"No, Sam, thank you!" answered the little girl, who was just about the size and build of Freddie. "I have only Snoop, our cat, and I can carry him easily enough. You help Dinah!"
"'Deed an' he had better help me!" exclaimed the colored cook.
Sam took all the packages he could carry, and hurried with them to the stoop. But he had not gone very far before something happened.
From behind him rushed a big dog, barking and leaping about, glad, probably, to be home again from part of the summer vacation.
"Look out, Sam!" called Bert Bobbsey, who was carrying the valise his mother had had. "Look out!"
"What's de mattah? Am I droppin' suffin?" asked Sam, trying to turn about and look at all the bundles and packages he had in his arms and hands.
"It's Snap!" cried Nan, who was sitting comfortably on the shady porch. "Look out for him, Sam."
"Snap! Behave yourself!" ordered little fat Flossie, as she set down a wooden cage containing a black cat. "Be good, Snap!"
"Here, Snap! Snap! Come here!" called Freddie.
Snap, the big dog, was too excited just then to mind. With another loud, joyous bark he rushed up behind Sam, and, as the colored man of all work about the Bobbsey place had very bow, or curved, legs, Snap ran right between them. That is, he ran half way, and then, as he was a pretty fat dog, he stuck there.