The Bobbsey Twins at Cedar Camp Part 12

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because the woods here are rather wild, and you and the children might get lost. There aren't many trails, paths, or roads. Keep close to camp."

"I will," she promised.

It was wonderful and beautiful in the North Woods, even though winter was at hand. Most of the birds had gone, and about the only trees that had any leaves on were the oaks. An oak tree holds many of its leaves all winter, the old ones being pushed off in the spring as the new ones come on. But there were so many spruce, pine, hemlock, and cedar trees growing all about--trees which remain green from one year to the other--that the woods were not as bare and dreary as are most forests.

Cedar Camp was indeed a green Christmas camp, and a most lovely place.

"We'll have lots of fun here!" cried Freddie, running to the edge of a little hill.

"Lots of fun!" agreed Flossie. "We'll----" and then she stopped suddenly, for Freddie did a queer thing--or at least a queer thing happened to the little fellow. His feet seemed to slide out from under him, and down the hill he went, almost as though sliding on the ice!

"Oh, look! Look!" cried Flossie. "What made him do that?"

"I slid! I slid! Oh, I had a slide! I'm going to slide it again!" cried Freddie, jumping up and scrambling to the top of the hill again. "Come on, Flossie!"

"What makes him slide, Mother?" asked Flossie, as she saw her little brother go down the hill standing up, just as he and his small sister had often done on a snowy, icy slope.

"It's the pine needles," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "The ground is covered with the long, brown, smooth pine needles, and they make a slippery carpet.

You may slide on them. If you fall you won't be hurt."

Soon the two smaller Bobbsey twins were having great fun sliding down the slippery pine-needle-covered hill, and Bert and Nan also took their turns.

But after two or three slides Bert found something on the ground that made him exclaim in delight and run to his mother to show her.

"Look!" he cried. "A chestnut! Are there chestnuts in these woods?"

"Yes, I did hear your father say something about them," Mrs. Bobbsey replied.

"Oh, let's hunt for some!" cried Nan.

"We'll help!" added Flossie and Freddie, deserting the pine-needle slide for the joys of nutting.

But though the twins looked in all directions they found only a few scattered chestnuts.

"The squirrels have picked up most of them," said Jim Denton, coming along a little later. "But there's a chestnut grove not far away, up Pine Brook, and there ought to be plenty left if you don't wait too long."

"Oh, Mother! may Nan and I go chestnutting?" asked Bert. "I want to get a lot!"

"Will it be safe for them?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey of the foreman.

"Oh, yes," answered Jim. "It isn't more than a mile and the trail is plain. I'll tell 'em how to go and show 'em the way."

And so, the next morning, Bert and Nan started off on a chestnut party, little dreaming of the strange things that were to happen to them and the other Bobbsey twins.

CHAPTER IX--SAWMILL FUN

Flossie and Freddie had teased to be allowed to go nutting with Bert and Nan, especially when the smaller Bobbsey twins learned that their brother and sister were to take a lunch and perhaps stay all the rest of the day in the woods.

"Oh, I want to go nutting!" cried Flossie.

"So do I!" wailed Freddie. "An' I want to eat my dinner under the Christmas trees!"

"We can't have any fun if they come with us," objected Bert, in a whisper to his mother.

"We'll take them some other time," added Nan. "They'd get tired and want to come back before we found any nuts, Mother."

"Yes," said Mrs. Bobbsey, "perhaps they would. You can take them some other time, I suppose." Then, as she knew Flossie and Freddie would be disappointed, Mrs. Bobbsey called to them:

"Come, little twins, we'll go down to the sawmill and see the big logs sawed up into boards. Maybe you can ride on the log carriers."

Flossie and Freddie knew what this was, and to them there was no better fun. Also they liked to see the big, jagged-tooth saw whizzing about and cutting its way through the logs with such a queer, ripping, buzzing sound.

"Oh, if we can go to the sawmill that will be 'most as much fun as nutting," agreed Freddie.

"Will you bring us some nuts?" asked Flossie.

"Yes," promised Nan. "And next time we go we'll take you."

So the nutting party was arranged. Taking lunch was a sort of afterthought on the part of Bert.

"What'll we do if we get hungry?" he had asked his mother.

"We'll take something to eat in our pockets," Nan had said.

"I'm going to eat mine outside--sitting on a log!" laughed Bert.

"Smarty!" laughed Nan. "I'll catch you next time!"

Mrs. Baxter put up for the children a good lunch, more than enough for two meals, Mrs. Bobbsey said.

"But we'll get awful hungry in the woods," Bert remarked. "And we don't want to have to eat the nuts we get."

True to his promise, Jim Denton, the foreman, showed the older Bobbsey twins where to take the path that led up along Pine Brook and deeper into the forest about Cedar Camp, where the chestnut trees were growing.

"Good-bye!" called Flossie and Freddie, as they stood on the porch of the log cabin, waving to Bert and Nan, who started off with their lunch to be gone the rest of the day on the nutting party.

"Good-bye," echoed the older Bobbsey twins, and then they were soon lost to sight in the turn of the path along Pine Brook, which led deeper into the North Woods.

"Now for some sawmill fun!" called Mrs. Bobbsey. "We'll go down and see the little saw chew up the big logs."

In addition to sending to market logs for telegraph poles and the masts of s.h.i.+ps, Mr. Bobbsey's men in the North Woods also sawed up trees into planks and boards which were sold in the neighborhood. Besides this there was the Christmas tree trade, but that only took place at this time of year, around the holidays.

Flossie and Freddie were too small to think much about the missing Christmas trees, which their father had come to camp to see about. All they were anxious for was to have some fun, and going to the sawmill was part of this.