"Oh, I could see by the wheel and hoof marks in the soft dirt which way Whisker had taken the wagon, and I just followed."
"But what is the jolly news?" Freddie demanded. "Are we going back to New York?"
"Better than that!" answered Bert. "We're going camping!"
"Camping?" cried the two little Bobbsey twins in the same breath. "Where?" asked Freddie. "When?" asked Flossie.
"It isn't all settled yet," answered Bert. "You know daddy and mother talked about it when we were in the big city. And to-day, when I was down at the lumberyard I heard daddy speaking to a man in there about some of the islands in Lake Metoka. Daddy wanted to know which one was the best to camp on."
"And did the man say which was a good one?" asked Freddie.
"I didn't hear. But I asked daddy afterward if we were going to camp this summer, and he said he guessed so, if mother wanted to."
"Does mother want to?" asked Flossie eagerly.
"She says she does," answered Bert. "So I guess we'll go to camp this summer all right. Isn't that jolly news?"
"Um," said Freddie, not opening his mouth, for in one pocket of his little jacket he had found a sweet cracker he had forgotten, and he was now chewing on it, after having given his sister and Helen some.