The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair by Laura Lee Hope (books to read as a couple .txt) 📕

"Do you really think we can go, Mother?" asked Nan, the next day.

"I don't see why not. Your father seems to have made up his mind to it."

"Well, I hope he doesn't change it, as he does sometimes," said Bert, with a laugh. "They're going to have airships and a balloon at the fair, Charlie Mason says, and maybe I can go up in the balloon. Wouldn't that be great, Nan?"

"I'm not going up in any balloon!"

"I am!" decided Bert, as if that was all there was to it.

"An' I'm going to ride on a lion!" cried Flossie.

"So'm I!" chimed in her brother Freddie.

Uncle Daniel Bobbsey and his wife Sarah, with their son Harry, lived at Meadow Brook Farm. The Bobbsey twins had been there more than once, as those who have read the other books of this series will remember. And now it was proposed to go there again.

"But we'll be at the fair more than we will be at Meadow Brook, sha'n't we?" asked Nan of her father.

"Well, sort of betwixt and between," he answered, with a laugh.

Uncle Daniel having been written to, said he would be delighted to have his brother and his brother's family come out for the remainder of the summer and early fall. And in about a week all preparations were made.

The trip was to be made in the Bobbsey's big auto, and would take about a day. By starting early in the morning Meadow Brook Farm could be reached by night. From there it was only a short distance to Bolton where, each year, a big fair was held.

"And if I see that Bob Guess I'll make him tell where daddy's coat is!" declared Bert.

"And the lap robe, too!" added Nan.

It was a fine, sunny day when the start was made. Into the auto piled the Bobbsey twins, with boxes and baskets of lunch.

"It's like another picnic!" laughed Nan, as she saw Bert piling away the good things to eat.

"Hab a good time, honey lambs!" called fat Dinah, as she and her husband stood on the steps, waving good-by.

"Take good care of Snoop and Snap!" begged Nan.

"We will!" promised Sam.

Snap, the dog, wanted to come along, but as he could not very well be looked after on this trip he had to be left behind, much to his sorrow. He howled dismally as the auto went down the road.

Not very much happened on the way to Meadow Brook. Once a tire was punctured and Mr. Bobbsey had to stop to put on a spare one. But this happened near a garage, so he had a man from there do the work, while he and his wife, with the twins, went into a little grove of trees and ate lunch.

"Be careful of your coat!" warned Mrs. Bobbsey, as her husband took it off and hung it on a tree while he built a fire to heat the water for tea.

"Oh, no one is going to steal this one!" he said. "Anyhow, it's an old one. But there's no one here to take it. No Mr. Blipper or Bob Guess around now."

"Well, don't forget, and go off, leaving it hang on the tree," warned his wife.

"I won't," said Mr. Bobbsey.

A fire was made, and as Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting with her back against a stump, comfortably sipping her tea, she heard the sound of crying. As Bert and Nan, with Flossie and Freddie, were gathering flowers not far away, Mrs. Bobbsey could see that it was none of her twins who was sobbing.

But the crying kept up, and she looked around to see whence it came. Mr. Bobbsey was busy packing up the lunch things, for there was enough food left to serve a little tea around five o'clock, since Meadow Brook Farm would not be reached before seven o'clock that evening, on account of the delay over the tire.

"Who is that crying, Dick?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Crying? Why, I don't hear—yes, I do, too!" her husband added, as the sound of sobs came to his ears. He looked to make sure his own children were all right and then glanced about.

As he did so there came from a little clump of trees, not far from the grove where the Bobbseys had eaten lunch, a ragged boy, who seemed in pain or distress, for he was crying very hard.

"Oh, the poor lad!" said Mrs. Bobbsey in a kind voice. "Go see what the matter is, Dick! He is in trouble of some sort! I wonder who he is?"

"Yes, without doubt, the lad's in trouble. We'll see what we can do," answered the father of the twins.

The crying boy walked slowly toward the Bobbsey family, and now the twins, hearing his sobs, looked up in wonder from their flower-gathering.

"Why, it's Bob Guess!" cried Bert, dropping his bunch of flowers, so excited was he. "It's Bob Guess!"

"So it is!" agreed Nan. "And he's crying."

There was no doubt of that: It was Bob Guess, the lad the Bobbsey twins had seen working at the merry-go-round engine the day of the Sunday school picnic. Bob came slowly along, sobbing hard.

"What's the matter, Bob?" asked Bert, who had taken a liking to the ragged chap. For the time being Mr. Bobbsey's missing coat and the lap robe were forgotten. "Why are you crying?"

"Can we help you?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

Bob Guess ceased sobbing and looked up. He seemed surprised to see the children and their parents.

"Oh, I—I didn't know anybody was here," he stammered.

"That's all right," said Mr. Bobbsey. "If there's anything we can do to help you—— Where's Mr. Blipper, by the way? There is something I should like to ask him. Or perhaps you can tell me."

"Not now, Dick, not now," said Mrs. Bobbsey in a whisper, with a shake of her head at her husband. She knew what he wanted to ask—about his coat and the robe. "Not now; he is too miserable," she went on.

