The Bobbsey Twins on Blueberry Island | Page 8

more he could do just then at the Porter home, Mr.
Bobbsey went back to his own family, and told his wife, Flossie,
Freddie and Nan what had happened.
"Oh, I'm so glad Helen is all right," said Mrs. Bobbsey.
"But it's too bad about her doll," sighed Nan. She had a doll of her
own--a fine one--and she knew how she would feel if that had been
taken.
"Helen's doll could talk," said Flossie. "I know, 'cause she let me make
it talk one day. You wind up a winder thing in her back, and then you
push on a shoe button thing in her front and she says 'Mamma' and
'Papa' and other things."

"Yes, that's right," said Nan. "Mollie is a talking doll. I guess she has a
little phonograph inside her. Maybe that's the noise Johnnie heard when
the gypsy man carried the doll past him, and Johnnie thought it was
Helen crying."
"I guess that was it," agreed Mr. Bobbsey.
"Well, it's too bad to lose a big talking doll. I must see what I can do to
help get it back. I'll call up the chief of police."
"It would be worse to lose your toy fire engine," declared Freddie.
"Why, Freddie Bobbsey!" exclaimed his little sister, "nothing could be
worse than to lose your very best doll--your very own child!"
Mr. Bobbsey, being one of the most prominent business men in the
town, had considerable business at times with the police and the fire
departments, and the officers would do almost anything to help him or
his friends.
So, after supper--at which Dinah had served the pudding with the
shaved-up maple sugar over the top, Flossie and Freddie each having
had two helpings--Mr. Bobbsey called up the police station and asked if
anything more had been heard of the gypsies.
"Well, yes, we did hear something of them," answered Chief Branford,
over the telephone wire. "They've gone into camp, where they always
do, on the western shore of the lake, and as I've had several reports of
small things having been stolen around town, I'm going to send on
officer out there to the gypsy camp, and have him see what he can find.
You say they took your little girl's doll?"
"No, not my little girl's," answered Mr. Bobbsey, "but the talking doll
belonging to a friend of hers."
"Her name is Molly, Daddy," said Flossie, who, with the other Bobbsey
twins, was listening to her father talk over the telephone. "I mean the
doll's name is Mollie, not Helen's name."

"I understand," said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh, and he told the chief the
name of the doll and also the name of the little girl who owned it.
"Well, what is to be done?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as her husband hung
up the receiver.
"I think I'll go with the policeman and see what I can find out about the
gypsies," said Mr. Bobbsey. "If they are going to take things that do not
belong to them they may pay a visit to my lumberyard, if they have not
done so already. I think I'll go out to the gypsy camp."
"Oh, let me come!" begged Bert, always ready for an adventure.
"I wouldn't go--not at night, anyhow," remarked Nan.
"Nor I," added Freddie, while Flossie crept up into her mother's lap.
"Oh, I'm not going until morning," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Then I'll take
you, Bert, if you'd like to go. We'll see if we can find Helen's big,
talking doll."
"She must feel bad at losing it," said Nan.
"She does," said Bert. "Though how any one can get to like a doll, with
such stupid eyes as they have, I can't see."
"They're as good as nasty old knives that cut you, and kite strings that
are always getting tangled," said Nan with a laugh.
"Yes, I guess we like different things," agreed her brother. "Well, I'm
glad it wasn't Flossie or Freddie the gypsies took away with them."
"I wouldn't go!" declared Freddie. "And if they took Flossie, I'd get my
fire engine and squirt water on those men with rings in their ears till
they let my sister go!"
"That's my little fat fireman!" laughed Mr. Bobbsey. "But now I think
you're getting sleepy. Your row on the lake made the sandman come
around earlier than usual I guess. Off to bed with you."

Flossie and Freddie went to bed earlier than Nan and Bert, who were
allowed to sit up a little later. There was much talk about the gypsies,
and what they might have taken, and Nan and Bert were getting ready
for bed when a pattering of bare feet was heard on the stairs, and a
voice called:
"Where's Snoop?"
"Why, it's Flossie and Freddie!" cried