“I’ll get Dinah to make me one when I go home,” Freddie declared.  “I’ll have a red one, I guess, and then if I get tired of ridin’ horses I can be a fireman.”

“Well, I think we’ve had excitement enough for one day,” remarked Mr. Bobbsey.  “We’ll have something to eat, look around a little more, and then go home.”

“But we can come back again, can’t we?” asked Bert.  “I haven’t seen the balloon go up yet.”

“Yes, we want to see that,” added Harry.

“I’ll bring you to the fair again to-morrow or next day,” promised Mr.
Bobbsey.  “I want to come back myself.  I’ve met a number of men to-day
I’d like to talk with further.  Then I’d like to have a talk with that
Mr. Blipper.”

That night, at Meadow Brook Farm, Mr. Bobbsey and his wife, after the children had gone to bed, talked over the strange disappearance of Mr. Bobbsey’s coat and the auto lap robe.

“I’m sure that Blipper knows something about them,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.  “Or perhaps that strange Bob Guess—­what an odd name.”

“It is an odd name,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey, “But it fits, for they don’t know what his real name is—­at least he says he doesn’t.  But I don’t believe Bob had anything to do with the taking of my coat and the robe.  I’d like to find out more about the boy.  He seems bright, and I feel sorry for him.  I must see that man, Blipper, and have a talk with him.”

“Wasn’t he at his merry-go-round to-day?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.

“No, he had gone off somewhere.  But I am going to the fair again with the children, and I’ll get at Blipper sooner or later.”

“Well, if you go to the fair again, please keep an eye on Freddie!” begged the mother of the Bobbsey twins.  “He’s a little tyke when it comes to slipping away and doing strange things.”

“Yes, he is,” agreed her husband.  But the next day was to prove that Flossie could also “slip away,” when there was a chance.

The Bobbsey twins, with Harry, were out in the cornfield gathering ears of corn to feed to the hogs and chickens.  The corn had been cut and stacked into piles called “shocks,” and it was from the stalks in these shocks that the ears of yellow corn were broken off and placed in baskets to be taken to the house.

“Let’s play hide and go seek for a while,” suggested Nan to her brother and Harry.  “Flossie and Freddie are over there by themselves, shelling corn.”  The smaller twins had been given a little basket, and they were now busy breaking off kernels of corn from some small ears, and dropping the corn into their basket.

“For the chickies,” Flossie had explained.

So while the smaller twins were thus “kept out of mischief,” as Nan said, she, with Bert and Harry, began a game of hide and go seek.  It was lots of fun, dodging in and out among the tall corn shocks, which rose above the children’s heads.  The game went on for some time, until even Bert and Harry said they were tired.