The Bobbsey Twins in a Great City | Page 5

brother and sister.
And while they are taking a little rest on the ice I shall have a chance to
let my new readers know something of the past history of the children
about whom I am writing.
There were two pairs of Bobbsey twins. They were the children of Mr.
Richard Bobbsey and his wife Mary, and the family lived in an Eastern
city called Lakeport, which was at the head of Lake Metoka. Mr.
Bobbsey was in the lumber business, having a yard and docks on the
shore of the lake about a quarter of a mile from his house.

The older Bobbsey twins were Nan and Bert. They had dark hair and
eyes, and were rather tall and slim. Flossie and Freddie, the younger
twins, were short and fat, with light hair and blue eyes. So it would
have been easy to tell the twins apart, even if one pair had not been
older than the other. Besides the children and their parents there were in
the "family" two other persons--Dinah Johnson, the fat, good-natured
colored cook, and Sam, her husband, who looked after the furnace in
the Winter and cut the grass in Summer.
Then there was Snoop, and Snap. The first was a fine black cat and the
second a big dog, both great pets of the children. Those of you who
have read the first book of this series, entitled "The Bobbsey Twins,"
do not need to read this explanation here, but others may care to. In the
second volume I told you of the fun the twins had in the country. After
that they went to the seashore, and this subject has a book all to itself,
telling of the adventures there.
Later on the Bobbseys went back to school, where they had plenty of
fun, and when they were at Snow Lodge there were some strange
happenings, as there were also on the houseboat Bluebird. There was a
stowaway boy--but there! I had better let you read the book for
yourself.
The Bobbsey twins spent some time at Meadow Brook, but there was
always a question whether they had better times there or "At Home,"
which is the name of the book just before this one.
You, who have read that book, will remember that Flossie and Freddie
found, in a big snow storm, the lost father of Tommy Todd, a boy who
lived with his grandmother in a poor section of Lakeport. And it was
still that same Winter, after Tommy's father had come home, that we
find the Bobbsey twins skating on the ice, having just missed being run
into by the ice-boat.
"My! but that was a narrow escape!" exclaimed Nan, as she skated
slowly about. "My heart is beating fast yet."
"So's mine," added Flossie. "Did he do it on purpose?"

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Bert. "I guess Mr. Watson wouldn't do a thing
like _that!_ He was looking after the ropes of the sail, or doing
something to the steering rudder, and that's why he didn't see you and
Freddie."
"What makes an ice-boat go?" asked Freddie.
"The wind blows it, just as the wind blows a sailboat," explained Bert,
looking down the lake after the ice-boat.
"But it hasn't any cabin to it like a real boat," went on Freddie. "And it
doesn't go in the water. Where do the people sit?"
"An ice-boat is like this," said Bert, and with the sharp heel end of his
skate he drew a picture on the ice. "You take two long pieces of wood,
and fasten them together like a cross--almost the same as when you
start to make a kite," he went on. "On each end of the short cross there
are double runners, like skates, only bigger. And at the end of the long
stick, at the back, is another runner, and this moves, and has a handle to
it like the rudder on a boat. They steer the ice-boat with this handle.
"And where the two big sticks cross they put up the tall mast and make
the sail fast to that. Then when the wind blows it sends the ice-boat
over the ice as fast as anything."
"It sure does go fast," said Tommy Todd. "Look! He's almost at the end
of the lake now."
"Yes, an ice-boat goes almost as fast as the wind," said Bert. "Maybe
some day----"
"Oh, come on!" cried Flossie. "I want to go home! I'm cold standing
here."
"Yes, we had better go on," said Nan. "I'm all right now."
As the five children skated off, no longer thinking of the race, Nan
asked Bert:

"What are you going to do some day?"
"Oh, I don't know. I haven't got it all thought out yet. I'll tell you after a
bit."
"Is