"Has anything happened?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, changing his first line of questions.

"Ye—yes," stammered Bob, not sobbing so hard now. "I—I've run away from Mr. Blipper!"

"You've run away!" echoed Nan.

Bob nodded his head vigorously to show that he meant "yes," and he went on:

"He treated me mean! There was a lot of hard work setting up the merry-go-round at the Bolton Fair, and I had more than my share. He wouldn't give me any money—he hardly gave me enough to eat. And I ran away. I'm not done running yet, only I'm so hungry I can't go very fast any more."

"You poor boy!" murmured Mrs. Bobbsey. "Is that why you cried—because you were hungry?"

"Yes—yes'm," murmured Bob Guess.

"Well, we have plenty to eat," said Mr. Bobbsey, with a kindly pat on the shoulder of the ragged boy. "Here, we'll give you a lunch, and then maybe you can tell me what I want to know. Where is Mr. Blipper?"

"He's back there at the merry-go-round. We had some trouble with the engine. But I guess he has it fixed by now. He's back at the fair grounds. It opens to-morrow. That is, he's there unless he has come chasing after me."

"Do you think he'd do that?" asked Bert. It was quite an exciting adventure, Bert thought, to run away and be chased by Mr. Blipper.

"Well, he said if I ever ran away he'd run after me and bring me back," answered Bob. "Anyhow, I've run away, but it isn't as much fun as I thought it'd be. Only I can't stand Mr. Blipper! He's too cross!"

"Poor boy!" murmured Mrs. Bobbsey again. "Get him something to eat, Dick. He must be very hungry!"

And Bob was, to judge by the manner in which he ate some of the Bobbsey's lunch. It was a good thing there was plenty. Having eaten all he seemed to care for and drinking two glasses of milk, Bob leaned back against a tree stump and said:

"Now can't I do something to pay you for my meal?"

"Do something to pay for it?" repeated Mrs. Bobbsey, wonderingly.

"Yes, Mr. Blipper says I've always got to work for my board. Sometimes he says I'm not worth my salt."

"Well, this time there is no need of doing anything for us," said Mr. Bobbsey. "You are welcome to what you have had to eat. But now what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to run away farther if I can," Bob Guess answered.

"Hum! I'm not so sure that we ought to let you, now that we know about you," went on the father of the Bobbsey twins. "Has this Mr. Blipper any claim on you?"

"He says he adopted me and can keep me until I'm twenty-one years old."

"He may be right. I don't know about that. It must be looked into. Anyhow, I don't feel like letting you run away, Bob," went on Mr. Bobbsey kindly. "I'd like to have a talk with Blipper on my own account, and I could ask him about you. Did you happen to see——"

But before Mr. Bobbsey could ask what he intended to—about his missing coat and the lap robe—a man from the garage where the automobile had been left to have the tire changed came across the field.

"It's a good thing you stopped when you did, Mr. Bobbsey," said the garage man.

"Why so?"

"Because if you had gone on a little farther one of the wheels of your car would have come off, and if you had been going fast, or down-hill, you might have had a bad accident. I found the break when I was putting on the tire, and I came over to ask if you wanted me to fix it."

"Yes, I suppose so. I'll come and have a look. We don't want to go on if there is any danger."

"There is danger. And it will take half a day to mend the break."

"Half a day!" said Mr. Bobbsey, as he followed the man, forgetting for the time all about Bob and Mr. Blipper. "That means we'll not get to Meadow Brook to-night. Is there a good hotel in town?"

"Yes, a very good one not far from my garage."

"Well then, in case we have to remain, we can stay at the hotel. But wait until I take a look at the broken wheel."

Mr. Bobbsey found that the garage man was right. The automobile was in need of repairs, and had the party gone on, without noticing the break, a bad accident might have happened.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Mrs. Bobbsey, when told of the news, "must we stay here all night?"

"Unless I hire another auto, or you and the children go on by train," said her husband. "I shall have to stay here to bring our car on."

"Oh, I don't want that! No, we'll stay at the hotel. But what about him?" she asked in a low voice, pointing to Bob Guess, who was talking to the twins.

"That's so. We can't turn him adrift," Mr. Bobbsey agreed. "Well, I'll get a room for him at the hotel. In the morning I can decide what to do. I don't like to send him back to Blipper. But if the man has adopted him he has a claim on the boy. We'll see what happens by morning."

Mrs. Bobbsey may have disliked to break the journey and stay at a strange hotel, but the Bobbsey twins thought it great fun. The hotel was a small country one, clean and neat, and the Bobbseys and Bob Guess were about the only guests there.

"I'm not fit to stop at a hotel," said the ragged boy.

"Oh, you're all right," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Perhaps I can get you some clothes here. If there isn't a store that sells them I may be able to get you a second-hand suit from the hotel keeper."

As it happened, there was no clothing store in the village of Montville, where the stop was made. But the hotel proprietor had some clothes of