Flossie wiggled her little pink toes in the water that washed up over the top of the raft, and then she said:
“Well, I—I guess I like it too, now. But it felt sort of—sort of—squiggily at first.”
“Squiggily” was a word Flossie and Freddie sometimes used when they didn’t know else to say.
The little girl moved over to the middle of the raft and Freddie began to push it out from shore. The rain-water pond was quite a large one, and was deep in places, but the children did not know this. When they were both in the center of the raft the water came only a little way over their feet. Indeed there were so many boards, planks and rails in the make-believe steamboat that it would easily have held more than the two smaller Bobbsey twins. For there was a double set of twins, as I shall very soon tell you.
“Isn’t this nice?” asked Freddie, as he pushed the pretend boat farther out toward the middle of the pond.
“Awful nice—I like it,” said Flossie. “I’m glad I helped you make this raft.”
“It’s a steamboat,” said Freddie. “It isn’t a raft.”
“Well, steamboat, then,” agreed Flossie. Then she suddenly went:
“Toot! Toot!”
“Here! what you blowin’ the whistle now for?” asked Freddie. “We don’t want to stop here, right in the middle of the ocean.”