Then, by searching about, the children found more nests and eggs until the basket was quite full.  Now arose a dispute between Flossie and Freddie, for each one wanted to carry the basket.  Nan was afraid either of the little twins might stumble and fall, thereby breaking the eggs.

“I know what we’ll do,” Nan said, making up a little plan, as she often had to do to get Freddie and Flossie into a new way of thinking.  “We’ll play hide and go seek.  I’ll go on ahead and hide, and whoever finds me can carry the basket a little way.”

“Oh, that’ll be fun!” cried Freddie.  “Come on, Flossie!  Blind your eyes.”

“Don’t come until I get ready!” said Nan.

The children promised they would not.  Carefully they closed their eyes, covering them with their hands.  Nan hurried away, walking softly so the twins could not guess which way she was going.  And she picked out a hiding place close to the house, right at the foot of the steps, in fact.

“Whichever one finds me won’t have very far to carry the eggs, and they won’t be so likely to drop them,” thought Nan, as she crouched down behind the rain-water barrel.

“Coop!” cried Nan, this being a signal that she was hidden.

“Ready or not we’re coming!” shouted Freddie.  He and his sister opened their eyes and began running about, eagerly searching.  It was some little time before they found Nan behind the barrel, and Flossie spied her first.

“I see you!  I see you!” laughed the delighted little girl, and she was so excited over finding Nan that she never realized she had only a few steps to carry the basket of eggs.

Flossie covered those few steps safely, and the eggs were put away in the closet by Aunt Sarah, later to be made into puddings and cakes for the Bobbsey twins.

“When are we going to the Bolton County Fair?” asked Bert that evening after supper, when he and Harry were resting after their sport in catching bullfrogs.

“And I’m going to ride on a lion!” declared Freddie.

“We might go over to the fair to-morrow,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “Do you folks want to go?” he asked his brother and Aunt Sarah.

“I don’t believe I’ll have time,” answered Mr. Bobbsey’s brother.

“Nor I,” said Aunt Sarah.  “I have a lot of cooking to do.”

“Then I’m going to stay at home and help you,” offered the mother of the Bobbsey twins.

“Oh, can’t we go to the fair?” wailed Flossie and Freddie, almost ready to cry.

“Of course you may go!” replied Mother Bobbsey.  “I was going to say that daddy could take you children—­Harry may go, may he not?” she asked his mother.

“Oh, yes.”

“Hurray!” cried Harry, and Bert and Nan echoed his cry of joy.

So it was arranged that Mr. Bobbsey would take the children to the Bolton County Fair, there to see the many wonderful things of which they had dreamed for days and nights.