Dinah’s question brought back to the minds of all the Bobbseys, including the smaller pair of twins, the things that had happened in the storm during the night.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Bert, snapping his fingers, “this baby couldn’t have rung our bell, and yet the bell certainly did ring!”

“I heard it!” said Flossie.

“So did I,” added Freddie.

“And we first thought that it was daddy,” remarked Nan.

“I think I begin to see what happened,” Mr. Bobbsey said. “Bert, you were wrong in thinking the lightning rang the bell.”

“I guess I was,” Bert admitted. “It was the old lady with the green umbrella and the faded shawl who carried the basket with this baby in it.”

“Oh, Mother!” gasped Nan. “Do you think she had the baby in the basket all the while—in the rain—while she was going past our house in the afternoon? Do you think so?”

“I do,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey.

“And the queer old woman rang our bell,” went on Mr. Bobbsey. “She must have seen you children at the window when she passed earlier in the afternoon. She had made up her mind to abandon the baby—that is, leave it on some doorstep—and when she saw children here she must have said to herself that there was a kind mother here.”

“And there is!” cried Bert, looking lovingly at his mother. “The best in the world!”

“Thank you, dear,” murmured Mrs. Bobbsey softly, as she cuddled Baby May and fed her warm milk.

“So,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “when the queer old woman with the green umbrella saw there were children here, she waited until it was dark enough for her to leave the baby in the basket and then she hurried away. That’s what she did. She put the baby on the steps, rang the bell, and ran away.”

“That’s the reason I didn’t see any one when I looked through the glass door,” remarked Mrs. Bobbsey. “The old lady was gone.”

“Didn’t you see the baby in the basket, either?” asked Flossie, putting her littlest finger softly on the roselike cheek of Baby May.

“No, dear, I didn’t see the basket,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered. “It was off to one side, sheltered from the rain.”

“The old lady took good care of the baby, I’ll say that, even if she did desert her,” resumed Mr. Bobbsey. “After she had rung the bell the first time, she watched, and when she saw that you didn’t open the door, she rang it a second time. Then she must have gone away, feeling sure you would come and take the baby in.”

“But we didn’t!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “The poor little dear was out in the rain all night!”

“But she was warmly wrapped up,” Mr. Bobbsey said. “And she must have been well fed, for she didn’t cry.”

“If she did, we didn’t hear her,” his wife remarked.

“But I’m glad we found Baby May; aren’t you, Mother?” asked Nan.

Mrs. Bobbsey looked at her husband and the two exchanged strange glances, though they could not help smiling. Mrs. Bobbsey was already bringing up two sets of twins, and perhaps she did not care to start in with a strange, new baby.

But no woman could help loving sweet Baby May, and the manner in which Mrs. Bobbsey leaned over and kissed the soft cheek showed how tender was her heart.

“Is that all the breakfast she’s going to have?” asked Freddie, as he saw the infant turn away from the milk. “I want a lot more than that! I’m hungry! I got to go to school!”

“So have I!” echoed Flossie.

“My gracious, that’s so! I almost forgot I had to go to the office!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. “And all the work I’ve got to do on account of the flood! Come, children, hurry with your breakfasts—but don’t eat too fast—and then skip off to school. Your mother will know what to do with the baby.”

“You’re going to keep her, aren’t you, Mother? You’re going to keep Baby May, surely!” exclaimed Nan, as she went back to the table.

“We’ll see about it,” Mrs. Bobbsey answered. “Of course we couldn’t keep the baby away from her real father and mother.”

“No, of course not,” slowly agreed Nan. “But that old woman wasn’t her mother, or she wouldn’t have left her on our doorstep, would she?”

“I don’t believe so,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

“She was a kidnapper! That’s what she was!” declared Bert.

“Maybe she was a gypsy,” suggested Freddie.

“No, I hardly think that,” said Daddy Bobbsey. “From what you told me of her, I wouldn’t say she was a gypsy, and kidnappers don’t usually leave the children they take. I don’t know just what to think.”

“We’ll have to notify the police, of course,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, in a whisper, for Baby May was now asleep and had been put to bed in a cradle that Dinah brought down from the attic—the cradle Flossie and Freddie had once cuddled in.

