The Bobbsey Twins in the Country

by Laura Lee Hope

  CHAPTER XXI

  WHAT THE WELL CONTAINED

  The next day everybody was out early.

  "The men are going to clean the well," Harry told the others, "and it'slots of fun to see all the stuff they bring up."

  "Can we go?" Freddie asked.

  "Nan will have to take charge of you and Flossie," said Mrs. Bobbsey,"for wells are very dangerous, you know."

  This was arranged, and the little ones promised to do exactly as Nantold them.

  The well to be cleaned was the big one at the corner of the road andthe lane. From the well a number of families got their supply of water,and it being on the road many passersby also enjoyed from it a goodcold drink.

  "There they come," called Bert, as two men dressed like divers came upthe road.

  They wore complete rubber suits, hip-boots, rubber coats, and rubbercaps. Then they had some queer-looking machines, a windlass, a forcepump, grappling irons, and other tools.

  The boys gathered around the men--all interested, of course, in thework.

  "Now keep back," ordered Nan to the little ones. "You can see just aswell from this big stone, and you will not be in any danger here."

  So Freddie and Flossie mounted the rock while the large boys got incloser to the well.

  First the men removed the well shelter--the wooden house that coveredthe well. Then they put over the big hole a platform open in thecenter. Over this they set up the windlass, and then one of the men gotin a big bucket.

  "Oh, he'll get drownded!" cried Freddie.

  "No, he won't," said Flossie. "He's a diver like's in my picture book."

  "Is he, Nan?" asked the other little one.

  "Yes, he is one kind of a diver," the sister explained, "only hedoesn't have to wear that funny hat with air pipes in it like oceandivers wear."

  "But he's away down in the water now," persisted Freddie. "Maybe he'sdead."

  "See, there he is up again," said Nan, as the man in the bucket steppedout on the platform over the well.

  "He just went down to see how deep the water was," Bert called over."Now they are going to pump it out."

  The queer-looking pump, with great long pipes was now sunk into thewell, and soon a strong stream of water was flowing from the spout.

  "Oh, let's sail boats!" exclaimed Freddie, and then all the bits ofclean sticks and boards around were turned into boats by Flossie andFreddie. As the water had a good clear sweep down the hill the boatswent along splendidly, and the little folks had a very fine time of itindeed.

  "Don't fall in," called Nan. "Freddie, look out for that deep hole inthe gutter, where the tree fell down in the big flood."

  But for once Freddie managed to save himself, while Flossie took norisk at all, but walked past that part of the "river" without guidingher "steamboat."

  Presently the water in the "river" became weaker and weaker, until onlythe smallest stream made its way along.

  "We can't sail boats in mud," declared Freddie with some impatience."Let's go back and see what they're doing at the well."

  Now the big pump had been removed and the man was going down in thebucket again.

  "We lost lots of things in there," remarked Tom Mason. "I bet they'llbring up some queer stuff."

  It took a few minutes for the other man to send the lanterns down afterhis companion and then remove the top platform so as to give all theair and light possible to the bottom of the well.

  "Now the man in the well can see stars in the sky," said Harry to theother boys.

  "But there are no stars in the sky," Bert contradicted, looking up atthe clear blue sky of the fine summer day.

  "Oh! yes there are," laughed the man at the well, "lots of them too,but you can only see them in the dark, and it's good and dark down inthat deep well."

  This seemed very strange, but of course it was true; and the wellcleaner told them if they didn't believe it, just to look up a chimneysome day, and they would see the same strange thing.

  At a signal from the man in the well the other raised the first bucketof stuff and dumped it on the ground.

  "Hurrah! Our football!" exclaimed Harry, yanking out from the muddythings the big black rubber ball lost the year before.

  "And our baseball," called Tom Mason, as another ball was extractedfrom the pile.

  "Peter Burns' dinner pail," laughed Harry, rescuing that article fromthe heap.

  "And somebody's old shoe!" put in Bert, but he didn't bother pullingthat out of the mud.

  "Oh, there's Nellie Prentice's rubber doll!" exclaimed Harry. "Augustand Ned were playing ball with it and let it fly in the well."

  Harry wiped the mud off the doll and brought it over to Nan.

  "I'm sure Nellie will be glad to get this back," said Nan, "for it's agood doll, and she probably never had one since she lost it."

  The doll was not injured by its long imprisonment in the well and whenwashed up was as good as ever. Nan took charge of it, and promised togive it to Nellie just as soon as she could go over to see her.

  Another bucket of stuff had been brought up by that time, and the firstthing pulled out was a big long pipe, the kind Germans generally use.

  "That's old Hans Bruen's," declared Tom "I remember the night hedropped it."

  "Foolish Hans--to try to drink with a pipe like that in his mouth!"laughed the well cleaner.

  As the pipe had a wooden bowl and a hard porcelain stem it was notbroken, so Tom took care of it, knowing how glad Hans would be to gethis old friend "Johnnie Smoker" back again.

  Besides all kinds of tin cups, pails, and saucepans, the well was foundto contain a good number of boys' caps and some girls' too, that hadslipped off in attempts made to get a good cool drink out of the bucket.

  Finally the man gave a signal that he was ready to come up, and soonthe windlass was adjusted again and the man in very muddy boots came tothe top.

  "Look at this!" he said to the boys' holding a beautiful gold watch."Ever hear of anyone losing a watch in the well?"

  No one had heard of such a loss, and as there was no name anywhere onthe watch that might lead to its identification, the well cleaner putit away in his vest pocket under the rubber coat.

  "And what do you think of this?" the man continued, and drew from hispocket a beautiful string of pearl beads set in gold.

  "My beads! My lost beads!" screamed Nan. "Oh, how glad I am that youfound them!"

  She took the beads and looked at them carefully. They were a bit dirty,but otherwise as good as ever.

  "I thought I should never see these again," said Nan. "I must tellmamma of this!" And she started for the house with flying feet. Mrs.Bobbsey was glad indeed to learn that the strings of pearls had beenfound, and everybody declared that Nan was certainly lucky.

  "I am going to fasten them on good and tight after this," said Nan, andshe did.

  Down by the well the man was not yet through handing over the things hehad found.

  "And there's a wedding ring!" he said next, while he turned out in hishand a thin gold band.

  "Oh, Mrs. Burns lost that!" chorused a number of the boys. "She feltdreadful over it too. She'll be tickled to get that back all right."

  "Well, here," said the man, turning to Harry. "I guess you're thebiggest boy; I'll let you take that back to Mrs. Burns with my bestwishes," and he handed Harry the long-lost wedding ring.

  It was only a short distance to Mrs. Burns' house, and Harry lost notime in getting there.

  "She was just delighted," Harry told the man, upon returning to thewell. "She says Peter will send you over something for finding it."

  "No need," replied the other; "they're welcome to their own."

  The last part of the well-cleaning was the actual scrubbing of the bigstone in the bottom.

  This stone had a hole in the middle through which the water sprang up,and when the flag had been scrubbed the well was clean indeed.

  "Now you people will have good water," declared the men, as theygathered all their tools, having fi
rst put the top on the well andtried a bucketful of water before starting off.

  "And are there really stars in the bottom of the well?" questionedFreddie.

  "Not exactly," said the man, "but there are lots of other things in thebottoms of wells. You must get your daddy to show you the sky through afireplace, and you will then know how the stars look in daylight," hefinished, saying good-bye to all and starting off for the big deepwell-pump over in the picnic grove, that had not been cleaned since ithad been dug there three years before.

  CHAPTER XXII

  LITTLE JACK HORNER,--GOOD-BYE

  "I've got a special delivery letter for you," called the boy from thepostoffice to Harry.

  Now when Jim Dexter rode his wheel with the special delivery maileverybody about Meadow Brook knew the rush letter bore important news.

  Jim jumped off his wheel and, opening the little bag, pulled out aletter for Mrs. Richard Bobbsey from Mrs. William Minturn of OceanCliff.

  "I'll take it upstairs and have your book signed," Harry offered, whileJim sat on the porch to rest.

  "That's from Aunt Emily," Bert told Harry when the messenger boy rodeoff again. "I guess we're going down to Ocean Cliff to visit there."

  "I hope you won't go very soon," replied Harry. "We've arranged a lotof ball matches next month. We're going to play the school nine first,then we're to play the boys at Cedarhurst and a picked nine from SouthMeadow Brook."

  "I'd like first-rate to be here for the games," said Bert. "I'm a goodbatter."

