The Bobbsey Twins at Cedar Camp Part 16

"We'll go home as soon as we eat a little," said her brother.

But after they had each eaten a sandwich and some cookies, and Bert had cracked a few chestnuts between his teeth and had found them rather too cold and raw to be good, the twins decided to go on.

Out into the storm they went, away from the shelter of the friendly tree. The storm was worse, if anything, and, without knowing it, Bert and Nan had become completely turned around. Every step they took carried them farther and farther away from their home camp. And they had journeyed quite a distance from the cabin before finding any chestnuts.

"Oh, Bert!" Nan exclaimed after a while, half sobbing, "I can't go a step farther. The snow is so thick, and it's so hard to walk in. And the wind blows it in my face, and I'm cold! I can't go another step!"

"That's too bad!" Bert exclaimed. "Maybe we're almost back to camp, Nan."

"It doesn't look so," his sister answered, trying to peer about through the swirling flakes.

"Wait a minute!" suddenly cried Bert, as there came a lull in the blast of wind. "I think I see something--a cabin or a house."

"Maybe it's our cabin," suggested Nan, "though I don't remember any of the trees around here. There aren't any cut down here as there are in camp."

"Well, I see something, anyhow," and Bert pointed to the left, off through the driving flakes. "Let's go there, Nan."

Through the storm the children struggled, hand in hand. They reached a log cabin--a lonely log cabin it was, standing all by itself in the midst of a little clearing in the woods.

"This isn't our camp, Bert!" said Nan.

"No," the boy admitted. "But somebody lives here. I see smoke coming from the chimney. I'm going to knock."

With chilled fingers Bert pounded on the cabin door.

"Who's there?" asked a woman's voice above the racket of the storm.

"Two of the Bobbsey twins!" answered Nan, not stopping to think that everyone might not know her and her brother by this name.

"Please let us in!" begged Bert. "We're from Cedar Camp! Who are you?"

"I'm Mrs. Bimby," was the answer, but neither Bert nor Nan recognized the name. A moment later the cabin door was opened, and an old woman confronted them. She looked at the two children for a moment; then, "Did you bring any news of Jim?" she asked.

CHAPTER XII--MR. BOBBSEY IS WORRIED

Bert and Nan Bobbsey stood on the step of the log cabin, while Mrs.

Bimby, the old woman, held open the door. The snow blew swirling in around her, and a wave of grateful warmth seemed to rush out as if to wrap itself around the cold twins. For a moment they stood there, and Bert was just beginning to wonder if the old woman was going to shut the door in the faces of his sister and himself.

"Did you bring any news of Jim?" asked old Mrs. Bimby.

"Jim?" repeated Bert.

"Do you mean Jim Denton, the foreman at Cedar Camp?" asked Nan.

"No, child! I mean my Jim--Jim Bimby. He went off to town just before this awful storm. But land sakes! here I am talking and keeping you out in the cold. Come in!"

It was cold. Bert and Nan were beginning to feel that now, for the storm was growing worse, and it was now late afternoon. The sun was beginning to go down, though of course it could not be seen on account of the snow and clouds. The Bobbsey twins had wandered farther and longer than they had thought. But at last they had found a place of shelter.

"It's just like me to keep you standing there while I talk," said Mrs.

Bimby. "I'm sorry. But I'm so worried about Jim that I reckon I don't know what I'm doing. Come in and get warm, and I'll give you something to eat."

"We've got something to eat, thank you," said Nan. "But we would like to get warm," and she followed Bert inside the log cabin, as Mrs. Bimby stepped aside to make room for them to enter.

"Got something to eat, have you?" questioned the old woman. "Well, you're lucky, that's all I've got to say. I've only a little, but I expect Jim back any minute with more, though a dollar don't buy an awful lot these days."

"Does Jim live here?" asked Bert, as he walked over to a stove, in which a fire of wood was burning, sending out a grateful heat.

"Of course he lives here," said Mrs. Bimby. "He's my husband. He's a logger--a lumberman."

"Oh, maybe he works for my father!" exclaimed Nan. "Mr. Bobbsey, you know. He owns part of Cedar Camp."

"No, I don't know him," said Mrs. Bimby, "though I've heard of Cedar Camp. They got a lot of Christmas trees out of there."

"That's what we came up about," explained Bert. "Some Christmas trees my father bought to sell didn't come to Lakeport, and he came up here to see about them. We came with him--and my mother and the other twins."

"Good land! are there more of you?" asked Mrs. Bimby in surprise. "You two are twins, for a fact. But----"

"There's Flossie and Freddie," interrupted Nan. "We left them back in camp while we went after chestnuts."

"We got some, too," added Bert. "But we sort of got lost in the storm.

Do you s'pose your husband could take us back to Cedar Camp?" he asked Mrs. Bimby. "My father will pay him," he said, quickly, as he saw Mrs.

Bimby shaking her head.

"Maybe Mr. Bimby works at the sawmill," suggested Nan.

"No," said the old woman, "Jim is a logger and wood cutter, but he doesn't work at Cedar Camp. That's too far off for him to go to and get back from."

"Too far off!" echoed Nan, and she began to have a funny feeling, as she told Bert afterward.

"Yes," resumed Mrs. Bimby. "Cedar Camp is away over on the other side of the hills. You're a long way from home. You must have taken the wrong road in the storm."

"I--I guess we did," admitted Bert. "But couldn't your husband take us back?"

Again Mrs. Bimby shook her head.

"Jim, my husband, isn't home," she said. "He went over to town just before the storm to get us something to eat. But now I don't see how he's going to get back," and she went to a window to look out at the storm.

It was getting much worse, as Bert and Nan could see. The wind howled around the corners of the log cabin of Jim Bimby, the logger, and the blast whistled down the chimney, even blowing sparks out around the door of the wood-burning stove.

"Yes, it's a bad storm," went on the old woman. "I wish Jim was back, and with some victuals to eat. When you twins knocked I thought it was Jim. I wish he'd come back, but he's an old man, and he may fall down in the snow and not be able to get up. He isn't as strong as he used to be.

I'm certainly worried about Jim!"

"Oh, maybe he'll come along all right," said Nan, trying to be helpful and comforting.