“The police! Are you going to have her arrested?” cried Freddie.

“Hush! Not so loud! You’ll waken her!” warned his mother, holding up a finger.

“What you going to tell the police for, Daddy?” asked Flossie, in a whisper.

“Because it is the right thing to do,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “This baby may have been stolen by this strange old woman. In that case Baby May’s father and mother will be wild with grief until they get her back. I must find out from the police if there is any alarm over a kidnapped child. I’ll do it before I go to the office.”

“Please do it before we go to school,” begged Nan. “I want to tell the girls all about Baby May.”

Mr. Bobbsey looked at the clock. There was still twenty minutes before the children need start for school, and he could do considerable telephoning in that time. So he called up police headquarters and made a report of the baby being found on his steps.

“Have you any alarm of a child having been kidnapped anywhere around here?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.

“No,” answered the officer at police headquarters. “But if we hear of any we’ll let you know.”

“Have any of your men seen about the town this strange old woman with a green umbrella and a faded shawl?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, and the twins and Mrs. Bobbsey waited anxiously for the reply. As they could not hear what was said by the police officer, Mr. Bobbsey told them.

“He says none of his men reported seeing the old lady,” Mr. Bobbsey retailed. “But he’ll inquire of the officers at the railroad station. They’ll call me up in a few minutes.”

Mr. Bobbsey put the telephone receiver back on the hook and waited. Soon the bell rang, and when the father of the Bobbsey twins had listened a while he turned to his family and said:

“The old lady came in on the train early yesterday morning. The officer at the station remembers seeing her.”

“Did she have the basket with the baby in it?” asked Nan.

“She had the covered basket, but the policeman didn’t see what was in it,” answered Mr. Bobbsey.

“Do they know anything more about her?” Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to know.

“Not much except that she acted rather strangely,” was the reply. “She did not seem to know where she wanted to go, and when the officer asked her if he could help her she just shook her head and wandered off.”

“Did she tell her name?” Bert inquired.

“The policeman at the railroad station says she mumbled a name something like ‘Washington’; but he isn’t quite sure about that,” Mr. Bobbsey reported.

“Then we could call the baby May Washington,” mused Nan.

“Yes, we could,” her mother said. “Is that all the police found out?” she inquired of her husband.

“That is all,” he said. “They are going to try, however, to find the strange old lady and ask her why she deserted the baby. But we’ll have to wait.”

“And you children will have to go to school!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, glancing at the clock.

“But you’ll keep Baby May Washington until we come home, won’t you, Mother?” pleaded Nan.

“Please do!” begged Flossie.

“I’ll see,” murmured Mrs. Bobbsey, as the twins hurried on to school, and Freddie said to Bert:

“I’d like her better if she was a boy baby.”

“Well, Richard, what do you think of the latest member of the family?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

“She’s a dear, sweet little thing, but—”

Mr. Bobbsey did not finish what he started to say. He and his wife were bending over and looking at the sleeping baby—May Washington, as she had been hastily named. The Bobbsey twins had gone to school and the house was quiet—just the place for a sleeping baby.

“I can’t understand how any mother would leave such a little, helpless baby like this out in a storm all night,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, as he prepared to go down to his lumberyard.

“Perhaps it wasn’t the mother,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Certainly that woman seemed too old to be the mother of a little baby like this.”

“I don’t believe she was the mother,” declared Mr. Bobbsey, looking for his hat.

“Do you think she was the kidnapper?”

“I don’t know what to think. I’ll have another talk with the police to-day. You can’t do very much over the telephone, but I wanted to satisfy the children a little. Yes, I’ll inquire further.”

“And what will we do with her—with Baby May, I mean—if the police can’t find out to whom she belongs?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

“Well—” Mr. Bobbsey turned his hat around several times and looked inside it as if, there, he might find an answer to the puzzling riddle.

“Well?” asked his wife, with a smile, as she waited.

“Um! Well, if we can’t find out where she belongs, I suppose the police will have to take her, and—”

“The police!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey, and then she clapped her hand over her mouth, for she had, in her excitement, spoken so loudly that she was afraid of waking the infant. “Why, Richard Bobbsey!” she went on in a whisper, “you wouldn’t turn a helpless little baby like May over to a lot of men police, would you?”

