"Maybe I could go," lisped Sandy, "'cause nobody ain't got charge of me now. Mrs. Manily has gone away, you know, and I don't b'lieve in the other lady, do you?"
Freddie did not quite understand this but he said "no" just to agree with Sandy.
"And you know the big girl, Nellie, who always curled my hair without pulling it,—she's gone away too, so maybe I'm your brother now," went on the little orphan.
"Course you are!" spoke up Freddie manfully, throwing his arms around the other, "You're my twin brother too, 'cause that's the realest kind. We are all twins, you know—Nan and Bert, and Flossie and me and you!"
By this time the other Bobbseys had come out to welcome Sandy. They thought it best to let Freddie entertain him at first, so that he would not be strange, but now Uncle Daniel just took the little fellow up in his arms and into his heart, for all good men love boys, especially when they are such real little men as Sandy and Freddie happened to be.
"He's my twin brother, Uncle Daniel," Freddie insisted. "Don't you think he's just like me curls and all?"
"He is certainly a fine little chap!" the uncle replied, meaning every word of it, "and he is quite some like you too. Now let us feed the chickens. See how they are around us expecting something to eat?"
The fowls were almost ready to eat the pearl buttons off Sandy's coat, so eager were they for their meal, and it was great fun for the two little boys to toss the corn to them.
"Granny will eat from your hand," exclaimed Uncle Daniel, "You see, she is just like granite-gray stone, but we call her Granny for short."
The Plymouth Rock hen came up to Sandy, and much to his delight ate the corn out of his little white hand.