“What’ll we do?” asked Flossie, as, after several trials she had to admit that the skin could not be carried. “Mrs. Bimby’ll be so disappointed!”
“We can tell her it’s here, and Mr. Jim can come and get it,” suggested Freddie.
“Oh, that’ll be nice!” his sister agreed. “We’ll leave the skin.”
How to pack up a lunch for themselves was also a hard matter. But, as it happened, Mrs. Bobbsey was so busy getting things ready for her husband and the other men that she did not pay much attention to what Flossie and Freddie did. She saw them moving about, now in the pantry and now in the kitchen and again stepping to the back door, but she did not dream they were getting ready to set off on a search by themselves.
However, this is just what Flossie and Freddie were going to do, and, after a while, they managed to pack into a pasteboard box what they thought would be lunch enough for them until they came back with Bert and Nan.
“Put in lots of cake,” whispered Freddie to Flossie, on one of the little girl’s trips to the pantry. “Cake tastes awful good in the woods.”
“I will,” Flossie whispered back. “And I got some pie, too!”
“Oh, that’s fine!” Freddie exclaimed. “Now we must slip out when they don’t see us.”
This the small Bobbsey twins managed to do. While Mr. Bobbsey, with Old Jim and Tom Case, was making ready to start on his searching expedition, to find and bring back Bert and Nan, as well as to take food to lonely Mrs. Bimby, Flossie and Freddie slipped quietly to the back door with their queer package of lunch.
They soon donned their boots, coats and caps, and with their little hands covered with warm, red mittens, they started off, keeping behind the cabin so they would not be seen by those in front who were getting ready to start on the main searching trip. It was snowing a little, but not nearly so hard as at first, and the wind was not so strong or cold.