“Well, of course I didn’t mean exactly that,” he murmured. “But we can’t keep her—she belongs to some one else—and the police will know what to do with her. You always give abandoned babies to the police.”

“Oh, do you?” asked his wife, with a smile. “Well, this is the first time I ever saw or had an abandoned baby, so I don’t know. And what do the police do with the babies?” she asked. “Lock them in an iron cell?”

“Of course not!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. “They send them to a nursing home, a foundling asylum, an orphanage—or somewhere. I don’t know exactly myself; but the police know what to do.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed his wife, with a smile. “But it seems hard to turn a sweet little baby like this over to a lot of men, even if they are kind, to have them take her to an orphan asylum.”

“Oh, they have police women, or matrons, or something like that to look after kidnapped babies,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

“Richard Bobbsey,” his wife whispered, as she followed him to the front door, “I don’t believe there’s a single police woman, or matron, in Lakeport!”

“Well, they’ll have to get one then. Anyhow, we can’t keep the baby. She will have to go to some asylum.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” and Mrs. Bobbsey sighed. “It seems strange that she should be left with us, when there are good neighbors on either side of us.”

“Neighbors without children—yes,” laughed Mr. Bobbsey. “That old woman with the green umbrella knew what she was about when she left her basket here. She saw our twins at the window and she knew we were the kind to look after a baby. But, as you say, we can’t keep her, of course.”

“No, I suppose not,” and Mrs. Bobbsey went back to look at the sleeping baby while her husband hurried on to his lumber office. “Poor, lonely little dear!” she murmured, bending over Baby May. “I wonder who your mother is!”

Big, fat, jolly, black Dinah tiptoed in.

“Am de honey lamb sleepin’?” she whispered. “Does she want any mo’ hot milk?”

“Not yet, Dinah,” Mrs. Bobbsey said. “But you might have some ready for her when she awakens. And bake a potato for her, Dinah. She’s too old to live entirely on milk. She must be about a year old, I should say.”

“Ain’t she sweet!” whispered Dinah, touching gently with her fat black finger the rosepetal cheek of sleeping May. “Ah jes’ lubs dat honey lamb!”

“I should think any one would love her,” returned Mrs. Bobbsey, fondly.

“Yo’ t’inks she am about a yeah old? She suttenly am very small.”

“I should say about a year, Dinah. But, of course, I am not at all sure. Babies are sometimes deceiving when it comes to age. Some grow much faster than others.”

“Don’t see how nobody could go off an leab dat chile alone on de doahstep,” muttered the colored cook, as she waddled back to the kitchen.

Mr. Bobbsey reached his office, and finding that the storm had not done as much damage to his lumberyard as he had feared, went to the police to learn more, if he could, about the abandoned baby. He talked first with the officer at the railroad station.

“What train did the old lady with the basket come in on?” the father of the Bobbsey twins asked.

“That I couldn’t say,” answered Jim Tully, the policeman at the station. “Two trains got in at the same time, and I don’t know which one she got off from. I could ask the conductors, though.”

“I wish you would,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “I’d like to get this baby back to her father and mother. They must be wild about losing her.”

“I should say so!” agreed Mr. Tully. “I’ve got six of my own, and I know my wife and I’d be crazy if one of ’em was missing over night. I’ll see what I can find out for you.”

“And if you can’t find out anything,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “what are we to do with this baby?”

“Hum!” mused Mr. Tully. “That I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the chief. You don’t want to keep it, I s’pose?” he asked.

“Why—er—I don’t know. We hardly thought of that,” said Mr. Bobbsey.

“No, of course not. Being a strange baby, your wife wouldn’t want to be bothered. Well, I’ll see what I can find out for you. But I took particular notice of the old lady. I saw the basket was big and pretty heavy for her, and I offered to help her carry it to the waiting room after she got off the train. But she wouldn’t let me—she drew away.”

“She was afraid you’d find out there was a baby in the basket, I suppose,” suggested Mr. Bobbsey.

“I reckon so,” agreed the officer. “I’ll see the chief and ask what you’d better do with the child if we can’t locate the old lady. You say she passed your house?”

