“But maybe the fireman who rescued me will be there,” went on Freddie.  “I’d like to see him again.”

“I’ll take you around to his fire house some time,” promised Mr. Whipple.  “Won’t that do as well?”

Freddie thought it would, and then he noticed a street piano, on top of which perched a monkey.

“Maybe that’s the one who tore your hat, Flossie,” he said.

“No, this is a bigger one,” returned the little girl.  “Besides, if he is the same one I don’t want to see him.  I feel sorry about the nice cherries on my hat.”

“Don’t you like the one you and your brother bought in my store?” asked Mr. Whipple, with a laugh.

“Oh, yes, it’s awful nice,” said Flossie.  “But it hasn’t any cherries on it.  But I like it just as well,” she went on quickly, thinking, I suppose, that it might not be polite to say she did not.

“And now for the woodland camp!” cried Mr. Whipple, as they got out of his automobile in front of his store.  “You see,” he explained to Mrs. Bobbsey, “I sell a good many things that campers use—­tents, pots, pans, fishing rods and lines, lanterns, axes, cook stoves, boats, canoes, guns and so on.  Every year I set up, on the top floor of the store, a sort of woodland scene—­a camp.  I get real bushes from the woods and some logs.  Then my men fix up a place to make it look as nearly like the real woods as we can.  We have real moss and dirt on the ground, and a little spring of water.  There is a real tent—­two of them, in fact—­and in one there are cots for sleeping, while in the other the meals are cooked.

“I hire some real campers to stay in my store camp, and they live almost as they would if they were actually camping out.  This is to show the people how to use the camping things I sell.  It is a new kind of advertisement, you see.”

“And a very good one, I should think,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“It sounds great!” cried Bert.  “I wish we could go camping!  Do you think we ever could, Mother?”

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly.  “I did hear your father say something about going to camp this Summer, but warm weather is a long way from us yet.  We’ll see.”

“Oh, I believe we can go camping!” cried Nan to Bert in an excited whisper, as they entered the store elevator.  “Won’t it be wonderful?”

“Great!” said Bert “I wouldn’t want anything better than to camp on an island in some lake.”

By this time they were up on the top floor of the big department store owned by Mr. Whipple, and at one end the twins and Laddie could see a number of persons.

“That’s the camp,” said Mr. Whipple.  “I don’t believe you’ve seen it this year, have you, Laddie?”

“No, Uncle Dan.  Is it different from last year?” for the store-owner had the camp set up each Winter.

“Yes, it’s a little different.  There is a new kind of tent, and the men are different.”