LITMIR.BIZ

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and we must then hurry home to Lakeport for the school days. But Nan tells me little Nellie is not well yet?”

      “No, I am afraid she will need another change of air to undo the trouble made by her close confinement in a city store. She is not seriously sick, but so run down that it will take some time for her to get strong again,” said the matron.

      “Have you a camp at the seashore?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

      “No; indeed, I wish we had,” answered the matron. “I am just going down now to see if I can’t find some place where Nellie can stay for a few weeks.”

      “I’m going to visit my sister, Mrs. Minturn, at Ocean Cliff, near Sunset Beach,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “They have a large cottage and are always charitable. If they have no other company I think, perhaps, they would be glad to give poor little Nellie a room.”

      “That would be splendid!” exclaimed the matron. “I was going to do a line of work I never did before. I was just going to call on some of the well-to-do people, and ask them to take Nellie. We had no funds, and I felt so much depended on the change of air, I simply made up my mind to go and do what I could.”

      “Then you can look in at my sister’s first,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “If she cannot accommodate you, perhaps she can tell who could. Now, won’t you come in the other car with us, and we can finish our journey together?”

      “Yes, indeed I will. Thank you,” said the matron, gathering up her belongings and making her way to the Bobbsey quarters in the other car.

      “Won’t it be lovely to have Nellie with us!” Nan said to Flossie, as they passed along. “I am sure Aunt Emily will say yes.”

      “So am I,” said little Flossie, whose kind heart always went out when it should. “I know surely they would not let Nellie die in the city while we enjoy the seaside.”

      Freddie was awake now, and also glad to see Mrs. Manily.

      “Where’s Sandy?” he inquired at once. Sandy had been his little chum from the Meadow Brook Camp.

      “I guess he is having a nice time somewhere,” replied Mrs. Manily. “His aunt found him out, you know, and is going to take care of him now.”

      “Well, I wish he was here too,” said Freddie, rubbing his eyes. “We’re goin’ to have lots of fun fishing in the ocean.”

      The plan for Nellie was told to Mr. Bobbsey, who, of course agreed it would be very nice if Aunt Emily and Uncle William were satisfied.

      “And what do you suppose those boxes contain?” said Mrs. Bobbsey to Mrs. Manily, pointing to the three boxes in the hanger above them.

      “Shoes?” ventured the matron.

      “Nope,” said Freddie. “One hat, and my duck and my cat. Downy is my duck and Snoop is my cat.”

      Then Nan told about the flight of the duck and the “kidnapping” of Snoop.

      “We put them up there out of the way,” finished Nan, “so that nothing more can happen to them.”

      The afternoon was wearing out now, and the strong summer sun shrunk into thin strips through the trees, while the train dashed along. As the ocean air came in the windows, the long line of woodland melted into pretty little streams, that make their way in patches for many miles from the ocean front. “Like ‘Baby Waters’” Nan said, “just growing out from the ocean, and getting a little bit bigger every year.”

      “Won’t we soon be there?” asked Freddie, for long journeys are always tiresome, especially to a little boy accustomed to many changes in the day’s play.

      “One hour more,” said Mr. Bobbsey, consulting his watch.

      “Let’s have a game of ball, Nan?” suggested Bert, who never traveled without a tennis ball in his pocket.

      “How could we?” the sister inquired.

      “Easily,” said Bert. “We’ll make up a new kind of game. We will start in the middle of the car, at the two center seats, and each move a seat away at every catch. Then, whoever misses first must go back to center again, and the one that gets to the end first, wins.”

      “All right,” agreed Nan, who always enjoyed her twin brother’s games. “We will call it Railroad Tennis.”

      Just as soon as Nan and Bert took their places, the other passengers became very much interested. There is such a monotony on trains that the sports the Bobbseys introduced were welcome indeed.

      We do not like to seem proud, but certainly these twins did look pretty. Nan with her fine back eyes and red cheeks, and Bert just matching her; only his hair curled around, while hers fell down. Their interest in Railroad Tennis made their faces all the prettier, and no wonder the people watched them so closely.

      Freddie was made umpire, to keep him out of a more active part, because he might do damage with a ball in a train, his mother said; so, as Nan and Bert passed the ball, he called,—his father prompting him:

      “Ball one!”

      “Ball two!”

      “Ball three!”

      Bert jerked with a sudden jolt of the train and missed.

      “Striker’s out!” called the umpire, while everybody laughed because the boy had missed first.

      Then Bert had to go all the way back to center, while Nan was four seats down.

      Three more balls were passed, then Nan missed.

      “I shouldn’t have to go all the way back for the miss,” protested Nan. “You went three seats back, so I’ll go three back.”

      This was agreed to by the umpire, and the game continued.

      A smooth stretch of road gave a good chance for catching, and both sister and brother kept moving toward the doors now, with three points “to the good” for Nan, as a big boy said.

      Who would miss now? Everybody waited to see. The train struck a curve! Bert threw a wild ball and Nan missed it.

      “Foul ball!” called the umpire, and Bert did not dispute it.

      Then Nan delivered the ball.

      “Oh, mercy me!” shrieked the old lady, who had thrown the handbag at Downy, the duck, “my glasses!” and there, upon the floor, lay the pieces. Nan’s ball had hit the lady right in the glasses, and it was very lucky they did not break until they came in contact with the floor.

      “I’m so sorry!” Nan faltered. “The car jerked so I could not keep it.”

      “Never mind, my dear,” answered the nice old lady, “I just enjoyed that game as much as you did, and if I hadn’t stuck my eyes out so, they would not have met your ball. So, it’s all right. I have another pair in my bag.”

      So the game ended with the accident, for it was now time to gather up the baggage for the last stop.

      CHAPTER IV

      Night in A Barn

      “Beach Junction! All off for the Junction!” called the train men, while the Bobbseys and Mrs. Manily hurried out to the small station, where numbers of carriages waited to take passengers to their cottages on the cliffs or by the sea.

      “Sure we haven’t forgotten anything?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, taking a hasty inventory of the hand baggage.

      “Bert’s got Snoop and I’ve got Downy,” answered Freddie, as if the animals were all that counted.

      “And I’ve got my hatbox and flowers,” added Nan.

      “And I have my ferns,” said little Flossie.

      “I guess we’re all here this time,” Mr. Bobbsey finished, for nothing at all seemed to be missing.

      It was almost nightfall,

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