“Yes, twice, my wife said. I’ll go down and see the chief myself. I’ve got to do something about the baby.”

Mr. Bobbsey had his talk with the chief of the Lakeport police. Meanwhile, because of Mr. Bobbsey’s earlier telephone message, inquiries had been made of other officers, and a search started for the strange old woman, but she could not be found.

“You see, Mr. Bobbsey,” said Chief Gallagher at the town hall, “we haven’t any matron or police woman here, and if you turn the baby over to us I’ll have to send to Hilldale for a woman to look after her. They have a matron at Hilldale.”

“Well, we can keep the baby for a day or so,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “My wife seems rather fond of her. I guess I’d better put an advertisement in the papers—what do you think?”

“I would,” agreed the chief. “That’s right—advertise for the baby’s father and mother. And I’ll be on the lookout for any news. If the child was stolen away from some other city we’ll hear about it. There’ll be a piece in the papers. You just wait a few days.”

The Bobbsey twins, talking of the big storm and the new baby, reached school. Before entering the yard where the other children were at play, Bert said:

“Now, Flossie and Freddie, don’t say anything about the baby.”

“Why not?” Flossie asked. “I was going to tell Mary Holmes. She’s got a baby at her house an’ she’s always saying we haven’t any. Now I can tell her we have!”

“No, don’t say anything about it,” warned Bert. “Mother and daddy might not like it. Wait until we find out who the baby belongs to. Now mind, Flossie and Freddie, don’t tell any of your friends about the baby.”

“Oh, all right,” agreed Flossie, for her mother had told her she must do as Bert said while at school.

“I don’t care about a girl baby,” murmured Freddie. “If she was a boy, so I could have a brother littler’n what I am, I’d like it all right.”

“Well, don’t say anything,” warned Bert. He turned to say the same thing to Nan, but she had walked on ahead to talk with some of her girl chums, and Bert did not bother to follow. “I guess Nan won’t say anything, anyhow,” he thought.

But he little knew Nan Bobbsey. She was just bursting with the news and longing to whisper it to her best chum, Nellie Parks, who sat with her.

But the Bobbsey twins had been delayed a little that morning, because of finding the baby, and the last bell rang as they reached the school yard. So Nan had to hurry into her classroom without a chance to tell Nellie the news.

The morning exercises were held. The children sang a hymn and then took part in the beautiful ceremony of saluting the flag. Then the different classes, including the one Flossie and Freddie were in, marched from the assembly room and the day’s lessons began.

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, after the cold April rain—a perfect May day, so Nan thought, as she looked from the schoolroom window.

And this—thinking of a May day—made her remember the little baby at home.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, Nan turned to Nellie and whispered:

“Oh, I’ve got the greatest news for you! You’ll never guess what we have at our house!”

“A new piano!” guessed Nellie, in a whisper.

“No! It’s a baby!” and Nan whispered so shrilly that the teacher heard her and looked up in surprise.

“Nan Bobbsey! were you whispering?” asked Miss Riker.

“Ye—yes—yes’m—I—I was!” faltered Nan, realizing, too late, what she had done.

“What were you saying?” Miss Riker asked, not unkindly. “Was it about the lesson, Nan?”

“No’m. It was about—about the new baby at our house!”

“Oh, a new baby! That’s lovely!” and Miss Riker smiled. “But you shouldn’t whisper about it in school, Nan. When did the baby come?”

“Last night—in the rain. It was left on our doorstep in a basket—and I heard it cry. I thought it was a kitten—and it was a baby!”

There was a gasp of surprise from all the pupils in the room.

“Nan Bobbsey!” exclaimed Miss Riker, rather sternly, “are you making up a fairy story?”

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Nan. “It’s all true!” And she was allowed to tell the class what had happened. It was so unusual that Miss Riker forgot all about lessons, for which the boys and girls were very glad. And so the story of the abandoned baby was known all over the school at recess.

“Say, this is a fine thing!” exclaimed Bert Bobbsey, walking up to his sister Nan when recess was almost over.

“What’s a fine thing?” Nan wanted to know.

“Why, everybody knows about the baby at our house! I told Flossie and Freddie not to tell, and you let it out right in class!”

“Well, I couldn’t help it!”

“You could so!”

