The Bobbsey Twins in the Country Part 14

This was a pleasant task to Nan and Flossie, who both always loved to play at housekeeping, and when at last Nan brought the dish in to the dinner table everybody said how pretty it looked.

"Them's my redishes!" exclaimed Freddie, as he saw the pretty bright red b.u.t.tons peeping out from between the lettuce leaves.

"But we can all have some, can't we, Freddie?" his father asked.

"Yes, 'course you can. But I don't want all my good redishes smothered in that big dish of green stuff," he pouted.

"Now, Nan, you can serve your vegetables," Aunt Sarah said, and then Nan very neatly put a few crisp lettuce leaves on each small plate, and at the side she placed a few of Freddie's radishes, "with handles on"

as Dinah said, meaning the little green stalks.

"Just think, we've done it all from the garden to the table!" Nan exclaimed, justly proud of her success at gardening.

"I done the radishes," put in Freddie, gulping down a drink of water to wash the bite off his tongue, for his radishes were quite hot.

"Well, you have certainly all done very nicely," Mrs. Bobbsey said.

"And that kind of play is like going to school, for it teaches you important lessons in nature."

The girls declared they were going to keep a garden all summer, and so they did.

It was an unusually warm night, and so nearly all the doors were left open when the folks went to bed. Freddie was so worked up over his success as a gardener he could not go to sleep.

At last he dozed off, but presently he awoke with a start. What was that strange sound ringing in his ears? He sat up and listened.

Yes, somebody must surely be playing the piano. But what funny music!

It seemed to come in funny runs and curious thumps. He called out sharply, and his mother came at once to his side.

"I heard piano-playing," said Freddie, and Mrs. Bobbsey started, for she remembered how Flossie had once told her the same thing.

"Oh, Freddie, are you sure?" she asked.

"Sure," repeated the little fellow. "But it wasn't very good playing."

Mrs. Bobbsey called Uncle Daniel, and the latter lit a lamp and went below into the parlor. n.o.body was at the piano or in the room.

"I've made a careful examination," he said, on coming back. "I can see nothing unusual. Some of the children left a piece of cake on the keys of the piano, that's all."

"Well, cake can't play," put in Freddie. "Maybe it was a ghost."

"No, you must have been dreaming," said his mother. "Come, go to sleep," and presently Freddie dropped off. Mrs. Bobbsey was much worried, and the next day the older folks talked the matter over; but nothing came of it.

CHAPTER XII

TOM'S RUNAWAY

"Tom Mason is going to bring his colt out this afternoon," said Harry to Bert, "and we can all take turns trying him."

"Oh, is it that pretty little brown horse I saw in the field back of Tom's home?" asked Bert.

"That's him," Harry replied. "Isn't he a beauty!"

"Yes, I would like first-rate to ride him, but young horses are awful skittish, aren't they?"

"Sometimes, but this one is partly broken. At any rate, we wouldn't have far to fall, for he is a little fellow," said Harry.

So the boys went down to Tom's home at the appointed time, and there they met Jack Hopkins.

"We've made a track around the fields," Tom told his companions, "and we will train him to run around the ring, for father thinks he may be a race-horse some day, he's so swift."

"You may go first," the boys told him, "as he's your horse."

"All right!" Tom replied, making for the stake where Sable, the pony, was tied. Sable marched along quietly enough and made no objections to Tom getting on his back. There was no saddle, but just the bit in the horse's mouth and attached to it a short piece of rein.

"Get app, Sable!" called Tom, snapping a small whip at the pony's side.

But instead of going forward the little horse tried to sit down!

"Whoa! whoa!" called the boys, but Tom clung to Sable's neck and held on in spite of the pony's back being like a toboggan slide.

"Get off there, get off there!" urged Tom, yet the funny little animal only backed down more.

"Light a match and set it under his nose," Harry suggested. "That's the way to make a balky horse go!"

Someone had a match, which was lighted and put where Sable could sniff the sulphur.

"Look out! Hold on, Tom!" yelled the boys all at once, for at that instant Sable bolted off like a deer.

"He's running away!" called Bert, which was plain to be seen, for Tom could neither turn him this way or that, but had all he could do to hold on the frightened animal's neck.

"If he throws him Tom will surely be hurt!" Harry exclaimed, and the boys ran as fast as they could across the field after the runaway.

"Whoa! whoa! whoa!" called everybody after the horse, but that made not the slightest difference to Sable, who just went as if the woods were afire. Suddenly he turned and dashed straight up a big hill and over into a neighbor's cornfield.

"Oh, mercy!" cried Harry, "those people are so mean about their garden, they'll have Tom arrested if there's any corn broken."

Of course it was impossible for a runaway horse to go through a field of corn and do no damage, and Tom realized this too. By this time the dogs were out barking furiously, and altogether there was wild excitement. At one end of the field there was a high board fence.

"If I could only get him there he would have to stop," thought Tom, and suddenly he gave Sable a jerk in that direction.

"Drop off, Tom, drop off!" yelled the boys. "He'll throw you against the fence!"

But at that minute the little horse threw himself against the boards in such a way that Tom slid off, yet held tightly to the reins.

The horse fell, quite exhausted.

As quickly as they could get there the boys came up to help Tom.

"Hurry!" said Harry, "there is scarcely any corn broken, and we can get away before the Trimbles see us. They're away back in the fields planting late cabbage."