apapiu/simple_text_files · Datasets at Hugging Face

"What are you doing?" asked Bert Bobbsey, as the mass of boards and rails came closer to him. "What are you two playing?"

"Steamboat," Freddie answered. "If you want us to stop for you, why, you've got to toot."

"Toot what?" asked Bert.

"Toot your whistle," Freddie replied. "This is a regular steamboat. Toot if you want me to stop."

He kept on pushing with the pole until Bert, with a laugh, made the tooting sound as Flossie had done. Then Freddie let the raft stop near his older brother and sister.

"Oh, Bert!" exclaimed Nan Bobbsey, "are you going to get on?"

"Sure I am," he answered, as he began taking off his shoes and stockings. "It's big enough for the four of us. Where'd you get it, Freddie?"

"It was partly made -- I guess some of the boys from town must have started it. Flossie and I put more boards and rails on it, and we're having a ride."

"I should say you were!" laughed Nan.

"Come on," said Bert to his older sister, as he tossed his shoes over to where Flossie's and Freddie's were set on a flat stone. "I'll help you push, Freddie."

Nan, who, like Bert, had dark hair and brown eyes, began to take off her shoes and stockings, and soon all four of them were on the raft -- or steamboat, as Freddie called it.

Now you have met the two sets of the Bobbsey twins -- two pairs of them as it were. Flossie and Freddie, the light-haired and blue-eyed ones, were the younger set, and Bert and Nan, whose hair was a dark brown, matching their eyes, were the older.

"This is a dandy raft -- I mean steamboat," said Bert, quickly changing the word as he saw Freddie looking at him. "It holds the four of us easy."

Indeed the mass of boards, planks and rails from the fence did not sink very deep in the water even with all the Bobbsey twins on it. Of course, if they had worn shoes and stockings they would have been wet, for now the water came up over the ankles of all of them. But it was a warm summer day, and going barefoot especially while wading in the pond, was fun.

Bert and Freddie pushed the raft about with long poles, and Flossie and Nan stood together in the middle watching the boys and making believe they were passengers taking a voyage across the ocean.

Back and forth across the pond went the raft-steamboat when, all of a sudden, it stopped with a jerk in the middle of the stretch of water.

"Oh!" cried Flossie, catching hold of Nan to keep herself from falling. "Oh, what's the matter?"

"Are we sinking?" asked Nan.

"No, we're only stuck in the mud," Bert answered. "You just stay there, Flossie and Nan, and you, too, Freddie, and I'll jump off and push the boat out of the mud. It's just stuck, that's all."

"Oh, don't jump in -- it's deep!" cried Nan.

But she was too late. Bert, quickly rolling his trousers up as far as they would go, had leaped off the raft, making a big splash of water.

Chapter II

To The Rescue

"Bert! Bert! You'll be drowned!" cried Flossie, as she clung to Nan in the middle of the raft. "Come back, you'll be drowned!"

"Oh, I'm all right," Bert answered, for he felt himself quite a big boy beside Freddie.

"Are you sure, Bert, it isn't too deep?" asked Nan.

"Look! It doesn't come up to my knees, hardly," Bert said, as he waded around to the side of the raft, having jumped off one end to give it a push to get it loose from the bank of mud on which it had run aground. And, really, the water was not very deep where Bert had leaped in.

Some water had splashed on his short trousers, but he did not mind that, as they were the old ones his mother made him put on in which to play.

"Maybe we can get loose without your pushing us," said Freddie, as he moved about on the raft, tilting it a little, first this way and then the other. Once before that day, when on the "boat" alone, it had become stuck on a hidden bank of mud, and the little twin had managed to get it loose himself.

"No, I guess it's stuck fast," Bert said, as he pushed on the mass of boards without being able to send them adrift. "I'll have to shove good and hard, and maybe you'll have to get in here and help me, Freddie."

"Oh, yes, I can do that!" the little fellow said. "I'll come and help you now, Bert."

"No, you mustn't," ordered Nan, who felt that she had to be a little mother to the smaller twins. "Don't go!"

"Why not?" Freddie wanted to know.

"Because it's too deep for you," answered Nan. "The water is only up to Bert's knees, but it will be over yours, and you'll get your clothes all wet. You stay here!"

"But I want to help Bert push the steamboat loose!"

"I guess I can do it alone," Bert said. "Wait until I get around to the front end. I'll push it off backward."

He waded around the raft, which it really was, though the Bobbsey twins pretended it was a steamboat, and then, reaching the front, or what would be the bow if the raft had really been a boat, Bert got ready to push.

"Push, Bert!" yelled Freddie.

But a strange thing happened.

Suddenly a queer look came over Bert's face. He made a quick grab for the side of the raft and then he sank down so that the water came over his knees, wetting his trousers.

"Oh, Bert! what's the matter?" cried Nan.

"I -- I'm sinking in the mud!" gasped Bert. "Oh, I can't get my feet loose! I'm stuck! Maybe I'm in a quicksand and I'll never get loose! Holler for somebody! Holler loud!"

And the other three Bobbsey twins "hollered," as loudly as they could.

"Mother! Mother!" cried Nan.

"Come and get Bert!" added Freddie.

"Oh, Dinah! Dinah!" screamed Flossie, for the fat, good-natured colored cook had so often rescued Flossie that the little girl thought she would be the very best person, now, to come to Bert's aid.

"Oh, I'm sinking away down deep!" cried the brown-eyed boy, as he tried to lift first one foot and then the other. But they were both stuck in the mud under the water, and Bert, afraid of sinking so deep that he would never get out, clung to the side of the raft with all his might.

"Oh, you're making us sink. You're making us sink!" screamed Nan. Indeed, the raft was tipping to one side and the other children had all they could do to keep from sliding into the pond.