“We’ll clean it up,” said Bert cheerfully. And while he and Nan are doing this and while Mrs. Bobbsey is comforting Flossie and Freddie, who were alarmed over the storm, I shall take just a moment to tell my new readers a little something about this family.
In the first book of this series, “The Bobbsey Twins,” you learn that Mr. and Mrs. Richard Bobbsey lived with their two sets of twins in the eastern city of Lakeport on Lake Metoka, where Mr. Bobbsey owned a large lumberyard. Bert and Nan, who had dark hair and eyes, were several years older than Flossie and Freddie, whose hair was light and whose eyes were blue.
Bert and Nan and Flossie and Freddie were fond of fun and good times, and they had plenty of them in the country, at school, at the seashore and on trips. There are various books telling of the adventures of the Bobbsey twins in different places, at grandpa’s farm, on the deep blue sea, and out West. Just before this story opens the Bobbsey twins had been camping and had had some wonderful adventures.
“Well, Bert, was anything broken?” asked his mother, when the “mess,” as she called it, of the elevated railroad had been cleared away.
“No, nothing much, Mother,” he answered. “One of the cars lost a wheel, but that’s always coming off. I guess Sam can fix it.” Sam was Dinah’s husband, a jolly, stout, colored man-of-all-work about the Bobbsey place.
“I think you’d better wash now and get ready for supper,” his mother told him.
“If I could put on my bathing suit and stand out in the rain I wouldn’t have to wash—the shower would wash me,” Bert said, laughing.
“Oh, could we do that? Could we put on our bathing suits?” begged Freddie.
“Please!” begged Flossie, who was all over her crying spell caused by having been hit on the head when the ironing board fell.
“No, indeed!” laughed Mrs. Bobbsey. “This isn’t summer yet. The rain is a cold one. I hope your father doesn’t get drenched. But what made your elevated railroad fall, Bert?”