The Bobbsey Twins in the Great West

CHAPTER I THE TRAIN WRECK "Come on, let\'s make a snow man!" cried Bert Bobbsey, as he ran about in the white drifts of snow that were piled high in the yard in front of the house. "That\'ll be lots of fun!" chimed in Freddie Bobbsey, who was Bert\'s small brother. "We can make a man, and then throw snowballs at him, and he won\'t care a bit; will he, Bert?" "No, I guess a snow man doesn\'t care how many times you hit him with snowballs," laughed the older boy, as he tried to catch a dog that was leaping about in the drifts, barking for joy. "The more snowballs you throw at a snow man the bigger he gets," said Bert. "Oh, Bert Bobbsey, he does not!" cried a girl with dark hair and sparkling brown eyes, as she ran along with a smaller girl holding her red-mittened hand. "A snow man can\'t grow any bigger! What makes you tell Freddie so?" "Course a snow man can grow bigger!" declared Bert. "A snowball grows bigger the more you roll it in the snow, doesn\'t it?" "Yes," admitted Nan—Nan being the name of the brown-eyed girl, Bert\'s twin sister. "I know a snowball grows bigger the more you roll it, but you don\'t roll a snow man!" went on the brown-eyed girl. "Ho, ho! wouldn\'t that be funny?" laughed the little girl, whose handNan held. "What would be funny, Flossie?" asked Freddie, and one look at the two smaller Bobbsey children would have told you that they, too, were twins. In fact the four Bobbseys were twins—that is there were two sets of them—Bert and Nan, and Flossie and Freddie. "What would be funny?" Freddie wanted to know. "Tell me! I want to laugh." "Yes, you generally do want to laugh, little fireman!" and Bert Bobbsey laughed himself as he gave his small brother the pet name that Daddy Bobbsey had thought up some time ago. "But, as Flossie says, it would be funny to see a snow man rolling around in the drifts to make himself bigger," went on Bert. "But you said he\'d get bigger if we threw snowballs at him," insistedNan. "And he will," went on Bert. "You see, a snowball gets bigger when you roll it around the yard, because more snow keeps sticking to it all the while. And if we make a snow man and then throw little snowballs at him, these snowballs will stick to him and he\'ll grow bigger, won\'t he?" "Oh, I didn\'t know you meant that way!" and now Nan, herself, began to laugh. Of course Flossie and Freddie joined in, though I am not sure that they knew what the joke was all about, but they were having fun in the snow and that was all they cared for. It was a fine snow storm, at least for the Bobbsey twins and the other children of Lakeport. It was not too cold, and the white flakes had come down so fast that there was now enough snow to make many snow men and snowballs, and leave plenty for coasting down hill. The Bobbsey twins had hurried out to play in the snow as soon as they got home from school, and now they were having fine fun. Snap, their dog, was playing with them, leaping about in the drifts, diving through them, as the Bobbsey twins had seen swimmers dive through waves down at the seashore and Snap would come out on the other side of the drift all covered with white flakes, as though he were a snow dog....