Maybe I could go,” lisped Sandy, “’cause nobody ain’t got charge of me now. Mrs. Manily has gone away, you know, and I don’t b’lieve in the other lady, do you?”
Freddie did not quite understand this but he said “no” just to agree with Sandy.
“And you know the big girl, Nellie, who always curled my hair without pulling it,—she’s gone away too, so maybe I’m your brother now,” went on the little orphan.
“Course you are!” spoke up Freddie manfully, throwing his arms around the other, “You’re my twin brother too, ’cause that’s the realest kind. We are all twins, you know—Nan and Bert, and Flossie and me and you!”
By this time the other Bobbseys had come out to welcome Sandy. They thought it best to let Freddie entertain him at first, so that he would not be strange, but now Uncle Daniel just took the little fellow up in his arms and into his heart, for all good men love boys, especially when they are such real little men as Sandy and Freddie happened to be.
“He’s my twin brother, Uncle Daniel,” Freddie insisted. “Don’t you think he’s just like me curls and all?”
“He is certainly a fine little chap!” the uncle replied, meaning every word of it, “and he is quite some like you too. Now let us feed the chickens. See how they are around us expecting something to eat?”
The fowls were almost ready to eat the pearl buttons off Sandy’s coat, so eager were they for their meal, and it was great fun for the two little boys to toss the corn to them.
“Granny will eat from your hand,” exclaimed Uncle Daniel, “You see, she is just like granite-gray stone, but we call her Granny for short.”
The Plymouth Rock hen came up to Sandy, and much to his delight ate the corn out of his little white hand.
“Oh, she’s a pretty chicken!” he said, stroking Granny as he would a kitten. “I dust love chitens,” he added, sitting right down on the sandy ground to let Granny come up on his lap. There was so much to see in the poultry yard that Sandy, Freddie, and Uncle Daniel lingered there until Martha appeared at the back door and rang the big dinner bell in a way that meant, “Hurry up! something will get cold if you don’t.”
And the something proved to be chicken pot-pie with dumplings that everybody loves. And after that there came apple pudding with hard sauce, just full of sugar.
“Is it a party?” Sandy whispered to Freddie, for he was not accustomed to more than bread and milk at his evening meal.
“Yes, I guess so,” ventured Freddie; “it’s because you came,” and then Dinah brought in little play cups of chocolate with jumbles on the side, and Mrs. Bobbsey said that would be better than the pudding for Freddie and Sandy.
“I guess I’ll just live here,” solemnly said the little stranger, as if his decision in such a matter should not be questioned.
“I guess you better!” Freddie agreed, “’cause it’s nicer than over there, isn’t it?”
“Lots,” replied Sandy, “only maybe Mrs. Manily will cry for me,” and he looked sad as his big blue eyes turned around and blinked to keep back some tears. “I dust love Mrs. Manily, Freddie; don’t you?” he asked wistfully.
Then Harry and Bert jumped up to start the phonograph, and that was like a band wagon to the little fellows, who liked to hear the popular tunes called off by the funny man in the big bright horn.
CHAPTER XX
A Midnight Scare
“Sometimes I’m afraid in the bed tent over there,” said Sandy to Freddie. “’Cause there ain’t nothing to keep the dark out but a piece of veil in the door.”
“Mosquito netting,” corrected Freddie. “I would be afraid to sleep outdoors that way too. ’Cause maybe there’s snakes.”
“There sure is,” declared the other little fellow, cuddling up closer to Freddie. “’Cause one of the boys, Tommy his name is, killed two the other day.”
“Well, there ain’t no snakes around here,” declared Freddie, “an’ this bed was put in this room, right next to mama’s, for me, so you needn’t be scared when Aunt Sarah comes and turns out the lights.”
Both little boys were very sleepy, and in spite of having so many things to tell each other the sand-man came around and interrupted them, actually making their eyes fall down like porch screens when someone touches the string.
Mrs. Bobbsey came up and looked in at the door.
Two little sunny heads so close together!
“Why should that little darling be left alone over in the dark tent!” she thought. “See how happy he is with our own dear son Freddie.”
Then she tucked them a little bit, half closed the door, and turned out the hall light.
Everybody must have been dreaming for hours, it seemed so at any rate, when suddenly all were awake again.
What was it?
What woke up the household with such a start?
“There it is again!” screamed Flossie. “Oh, mamma, mamma, come in my room quick!”
Sandy grabbed hold of Freddie.
“We’re all right,” whispered the brave little Freddie. “It’s only the girls that’s hollering.”
Then they both put their curls under the bedquilts.
“Someone’s playing the piano,” Bert said to Harry; and, sure enough, a nocturnal solo was coming up in strange chunks from the parlor.
“It’s a crazy burglar, and he never saw a piano before,” Flossie said.
The hall clock just struck midnight. That seemed to make everybody more frightened.
Uncle Daniel was hurrying down the stairs now.
“There it is again,” whispered Bert, as another group of wild chords came from the piano.
“It must be cats!” exclaimed Uncle Daniel. “Harry, come down here and help light up, and we’ll solve this mystery.”
Without a moment’s hesitation Bert and Harry were down the stairs and had the hall light burning as quickly as a good match could be struck.
But there was no more music and no cats about.
“Where is Snoop?” asked Uncle Daniel.
The boys opened the hall door into the cellarway, and found there Snoop on his cushion and Fluffy on hers.
