“Thank you, Dinah, for letting me in,” whispered Nan, with a smile. “This bundle is so big I couldn’t reach the knob. Please don’t tell Flossie or Freddie or Bert that I came in this way, will you?”
“No’m—Ah won’t say one word!” promised Dinah, as she watched Nan tiptoe quietly up the back stairs.
Chuckling to herself, Dinah went back to the oven to get out the third pie, meanwhile having shut the outer kitchen door, for she did not want any draft of air blowing on her fresh pastry.
So she had closed the door and had set the third pie on the table when she was so startled that she gave a jump for, looking at one of the kitchen windows, she saw Freddie Bobbsey trying in vain to raise it. The window was partly open, but not wide enough for the little fellow to slip in.
“Dinah! Dinah! Open the window and let me in!” he begged. “And please hurry! It’s very ’portant!”
“Um! It important, am it?” asked Dinah. “Den why doesn’t yo’ come in de do’ laik de others done?” She meant Bert and Nan, but no sooner had she spoken than she remembered that the two older Bobbsey twins had each begged her to keep quiet about them. Luckily, however, Freddie did not pay much attention to the last part of Dinah’s remarks.
“I don’t want to come in the door ’cause Flossie will see me!” he explained, trying to wiggle under the partly raised sash. “She’s out in the yard, watching, and I don’t want her to see me. So open the window and let me in, please, Dinah!”
“Aw right, honey lamb, I will,” promised the cook. “Dis suah mus’ be some funny game de Bobbsey twins am playin’,” she thought to herself. “An’ Freddie’s got a bundle, too! Dish suah am queer!”
Indeed, Freddie had a bundle. It was wrapped in a white cloth and was almost as large as himself, though it was not very heavy, for he lifted it easily into the window ahead of him, when Dinah had raised the sash higher.
“There! I guess Flossie didn’t see me,” murmured the little boy.