“I—I was only just trying my whistle to see if it would toot,” explained the little girl. “I don’t want to stop now.”
Flossie walked around the middle of the raft, making the water splash with her bare feet, and Freddie kept on pushing it farther and farther from shore. Yet Flossie was not afraid. Perhaps she felt that Freddie would take care of her.
The little Bobbsey twins were having lots of fun, pretending they were on a steamboat, when they heard some one shouting to them from the shore.
“Hi there! Come and get us!” someone was calling to them.
“Who is it?” asked Freddie.
“It’s Bert; and Nan is with him,” answered Flossie, as she saw a larger boy and girl standing on the bank, near the tree under which she had left her doll. “I guess they want a ride. Is the raft big enough for them too, Freddie?”
“Yes, I guess so,” he answered. “You stop the steamboat, Flossie—and stop calling it a raft—and I’ll go back and get them. We’ll pretend they’re passengers. Stop the boat!”
“How can I stop the boat?” the little girl demanded.
“Toot the whistle! Toot the whistle!” answered her brother. “Don’t you ’member, Flossie Bobbsey?”
“Oh,” said Flossie. Then she went on: