ack for the Whipple rooms, where he and Laddie were building a
bridge of books for the toy train of cars to cross a river, which was made
of a piece of broken looking glass.
"And here's an extra kiss I'll give you for him," said Flossie, as she
hugged her father in bidding him good-bye. "I love Uncle Jack."
So Mr. Bobbsey went back to Lakeport, and Mrs. Bobbsey got ready to take
Nan and Bert to the Natural History Museum. At first it had been planned
to take Flossie and Freddie, but, as they said they did not care much
about stuffed animals, and as they were having such fun with Laddie, Mrs.
Whipple told Mrs. Bobbsey she would look after the smaller twins and give
them their lunch.
"Then I'll leave them with you," said the mother of Flossie and Freddie.
"I hope they will be no trouble."
"I'm sure they'll be all right," said Laddie's aunt. "Don't worry about
them."
So Flossie, Freddie and Laddie built the bridge of books, and on it safely
ran the toy locomotive and cars over the river of shiny looking glass.
When they grew tired of this game they played automobile. To do that
Laddie had to turn an old rocker upside down and stick on one leg a broken
drum he had left from his Christmas toys. The drum was the steering wheel,
and it made enough noise, when pounded on with a stick, to pretend it was
an automobile horn.
Flossie and Freddie rode in the back part of the overturned chair, and
Laddie sat in front of them and made believe he was a chauffeur of a
taxicab, running about the streets of New York.
As Laddie knew the names of many places where the real taxicabs stop, he
could call them out from time to time. So that Flossie and Freddie went
to the Grand Central Terminal, to Central Park, to the Public Library and
many other places (make-believe, of course) in the queer pretend
automobile.
"Oh, I'm going to stop off at the Public Liberry!" called out Flossie,
while the play was going on.
"What you going to stop off at the Public Liberry for?" asked Freddie.
"I'm going to get a great big picture book," returned the little girl.
"'Bout Cinderella?" questioned her brother.
"No. I'm going to get a picture book with all kinds of stories in it."
"We can't stop now!" yelled out Laddie. "We're three blocks past the
liberry already."
"Well, then I won't bother," answered Flossie.
After that they played steamboat, a tin horn being the whistle, which was
tooted every time the boat stopped or start
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