  "You're the player we need then, for Jim Smith is a first-rate pitcherand we've got really a fine catcher in Tom Mason, but it's hard to geta fellow to hit the ball far enough to give us runs."

  "Oh, Bert!" called Nan, running out of the house. "That was aninvitation for us to go to Aunt Emily's at the seashore. And CousinDorothy says we will have such a lovely time! But I'm sure we couldnever have a better time than we had here, Harry," she added to hercousin.

  "I'll be awfully sorry to have you go, Nan," replied Harry. "We havehad so much fun all month. I'll just be dead lonesome, I'm sure," andHarry sat down in dejection, just as if his loved cousins had gonealready.

  "There's no boy at Uncle William's;" said Bert. "Of course Nan willhave Dorothy, but I'll have to look around for a chum, I suppose."

  "Oh, you'll find lots of boys at the beach," said Harry. "And to thinkof the fun at the ocean! Mother says we will go to the shore nextsummer."

  "I wish you were going with us," said Bert politely.

  "Maybe you will come down for a day while we are there," suggested Nan."Aunt Emily isn't just exactly your aunt, because she's mamma's sister,and it's papa who is Uncle Daniel's brother. But the Minturns, AuntEmily's folks, you know, have been up here and are all like realcousins."

  "We're going away!" exclaimed Freddie, joining the others just then."Mamma says I can stick my toes in the water till the crabs bite me,but I'm going to have a fishhook and catch them first."

  "Are you going to take Snoop?" Harry asked his little cousin.

  "Yep," replied the youngster. "He knows how to go on trains now."

  "Dorothy has a pair of donkeys," Nan told them, "and a cart we can goriding in every day."

  "I'll be the driver," announced Freddie. "And I suppose you'll have asailboat, Bert!" said Harry.

  "Not in the ocean," said nervous little Flossie, who had been listeningall the time and never said a word until she thought there was somedanger coming.

  "Certainly not," said Bert; "there is always a little lake of quietwater around ocean places."

  Aunt Sarah came out now, all dressed for a drive.

  "Well, my dears," she said, "you are going to Ocean Cliff to-morrow, soyou can invite all your Meadow Brook friends to a little lawn partyto-day. I'm going down now to the village to order some good things foryou. I want you all to have a nice time this afternoon."

  "I'm going to give some of my books to Nettie," said Flossie, "and someof my paper dolls too."

  "Yes. Nettie has not many things to play with," agreed Nan, "and we canget plenty more."

  "I'm going to get all my birds' nests together," said Bert, "and thatpretty white birch bark to make picture frames for Christmas."

  "I've got lovely pressed flowers to put on Christmas post-cards," saidNan. "I'm going to mount them on plain white cards with little verseswritten for each friend. Won't that be pretty?"

  Then what a time there was packing up again! Of course Mrs. Bobbsey hadexpected to go, and had most of the big things ready but the childrenhad so many souvenirs.

  "John gave me this," cried Freddie, pulling a great big pumpkin in hisexpress wagon down to the house. "And I'm going to bring it to AuntEmily."

  "Oh, how could we bring that!" protested Nan.

  "In the trunk, of course," Freddie insisted.

  "Well, I have to carry a box of ferns," said Flossie; "I'm going totake them for the porch. There are no ferns around the salt water,mamma says."

  So each child had his or her own pet remembrances to carry away fromMeadow Brook.

  "We had better go and invite the girls for this afternoon," Nan said toFlossie.

  "And we must look after the boys," Harry told Bert.

  A short invitation was not considered unusual in the country, so it wasan easy matter to get all the children together in time for thefarewell lawn party.

  "We all hope you will come again next year," said Mildred Manners. "Wehave had such a lovely time this summer. And I brought you this littlehandkerchief to remember me by." The gift was a choice bit of lace,and Nan was much pleased to accept it.

  "There is something to remember me by," said Mabel Herold, presentingNan with a postcard album.

  The little girls brought Flossie a gold-striped cup and saucer, a setof doll's patterns, and the dearest little parasol. This last was fromBessie Dimple.

  And Nettie brought--what do you think?

  A little live duck for Freddie!

  It was just like a lump of cotton batting, so soft and fluffy.

  "We'll fatten him up for Christmas," laughed Bert, joking.