“I couldn’t! I whispered about it to Nellie and teacher heard me whisper and she asked me and I had to tell. I didn’t know I shouldn’t!”

“Gosh! That’s just like a girl—telling everything! What do you know about that!” and Bert turned to Danny Rugg.

“Sure! That’s right! Girls can’t keep a secret!” declared Danny.

“We can so—if we want to!” exclaimed Nan. “Anyhow, it would have to be known about the baby when father told the police.”

“Oh—all right—there’s no use worrying about it now,” and Bert walked off, shaking his head and talking with Danny Rugg about girls that couldn’t keep a secret.

After all no harm was done, since Mr. Bobbsey wanted the story known, as that might help find Baby May’s parents. And besides, as Nan had said, the report would soon get around town on account of the police alarm.

Once the story was known in the school, the Bobbsey twins, even Flossie and Freddie, had to answer many questions as to how Baby May Washington was found on the doorstep.

Nan was quite the heroine of the day, for had not she found the tiny infant crying in the basket?

“Say, Bert, I’ll tell you what we can do after school,” proposed Charlie Mason that afternoon.

“What?”

“We can scout around and see if we can find that old lady with the green umbrella. We could make her take the baby back.”

“Maybe she wouldn’t have the green umbrella now, ’cause it isn’t raining,” said Freddie, who overheard this talk.

“Well, we can look for her, anyhow,” went on Charlie. “Will you, Bert?”

“Maybe.”

“And maybe there’s a reward out for whoever takes this baby back where it lives,” suggested Danny Rugg. “Maybe we could get a hundred dollars that way!”

“Most of it would go to Bert, ’cause the baby was found at his house,” declared Charlie.

“Well, if we fellows found the old lady, that would count and we’d have part of the reward,” declared Tom Carter.

“I don’t believe you can find her,” said Bert. “I guess she ran away after she left the baby and rang our bell.”

This seemed to be the case, for search as the police did, no trace was found of the strange woman. She had vanished after arriving in Lakeport and leaving the baby on the Bobbseys’ doorstep.

Telephone calls to distant places and a diligent reading of the newspapers, failed to show any babies missing or kidnapped. Mr. Bobbsey advertised in the papers of neighboring towns, but when several days had passed and no claim was made for Baby May Washington, Mr. Bobbsey and his wife talked the matter over again.

“There is no trace of who this child is or to whom she belongs,” said the twins’ father. “I suppose I had better arrange to have the police take her to an orphanage.”

“Well—” began Mrs. Bobbsey slowly, but she was interrupted by a chorus of cries from the children.

“Oh, don’t send the baby away!”

“Let us keep her!”

“I’ll wheel her in my carriage that I don’t use any more,” offered Flossie.

“I like her a little—even if she isn’t a boy!” faltered Freddie.

“Please, Mother, let us keep her! Mayn’t we, Daddy?” begged Nan.

“She’s a cute little thing,” murmured Bert. “Hey, Mother! Look! Nan’s taking her out of the cradle!” And Nan was doing just this.

“Pooh! don’t you think I know how to hold a baby?” asked Nan.

“You might if you had a net under you, like the man in the circus, so she wouldn’t hit the floor if you dropped her,” chuckled Bert.

“Pooh! you think you’re smart, don’t you?” sneered Nan. This was as near as she and Bert ever came to having a fuss.

“Now, children,” chided Mrs. Bobbsey gently, “be polite, please!”

“But what are we going to do with the baby?” asked Mr. Bobbsey. “Nearly a week has gone past now, and we haven’t learned any more than we knew the first day. What do you say, Mother?” he asked his wife.

“Of course the baby isn’t ours, and we don’t know where she belongs,” Mrs. Bobbsey said.

“But I have grown to love the little thing, and the children are very fond of her. Suppose we keep Baby May a while longer. Something may turn up then. I couldn’t bear to send her to an orphanage.”

“All right,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey, with a smile. “Then we’ll keep the baby.”

“And we’ll call her Bobbsey, ’cause she’s going to be one of us,” added Nan.

“Only she isn’t a twin!” added Freddie.

“No, and it’s just as well she isn’t!” laughed his mother. “I don’t know that I’d want to keep two little babies, unless they were my own. But I can manage this one very well.”

