“Of course that strange old woman may have followed us here, and she may be anxious to get Baby May back,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “Though how she found us I don’t know. And I can’t imagine why she is so mysterious. If she wanted the baby, why did she desert her in a storm on our steps? And if she gave her away, why, now, does she want her back?”
“It’s all very mysteriousness, isn’t it?” asked Nan, and when Bert laughed at her for saying the big word wrong she wrinkled up her nose at him, which was as near as Nan ever came to “making a face.”
“Yes, it is strange,” her father said, and he did not even smile at Nan’s error. “I think I must make some more inquiries around here. Surely if there is a mysterious woman going about and carrying a green umbrella, some one ought to see her. Meanwhile, you had better take extra good care of Baby May.”
“I certainly will do that!” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
For the next few days Baby May was not wheeled in her carriage very far from the house. Or, if she was, either Mr. or Mrs. Bobbsey went with the children who took May out for an airing. Neither Flossie nor Freddie, together or singly, were allowed to wheel Baby May now, unless Bert or Nan went along.
“We can’t take any chances,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Of course May isn’t our baby, but I love her as much as though she were, and I don’t intend that some one who has no right to her shall take her away from us.”
So Baby May was given extra care. She seemed to have gotten all over her illness and laughed and cooed and “talked” for she could now say a few words, though of course she could not put them together in a sentence. She smiled and made her blue eyes sparkle, until Nan, hugging and kissing her, declared she was the “dearest, sweetest and loveliest baby in all the world.” And of course she was—just as every baby is to those who love children.
Meanwhile Mr. Bobbsey rode about in his automobile, sometimes taking Nan and Bert with him, and he made inquiries of all whom he met about the mysterious old woman with the green umbrella.
At first he could learn no news. No one seemed to have seen her. But one day, when Mr. Bobbsey and Nan and Bert stopped at a lonely farmhouse so the children could get a drink of water, he got a “clew,” as he called it. Afterward he told Bert and Nan that a “clew” on a ship was something to which a rope may be fastened.
“And when you are searching for some one or something, a clew is a bit of information to which you may fasten other news and so, after a while, get enough clews to lead you to what you are looking for,” said Mr. Bobbsey.