The Bobbsey Twins on a Houseboat Part 3

"I 'clar t' goodness!" exclaimed fat Dinah in the kitchen. "Dem chillens am up t' some mo' trouble!"

"Freddie, steer to one side! Steer out of the way!" shouted Bert, as he ran for the gate. He could not hope to reach his little brother in time, though.

Freddie was too frightened and excited to steer. The bicycle was going fast--faster than he had ever ridden on it before. All he could do was to sit tight, and hold fast to the handle bars.

"Oh, he'll be run over!" cried Nan, as she, too, raced after Bert.

The team, with no driver to guide it, ran faster and faster. Freddie began to cry. And then, all at once, the front wheel of the bicycle ran over a stone, and turned to one side. The handle bars were jerked from Freddie's grasp, and over he went, wheel and all!

Luckily for him, he fell to one side of the road, on the soft gra.s.s, or he might have been injured, but, as it was, the fall did not hurt him at all. One of his little fat legs, though, became tangled up in the wire spokes of the front wheel, and Freddie lay there, with the wheel on top of him, unable to get up.

"Oh, Bert! Bert!" screamed Nan.

"Grab him--quick!" shouted Dinah, waddling down the walk. But she was too fat to go fast enough to do any good.

"Roll out of the way, Freddie!" cried Bert.

Freddie was too much entangled in the wheel to be able to move. And, all the while, the lumber team was coming nearer and nearer to him.

Would the horses, with no driver at the reins, know enough to turn to one side, or would the wheels roll over poor Freddie and the bicycle?

Nan covered her face with her hands. She did not want to look at what was going to happen.

"I must get there in time to pull him out of the way!" thought Bert, as he ran as fast as he could. But the team was almost on Freddie now.

Suddenly the dog Snap, who had jumped up when he heard the shouts, saw what the danger was. Snap knew about horses, and he was smart enough to know that Freddie was in danger.

Without waiting for anyone to tell him what to do, Snap ran straight for the lumber team. Leaping up in front of them, and barking as loudly as he could, Snap turned the trotting horses to one side. And just in time, too, for, a little more, and one of the front wheels of the heavily loaded lumber wagon would have run over the bicycle in which Freddie was still entangled.

"Bow wow!" barked Snap. The horses were perhaps afraid of being bitten, though Snap was very gentle. At any rate, they turned aside, and would have run on faster, only Snap, leaping up, grabbed the dangling reins in his teeth and pulled hard on them. "Whoa!" called Bert. When the horses heard this, and felt the tug on the lines, they knew it meant to stop. And stop they did. Snap had saved Freddie.

CHAPTER III

DINAH'S UPSET

"What's the matter? What has happened?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, who had run out to the front porch, upon hearing the excited cries, and the exclamations of fat Dinah, the cook. "Oh! has anything happened to any of the children?"

"Yes'm, I s'pects there has, ma'am," said Dinah. "Pore li'l Freddie am done smashed all up flatter'n a pancake, Mrs. Bobbsey!"

"Freddie--Oh!"

"He's all right!" shouted Bert, who had, by this time, reached his little brother, and was lifting him out of the bicycle. "Not hurt a bit, are you, Freddie?"

"N--no, I--I guess not," said Freddie, a bit doubtfully. "I--I'm scared, though."

"Nothing to be frightened at now, Freddie," said Bert, holding up the little chap, so his mother could see him.

"Why, Freddie isn't hurt, Dinah," said Mrs. Bobbsey, in great relief.

"What made you think so?"

"Well, I seed him all tangled up in dat two-wheeled velocipede ob Bert's, an' de hoss team was comin' right down on de honey-lamb. I thought shuah he was gwine t' be squashed flatter'n a pancake. But he ain't! Bless mah soul he ain't! Oh, dere's mah cake burnin'!" and into the kitchen ran Dinah, glad, indeed, that nothing had happened worse than the scare Freddie received.

"Good Snap! Good old dog!" said Nan, as she patted his head.

"Bow wow!" barked Snap. He still held the horse reins in his strong white teeth. He was not going to let the horses go yet.

"Oh, Freddie!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey, when she understood what had happened. "What danger you were in! Why did you take Bert's wheel?"

"I--I wanted a ride, Mamma. I didn't think I'd fall off, or that the team would come."

"You must never do it again," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Never get on Bert's wheel again, unless he is with you to hold you. You are, too small, yet, for a bicycle."

"Yes'm," said Freddie in a low voice.

"But where is the driver of the wagon?" went on Mrs. Bobbsey, looking at the empty seat.

"Maybe he fell off," suggested Nan, who had taken Freddie from Bert, the latter picking up his wheel, and looking to see if it had been damaged by the fall. But it was all right.

"Here comes a driver now," said Flossie, who saw one of the men from her father's lumber yard hurrying along the road.

"Is anybody hurt?" the man asked, as he came up, running and breathing fast, for he had come a long way.

"No one, I think," answered Mrs. Bobbsey. "But my little boy had a very narrow escape."

"I am sorry," said the driver. "I left the team standing out in front of the lumber yard, while I went in the office to find out where I was to deliver the planks. When I came out the horses were trotting away.

I guess they were scared by something. I ran fast, but I could not catch them."

"Snap caught them for you," said the twins' mother, as she looked at the former circus dog, who was still holding the horse-reins.

"Yes, he's a good dog," the lumber wagon driver said. "I was afraid, when I saw how far the horses had gone, that they might do some damage. But I'm glad no one was hurt."

"I think we all are glad," spoke Mrs. Bobbsey. "It was partly my little boy's own fault, for he should not have gotten on his brother's bicycle. But he won't do it again."

"No, I never will!" promised Freddie, as he rubbed his leg where it had been bruised a little from becoming tangled up in the wire spokes.

Snap barked and wagged his tail, as the driver took the lines from him, and then, when the man drove off with the horses and the load of lumber, Mrs. Bobbsey went with the twins back into the yard.

"Well, I'm glad all the excitement is over," she said. "Where were you, Nan? Grace Lavine called for you, but I looked out in the yard and did not see you, so she went away again."

"Why, I went down to papa's office, Mamma, with that letter you gave me for him."

"Yes, I know, but I supposed you had come back. What kept you so long?"

"Well, I--er--I was talking to papa, and---"

Nan did not want to go on, for she did not want to tell that she had been talking about the houseboat.