The Bobbsey Twins

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The Bobbsey Twins

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Title: The Bobbsey Twins Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out
Author: Laura Lee Hope

Release Date: December 28, 2005 [eBook #17412]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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THE BOBBSEY TWINS
OR
Merry Days Indoors and Out
by
LAURA LEE HOPE
Author of "The Bobbsey Twins in the Country," "The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore," Etc.

[Illustration: DOWN THE LONG HILL SWEPT THE TWO SLEDS.--P. 45.]
[Illustration]

New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers Copyright, 1904, by The Mershon Company All rights reserved

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME 1
II. ROPE JUMPING, AND WHAT FOLLOWED 9
III. THE FIRST SNOW STORM 18
IV. THE BROKEN WINDOW 27
V. BERT'S GHOST 36
VI. COASTING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT 44
VII. FREDDIE AND FLOSSIE'S SNOW HOUSE 52
VIII. FUN ON THE ICE 61
IX. FREDDIE LOSES HIMSELF 70
X. LOST AND FOUND 79
XI. THE CRUISE OF THE "ICE BIRD" 88
XII. TIGE--PLAYING THEATER 97
XIII. NAN'S FIRST CAKE-BAKING 106
XIV. CHRISTMAS 115
XV. THE CHILDREN'S PARTY 124
XVI. A GRAND SLEIGH RIDE 133
XVII. THE RACE AND THE RUNAWAY 142
XVIII. A QUARREL IN THE SCHOOLYARD 151
XIX. NAN'S PLEA 160
XX. ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 169
XXI. THE RESCUE OF SNOOP, THE KITTEN 178
XXII. THE LAST OF THE GHOST--GOOD-NIGHT 187

THE BOBBSEY TWINS

CHAPTER I
THE BOBBSEY TWINS AT HOME
The Bobbsey twins were very busy that morning. They were all seated around the dining-room table, making houses and furnishing them. The houses were being made out of pasteboard shoe boxes, and had square holes cut in them for doors, and other long holes for windows, and had pasteboard chairs and tables, and bits of dress goods for carpets and rugs, and bits of tissue paper stuck up to the windows for lace curtains. Three of the houses were long and low, but Bert had placed his box on one end and divided it into five stories, and Flossie said it looked exactly like a "department" house in New York.
There were four of the twins. Now that sounds funny, doesn't it? But, you see, there were two sets. Bert and Nan, age eight, and Freddie and Flossie, age four.
Nan was a tall and slender girl, with a dark face and red cheeks. Her eyes were a deep brown and so were the curls that clustered around her head.
Bert was indeed a twin, not only because he was the same age as Nan, but because he looked so very much like her. To be sure, he looked like a boy, while she looked like a girl, but he had the same dark complexion, the same brown eyes and hair, and his voice was very much the same, only stronger.
Freddie and Flossie were just the opposite of their larger brother and sister. Each was short and stout, with a fair, round face, light-blue eyes and fluffy golden hair. Sometimes Papa Bobbsey called Flossie his little Fat Fairy, which always made her laugh. But Freddie didn't want to be called a fairy, so his papa called him the Fat Fireman, which pleased him very much, and made him rush around the house shouting: "Fire! fire! Clear the track for Number Two! Play away, boys, play away!" in a manner that seemed very lifelike. During the past year Freddie had seen two fires, and the work of the firemen had interested him deeply.
The Bobbsey family lived in the large town of Lakeport, situated at the head of Lake Metoka, a clear and beautiful sheet of water upon which the twins loved to go boating. Mr. Richard Bobbsey was a lumber merchant, with a large yard and docks on the lake shore, and a saw and planing mill close by. The house was a quarter of a mile away, on a fashionable street and had a small but nice garden around it, and a barn in the rear, in which the children loved at times to play.
"I'm going to cut out a fancy table cover for my parlor table," said Nan. "It's going to be the finest table cover that ever was."
"Nice as Aunt Emily's?" questioned Bert. "She's got a--a dandy, all worked in roses."
"This is going to be white, like the lace window curtains," replied Nan.
While Freddie and Flossie watched her with deep interest, she took a small square of tissue paper and folded it up several times. Then she cut curious-looking holes in the