“I think I’d better watch her so she won’t soil her clothes,” said Nan, getting up from a bench, where she had been sitting beside the boxes and baskets of lunch.  “It would be too bad if she should get her dress dirty and couldn’t go.”

“I’m not going to get my clothes dirty, am I, Nan?” asked Freddie, as he looked at his white blouse.

“I hope not,” Nan answered.

Suddenly there was an exclamation from Bert, as Nan started down the path toward Flossie.

“Ouch!” cried Bert.

“What’s the matter?” Nan asked quickly.

“Cut myself!”

“Oh!  Oh, dear!” screamed Freddie, who did not like the sight of the red blood which oozed from the end of his brother’s finger.

“Oh, don’t get any on my clean blouse, else I can’t go to the picnic!”

Bert, who had popped the cut finger into his mouth as soon as he felt the hurt, now took it out to laugh.

“That’s all you care about me, Freddie!” he joked.  “I cut my finger, while making you a little boat, and all you care about is that I mustn’t dirty your white blouse!  I’ll make you a lot more ships—­I guess not!”

“Oh, but I am sorry for you!” Freddie declared.  “Only I do so want to go to the picnic!”

“Yes, I know,” Bert went on, seeing that Freddie was taking his talk too seriously.  “I won’t get any blood on you!”

“Is it much of a cut?” asked Nan “Do you want me to get the iodine?” Their Mother had taught the Bobbsey twins not to neglect hurts of this kind, and iodine, they knew, was good to “kill the germs,” whatever that meant.  Iodine smarted when put into a cut, but it was better to stand a little smart at first than a big pain afterward, so Daddy Bobbsey had said.

“Oh, it isn’t much of a cut,” Bert said.  “I guess I don’t need any iodine.  You’d better go look after Flossie.  The trucks may be along any time now, and we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

“All right.  But you’d better not whittle any more on that boat or you may cut yourself so bad you can’t go to the picnic.”

“Let the boat go!” advised Freddie.  “It’s good enough, anyhow, and I want you to go to the picnic, Bert.”

“All right.  The little ship is almost finished, anyhow.  I just have to make about three more cuts and then I’m done.”

His finger had stopped bleeding—­indeed the cut was a very small one—­and Bert was soon putting the last touches to the tiny craft which Freddie wanted to sail in the little lake at the picnic grounds.

Just as Bert handed the homemade toy to his brother, and when Nan reached Flossie, in time to stop her from climbing on the gate, a noise of honking horns was heard down the street.

“Oh, here they come!  Here come the trucks!” cried Flossie, dancing up and down.

“Get the lunch!” called Freddie, to make sure they would not go hungry on the picnic.

“I’ll go in and tell mother we’re going,” called Nan to Bert, who shut up his knife, brushed the whittlings off his clothes, and began to gather up the boxes and baskets of lunch.  “Watch Flossie!” Nan added, for there was no telling what the excitable little “fairy” might do at the last moment.