“We’ll take care of her,” offered Nan, who was quite proud, as she rocked the baby in her arms.

“Could I wheel her in the carriage some time?” asked Flossie.

“I’ll see,” promised Mrs. Bobbsey.

“She can take my roller skates when she wants them,” offered Freddie, and then he wondered why they all laughed. His mother explained:

“Baby May Washington Bobbsey isn’t able to walk yet, dear, to say nothing of roller skating. But it was kind of you to offer, Freddie.”

“Um!” he murmured. “She’d be better if she was a boy,” and he ran out to play.

So the abandoned baby was kept at the Bobbsey house.

“Oh, I think it’s terribly romantic to have a strange baby at your house, Nan,” said Julia Clark, when she and some other girls were talking about the matter one day at recess. “Just think, she may turn out to be an heiress to a million dollars!”

“And she might turn out to be a gypsy,” suggested Grace Lavine.

“She isn’t dark enough for a gypsy,” said Nan. “And I don’t believe she’ll ever have a million dollars. Daddy says if she belonged to a wealthy family the papers would be filled with the story about her, and detectives would be searching all over for her.”

“Who do you s’pose she is?” asked Nellie.

“Nobody knows,” Nan answered, and that was about all that could be said.

There surely was a mystery about Baby May.

As for the little girl herself, she was wonderfully sweet and good-natured. She cried hardly at all, but sat on a blanket on the floor and cooed and gurgled, kicked her rosy feet, fluttered her tiny hands, now and then smiling at the Bobbsey twins who bent over her or played with her.

“When will she be big enough to walk?” asked Freddie.

“Oh, in a few weeks she may begin to toddle,” his mother answered. “I don’t know just how old she is, but she isn’t much over a year. She is growing fast, though.”

“She’s suttinly de fastest growin’ chile whutever I seed!” declared Dinah. “She jes’ seem to swell all up when she take her milk. She suah am de mostest darlin’ baby! Oh, ain’t she cute!” she murmured, bending over the infant.

And “cute” was just the word that described Baby May—Baby May Washington Bobbsey, to give her the name which had been bestowed on her, for the twins now regarded her as one of themselves.

They took care of her after school hours—that is, Flossie and Nan did, for Bert was getting too old to look after babies, he thought. As for Freddie—well, he hardly could be trusted to do this, as he was such a “splutter-budget,” as Dinah called him. She meant he was always hurrying away to have fun, and he might have left Baby May alone to do this.

So to Nan and Flossie fell the happy task of taking care of the baby after school hours. Mrs. Bobbsey would wrap the little one warmly in blankets and put her in Flossie’s old carriage. Then Nan or Flossie would wheel her up and down in front of the house, stopping, now and then, to let the other children have a look at Baby May.

As for the little one, she would gaze about, smile and twinkle her blue eyes and say:

“Goo!”

Or perhaps she might, on occasions, say:

“Da!”

And when she said either of these things, whatever they may be called, Flossie or Nan would run into the house or call Mrs. Bobbsey and say, most excitedly:

“Oh, she talked! She talked!”

Once when Bert heard this “talk” he laughed at his sisters for thinking it meant anything.

“It’s just jabbering,” he said.

“It isn’t!” insisted Nan. “A lot you know! She said ‘no’ as plain as anything this morning when I offered her some milk, and I’m teaching her to say Nan, and she says ‘Na’ just as nice!”

“Pooh!” chuckled Bert, as he went out to play ball.

One day, when Mrs. Bobbsey had dressed Baby May and put her out in the baby carriage on the sunny side of the house, Flossie came home from school ahead of Nan.

“Mother, I’m going to wheel Baby May out on the sidewalk!” called Flossie.

Mrs. Bobbsey was busy upstairs with Dinah, and did not hear what Flossie said. If she had heard she might have told Flossie to be very careful.

So, without her mother knowing it, though meaning no wrong, Flossie wheeled Baby May out in the street. The baby was asleep, and Flossie was careful to make no noise as she rolled the carriage to and fro. Then along came Freddie. He had stopped to play with some of his boy chums, which was the reason Flossie had reached home ahead of him.

