And now we find the twins back in Lakeport, ready for a good time during the summer that would soon be at hand. Only the gypsy scare had rather alarmed every one for the time being.
"But now let me hear what it is all about," said Mr. Bobbsey, who had come home from the office of his lumberyard to find an excited crowd in front of his house. "Were there really any gypsies?" he asked his wife. "And did they take away Helen Porter?"
"I don't know about that last part," said Mrs. Bobbsey; "but a caravan of gypsies did pass by the house a little while ago. I heard Dinah say something about the gaily painted wagons, and I looked out in time to see them rumbling along the street. Then, a little later, I heard Mrs. Porter calling for Helen, and, on seeing the crowd, I ran out. I was worried about our children until I saw them coming from the lake, where they had gone for a row in the boat."
"I can't believe that gypsies took Helen," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"Oh, but she's gone!" several neighbors told him. "We can't find her anywhere, and her mother is crying and taking on terribly!"
"Well, it may be that Helen is lost, or has even strayed away after the gypsies, thinking their wagons were part of a circus, as Nan says Flossie thought," said Mr. Bobbsey. "But gypsies wouldn't dare take a little girl away in broad daylight."
As he said this he looked at his own little children and at others in the crowd, for he did not want them to be frightened.
"Years ago, maybe, gypsies did take little folks," he said, "but they don't do it any more, I'm sure."
"But where is Helen?" asked John Marsh. "A gypsy man has her, I know, 'cause I saw him take her."
"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, for John was an excitable boy, sometimes given to imagining things that never happened.