The Bobbsey Twins at Home Part 3

"Don't be afraid!" exclaimed Bert. "I guess they won't come in this car.

Father won't let them."

By this time Flossie and Freddie had also seen the masked men with their guns standing along the track, and Freddie cried:

"Oh, look! It's just like Hallowe'en. They've got false faces on!"

Many in the car laughed at this.

CHAPTER III

SNAP AND SNOOP

The train on which the Bobbsey twins were coming back from the country had now been stopping for several minutes. There was no sign of a station on either side of the track, as could be told by those who put their heads out of the opened windows. And Mr. Bobbsey had not come back.

"I wonder if anything has happened," remarked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"I'll go and find out, Mother," offered Bert, getting up from his seat.

"No, indeed, I can't let you!" his mother answered. "Your father would not like it. He may be back any moment."

"I don't believe anything much has happened, ma'am," said a man across the aisle from Mrs. Bobbsey. "I can see some men up near the engine, but they are talking and laughing."

"Then they aren't robbers," said Freddie to his older brother Bert, "'cause robbers wouldn't laugh."

"Well, if they're not train robbers why have they guns and false faces on?" asked Bert.

"Maybe they're just making believe--same as when we have pretend-plays,"

put in Flossie.

"Do you pretend, and make believe?" asked Tommy Todd, of the two younger twins.

"Oh, yes, lots of times," Freddie said. "We have heaps of fun that way; don't you?"

"Sometimes," answered Tommy in a low voice. "Sometimes I pretend I have gone off in a s.h.i.+p, and that I've found my father. I make believe that he and I are sailing together. And oh! how I wish it would come true!"

"Maybe it will--some day," said Flossie softly, as she patted Tommy's hand which was on the back of the seat in front of her.

"I must go out and see what is keeping your father," said Mrs. Bobbsey at last. "Something must have happened. You children stay here with Dinah. Nan and Bert, you look after Flossie and Freddie."

But there was no need for Mrs. Bobbsey to leave the car for, just then, her husband came in. He was smiling, and that seemed to show that nothing very serious was the matter.

"What is it?" asked Bert.

"Are the men playing a game?" Freddie demanded.

"Is the train off the track?" asked one of the fresh air boys. "I hopes it is--that is, if n.o.body is hurt, 'cause then we won't have to go home, and maybe we can go back to the country."

"No, the train isn't off the track," answered Mr. Bobbsey. "It's a hold-up by masked robbers."

"There! What'd I tell you?" cried Bert to his brother and sisters. "I _knew_ they were masked robbers."

"But only make-believe," went on Mr. Bobbsey, still smiling. "This is a hold-up, or stopping of the train, and a pretend robbery for moving pictures."

"Moving pictures!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Yes. There is a man up front, near the engine, with a moving picture camera. With him are some men and women, actors and actresses, dressed up--some like pa.s.sengers, such as we are, and others like robbers, with false faces on. They wanted the train to stop so they could get a picture of that, for it would be a funny movie of a train robbery without a train to be seen."

"And did they actually stop the train?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Yes. They held up a red flag and the engineer stopped. But it was all right, for he knew it was going to be done. It was all arranged for ahead of time. Now, if you like, you may come out and see them take moving pictures."

"Well, who would have thought that!" cried Bert. "I was sure the men with masks on were robbers. And they're only taking a moving picture."

"I'd like to see it in a theatre afterward," said Nan. "Don't you remember what fun it was when we were in the movies this Summer?"

"Were you in them, really?" asked Tommy as he followed the twins out of the car.

"Yes, we acted a little," said Bert. "There was a make-believe battle being taken near our uncle's farm. We went to watch. They fired cannon and guns, and had horses----"

"And the men and horses were shot!" interrupted Freddie. "Only pretend, of course, but I was there and I was in the movies too. I acted and so did Nan. And I fell in the brook and the man made a moving picture of me doing that!"

"Did they really?" asked one of the fresh air ladies of Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Yes, the children were in the moving pictures a little this Summer,"

explained Freddie's mother. "It was all unexpected, but we did not mind, for it was all outdoors. It was fun for them." Those of you who have read the book before this one will remember how Freddie and the others really did act before the camera.

"Say, I'd like to do that!" cried Tommy with s.h.i.+ning eyes as he heard what the Bobbseys had done. "It must have been great!"

"It was fun," Freddie said.

By this time they were out of the train, walking up toward the engine.

About it were men and women, and the children saw a man with a black box on three legs grinding away at a crank.

"He's taking the moving pictures," said Bert.

"Why--why!" exclaimed Flossie as she came closer. "It's the same man who took our pictures at Meadow Brook!"

"So it is," agreed Nan. "It's Mr. Weston."

"Yes, he's the same one," said Mr. Bobbsey. "I told him you children were on the train and he asked me to fetch you up to see him."

When Mr. Weston had finished taking the pictures of the actors and actresses who had to pretend they were being robbed by the masked men, he spoke to the Bobbsey twins.

"Don't you want to act for the movies again?" he asked, laughing.