“I’m going to get my roller skates,” Freddie said. “Flossie!” he called, “I can’t get the front gate open. Come and help me!”

“Hush! Don’t make so much noise! You’ll wake Baby May!” whispered Flossie, for Freddie had shouted his request.

“Well, I can’t get the gate open!” he repeated.

“I’ll help you, but keep quiet!” commanded Flossie. “Don’t wake the baby!”

The front gate stuck sometimes, but Flossie knew that she and Freddie together could push it open. So, leaving the baby carriage with May in it on the sidewalk, the little girl went to help her brother.

Now, as it happened, the sidewalk ran a little downhill just at this point. And Flossie, not knowing it, did not put the brake on the baby-carriage wheels. So, as soon as she walked away, the carriage, with Baby May in it, started to roll toward the street at the point where there was a slanting place to allow Mr. Bobbsey’s automobile to come up over the curbstone.

Down into the street rolled the carriage with the sleeping baby in it, going faster and faster. And up the street, running very fast, came a team of horses hitched to an empty coal wagon. The rumble of the big wagon made Flossie and Freddie, pushing in order to open the gate, look around.

“Oh, look!” shouted Freddie. “It’s a runaway! There’s nobody in the wagon!”

This was true, and the horses were running faster and faster as they came on up the street toward the Bobbsey house.

“A runaway! A runaway!” cried Freddie, jumping up and down in his excitement.

It was then that Flossie thought of Baby May. She gave one look toward the carriage, and saw it rolling across the street, almost in the path of the dashing horses and the rumbling coal wagon.

“Oh! Oh, dear!” gasped Flossie.

Freddie Bobbsey dashed away from the front gate, no longer trying to open it. He almost knocked Flossie down, so great was his hurry.

“Oh, what you going to do?” cried the little girl.

“I have to get that carriage and Baby May!” cried Freddie. “If I don’t, the horses will run over her!”

“Oh! Oh!” half sobbed Flossie, for she could think of nothing else to do.

The carriage with the baby in it kept on slowly rolling toward the middle of the street. And up the street, running faster and faster, came the excited horses hitched to the empty coal wagon.

“Freddie! Freddie! Don’t go out there!” shrilly cried Flossie, as she saw her little brother about to spring into the street.

“But I have to get the baby!” he insisted.

“All right! Then I’ll come with you!” decided Flossie, who had now stopped crying.

She made a dash to join her brother. There was still time to get Baby May and the carriage out of danger if the children hurried. But if they should stumble and fall—

As it happened, Bert Bobbsey came whistling around the corner just at that moment. Bert was thinking of going fishing, and he always whistled at such times. When Flossie and Freddie caught sight of their brother, they stopped running, feeling sure he could and would save Baby May.

Bert’s whistle died away when he caught sight of the dashing, runaway horses and saw them swaying the empty wagon from side to side. Several men and boys were racing after the runaways, shouting, as if that would stop them. Other men and boys dashed out in front, waving their hats and arms, which only frightened the horses the more.

Then Bert saw the baby carriage, now almost in the middle of the street and directly in the path of the runaways.

“Crickity grasshoppers!” shouted Bert. “It’s Baby May! I’ve got to save her!”

Wisely, he did not try to stop the runaways. This was more than a boy of Bert’s age could have done. Instead, he gave his whole attention to getting the carriage out of the way. This was easy enough to do if, as Bert said afterward, you had “nerve” enough. It meant dashing across the street, pushing the carriage ahead of him, right across the path of the runaways.

But Bert did just that! He ran as fast as he could—faster than he had ever run when playing ball—and reached the carriage just in time. He could hear Baby May cooing and gurgling to herself amid the blankets. She never knew what danger she was in. She liked the easy, rolling motion of the baby carriage.

“Look out there, little boy!” cried a man, who was racing after the runaways.

“I must get our baby!” shouted Bert.

The next moment he had hold of the handle of the carriage. Never slacking his fast run, he pushed it out of danger, to the other side of the street. There was not much time to spare, either, for before Bert reached the opposite gutter the runaway team dashed past his heels. But he was safe and so was Baby May.

“Hey, boy, that was a brave thing to do!” cried one of the several men who were trying to stop the runaways.