  "No, you won't!" snapped Freddie. "I are going to have a little housefor him and a lake, and a boat--"

  "Are you going to teach him to row?" teased Harry.

  "Well, he can swim better than--than--"

  "August Stout," answered Bert, remembering how August had fallen in thepond the day they went fishing.

  When the ice cream and cake had been served on the lawn, Mrs. Bobbseybrought out a big round white paper pie. This she placed in the middleof a nice clean spot on the lawn, and all around the pie she drew outlong white ribbons. On each ribbon was pinned the name of one of theguests.

  "Now this is your Jack Horner pie," said Mrs. Bobbsey, "and when youput in your thumb you will pull out a plum."

  Nan read off the names, and each girl or boy took the place assigned.Finally everybody had in hand a ribbon.

  "Nettle has number one," said Nan; "you pull first, Nettie."

  Nettie jerked her ribbon and pulled out on the end of it the dearestlittle play piano. It was made of paper, of course, and so very smallit could stand on Nettie's hand.

  "Give us a tune!" laughed the boys, while Nettie saw it really was alittle box of candy.

  "Mildred next," announced Nan.

  On the end of Mildred's ribbon came an automobile!

  This caused a laugh, for Mildred was very fond of automobile rides.

  Mabel got a hobby-horse--because she was learning to ride horseback.

  Nan received a sewing machine, to remind her of the fresh-air work.

  Of course Tom Mason got a horse--a donkey it really was; and JackHopkins' gift was a wheelbarrow. Harry pulled out a boat, and Bert gota cider barrel.

  They were all souvenirs, full of candy, favors for the party, and theycaused no end of fun.

  Freddie was the last to pull and he got--

  A bunch of real radishes from his own garden!

  "But they're not candy,"
he protested, as he burned his tongue with one.

  "Well, we are going to let you and Flossie put your thumbs in the pie,"said his mamma, "and whoever gets the prize will be the real JackHorner."

  All but the center of the pie was gone now, and in this Flossie firstput her thumb. She could only put in one finger and only fish just one,and she brought out--a little gold ring from Aunt Sarah.

  "Oh, isn't it sweet!" the girls all exclaimed.

  Then Freddie had his turn.

  "Can't I put in two fingers?" he pleaded.

  "No; only one!" his mother insisted.

  After careful preparation Freddie put in his thumb and pulled out a bigcandy plum!

  "Open it!" called Nan.

  The plum was put together in halves, and when Freddie opened it hefound a real "going" watch from Uncle Daniel.

  "I can tell time!" declared the happy boy, for he had been learning thehours on Martha's clock in the kitchen.

  "What time is it, then?" asked Bert.

  Freddie looked at his watch and counted around it two or three times.

  "Four o'clock!" he said at last, and he was only twenty minutes out ofthe way. The watch was the kind little boys use first, with very plainfigures on it, and it was quite certain before Freddie paid his nextvisit to Uncle Daniel's he would have learned how to tell time exactlyon his first "real" watch.

  The party was over, the children said good bye, and besides the playfavors each carried away a real gift, that of friendship for the littleBobbseys.

  "Maybe you can come down to the seashore on an excursion," said Nan toher friends. "They often have Sunday-school excursions to Sunset Beach."

  "We will if we can," answered Mabel, "but if I don't see you there, Imay call on you at Lakeport, when we go to the city."

  "Oh yes, do!" insisted Nan. "I'll be home all winter I guess, but Imight go to boarding school. Anyhow, I'll write to you. Good-bye,girls!"

  "Good-bye!" was the answering cry, and then the visitors left in acrowd, waving their hands as they disappeared around a turn of the road.

  "What a perfectly lovely time we have had!" declared Nan to Bert.

  "Oh, the country can't be beat!" answered her twin brother. "Still,I'll be glad to get to the seashore, won't you?"

  "Oh yes; I want to see Cousin Dorothy."

  "And I want to see the big ocean," put in Freddie.

  "I want to ride on one of the funny donkeys," lisped Flossie. "And Iwant to make a sand castle."

  "Me too!" chimed in Freddie.

  "Hurrah for the seashore!" cried Bert, throwing his cap into the air,and then all went into the house, to get ready for a trip they lookedforward to with extreme pleasure. And here let us say good-bye, hopingto meet the Bobbsey Twins again.