“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Bert.  “I wanted to see the man go up in the balloon!”

“So did I!” added Harry.  “But maybe the wind will die out.”

However, it did not, and it was still blowing rather hard when the fair grounds were reached.

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, when she saw how disappointed Harry and Bert seemed to feel.  “If the balloon doesn’t go up to-day it will to-morrow, and we can come again.  There are plenty of other things to look at besides balloons.”

“I’d like to go to see some of the big vegetables and the fruits, and look at the patchwork quilts and the lace,” said Nan.

“Very well,” agreed her father.  “We’ll go there first, and maybe by that time the wind will have died down.  But I hardly think so.”

Truth to tell Bert and Harry did not care much for the big pumpkins, squashes, and other vegetables.  And they hardly looked at the fancy work in which Nan and her mother took an interest.

“Oh, wouldn’t this make a dandy jack-o’-lantern!” cried Freddie, as he crawled under a railing around a platform, on which were many large vegetables.  “Look what a big pumpkin!”

“Freddie, you mustn’t go in there,” called his mother.  “Come out.  Don’t touch that big pumpkin.”

But it was too late!  Freddie was already on the wooden platform, and he was rolling the pumpkin.  It was almost perfectly round, and the little fellow could easily move it.

“Come away!” called Mr. Bobbsey, adding his voice to that of his wife.

“I want to see if I can lift this pumpkin!” exclaimed Freddie.

And then, suddenly, the big pumpkin rolled off the platform, toward the back of the tent.

“Get it, Freddie!  Get it!” cried Bert, for he knew the pumpkin was on exhibition in order to take a prize, if possible.  It would be too bad if anything happened to it.

Freddie made a dive for the big, yellow vegetable, but, as it happened, the tent stood on the top of a hill.  And as the pumpkin rolled off the platform it slipped under the tent and began going down the grassy hill outside.

“Whoa!  Whoa!” called Freddie, as he had called to the race horse that had walked out on the track with him.  “Whoa, pumpkin!”

But the pumpkin kept on rolling!  The little chap made a dive for it, missed it by a few inches, and then, falling over, he, too, rolled out under the tent and down the hill.

Freddie was not quite so round as a pumpkin, but he managed to get a good start, and rolled over and over.  And as his father, mother, and the others hurried out of the tent they saw Freddie and the big yellow vegetable tumbling down the hill together.

“Oh, look!  Look!” cried a little girl.  “A boy and a pumpkin are having a race!  Oh, look!  How funny!  A boy and a pumpkin are having a race!”

CHAPTER XV

UP IN A BALLOON