“Um!” was all Bert could answer, for he was out of breath.

Then, as the coal wagon team dashed on up the street, Bert wheeled the carriage back to where Flossie and Freddie waited.

“Who had Baby May out?” Bert wanted to know.

“I did,” answered Flossie. “Mother said I could, and—”

“Well, what do you want to take her out in the street for when runaways come along?” asked Bert, who seemed a bit angry.

“I didn’t take the baby carriage out in the street!” whimpered Flossie, half crying. “It—now—it rolled there when I was trying to help Freddie open the gate.”

“And I was going out to get her,” added Freddie.

“Well, you two want to be careful,” said Bert, more kindly, as he noticed how frightened the younger twins were. “Come on now, we’ll go back to the house.”

“I want to see if they caught the runaways,” insisted Freddie.

Bert looked up the street and saw a man leading the team back. The horses were quiet enough now. They had become tired, had slowed down, and had easily been stopped.

“They’re all right—no damage done,” said Bert. “But you two have got to be more careful with Baby May. She might have been run over.”

“I’ll be more careful after this,” promised Flossie.

“So will I,” added Freddie, though it really was not his fault.

Mrs. Bobbsey was told what had happened—or rather, what had so nearly happened—and she decided that Flossie was too young to take Baby May out unless some older person was at hand to watch for danger.

Baby May cooed and smiled when she was lifted out of the baby carriage to be fed, and she made funny faces at Freddie and clutched at his nose with her soft little hand, causing Freddie to squirm, partly in delight and partly because she tickled him.

The days passed with no word as to who Baby May was. All that Mr. Bobbsey and the police did to find the parents of the little baby went for nothing.

“I guess, Mother,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, “we’ll have to keep this baby a long time.”

“I don’t care how long we keep her,” was the answer. “I’ve grown to love her!”

Bert and Nan, as well as Flossie and Freddie, also loved Baby May, and they hoped nothing would ever take her from them. Though of course they agreed with their father that if the child’s mother and father could be found, they must have Baby May.

“Shall we take her with us when we go on our vacation, after school stops?” asked Bert of his mother, one morning.

“Perhaps,” she answered. “But you’d better hurry now, or you may be late for school.”

But, to tell the truth, Bert did not hurry very much. The days were getting more like summer all the while—warm and filled with sunshine—and perhaps this is the reason why Bert lingered on the way to school. But so did other boys and girls.

And perhaps this is the reason why Bert, in class that day, did not pay much attention to what was going on. It was the time for geography study, and the boys and girls had on their desks in front of them the large books, for they were learning to pick out places on the map of Africa.

Now the big geographies were large enough to hide behind, and perhaps you have done what many children have done at times—that is, you have read or written notes in the shadow of the covers of the big books held up in front of you.

Bert did not care about writing any notes, and he had none written by any other boy to read. But he had in his pocket a piece of tough, brown paper, and, almost before he knew it, Bert was folding this paper into what he called a “snap-cracker.”

As you boys and girls must know how to make them I will not take the time to tell you how it is done. But by folding his paper in a certain way, Bert at length had it in the shape of a triangle, with an inner fold that, when he brought the hand holding the paper down quickly and stopped it suddenly, would snap out with a pop like that of a bursting paper bag.

Bert made this snap-cracker and then he looked across the aisle. Danny Rugg sat there, and Danny was a mischievous fellow.

“I dare you to crack that!” whispered Danny to Bert.

“I will after school!” Bert whispered back. It was safe to whisper behind the big geographies.

“No, I mean crack it now!” went on Danny. “I double-dare you!”

Bert did not like to take a dare. Much less did he like to be “double-dared.” He peered over the top of his big book. The teacher was busy at some papers on her desk.

Slowly Bert raised the paper snapper as high as he dared. Then, swinging his arm put into the aisle, where there was plenty of room, he brought his hand down smartly, checking it half way.

Bang! went the snap-cracker, with a noise like a pistol shot.

“Oh!” gasped a number of the pupils.

Some of them laughed out loud.

The teacher looked up quickly from her desk.

“Who did that?” she asked quietly.

There was no answer for a moment.

“I want the boy or girl who did that to come up here to my desk,” went on the teacher.

The room was very still and quiet.