George started to climb up the small tree.  This was easy for him to do, for he could put his hands and legs around it.  Up and up he went, just as you boys have often climbed trees.  He was about ten feet from the ground when Bert suddenly saw the little tree beginning to bend over.

“Look out, George!” Bert called.  “That tree is going to break with you!”

George looked down.  And, just as he did so, there was a sharp, cracking sound and the tree broke and bent suddenly over.  George fell toward the ground.  Nan, Flossie and Nellie were screaming.

CHAPTER XV

THE STORM

“Look out there, George!”

“Jump over this way—­away from the rocks!”

Bert and Charley called loudly to the boy who had climbed the little tree which broke with him.  But George seemed to know what he was doing.  As soon as he felt the tree going over he sprang out to one side, and came down, feet first, on a pile of leaves that were almost as soft and springy as a pile of hay in the meadow.

“Hurt yourself?” asked Bert.

“Not a bit—­no.  I’m all right,” George answered.

“Oh dear!” cried Nan.  “I thought sure you’d break your leg or arm or something.”

“So did I,” said Nellie.  “Are you sure you’re all right, George?”

“Of course I am.  I’ll show you by climbing another tree.”  George who had not even fallen down walked over toward the chestnut tree again.

“Well, pick out a good one to climb this time,” Bert said, and George did.  He first shook the next little tree that grew near the big chestnut, and made sure that it was not rotten, which was the trouble with the first one he had gone up.

This time everything was all right.  George climbed up, and stepped from the small tree out on the branches of the one where the shiny, brown nuts hung all ready to be shaken down.  And when George shook the branches of the chestnut tree, down came the nuts in a shower.

“Oh, what a lot!” cried Freddie, dancing about in glee.

“And one—­one struck me right on the end of my nose!” laughed Flossie.  “A chestnut on my nose!  Ho!  Ho!”

“Well, it’s a good thing it wasn’t a cocoa-nut!” cried George.  “Pick ’em up now!”

This the children did.  It was better than poking around among the leaves for the nuts, as those George jarred down lay on top, and could easily be seen.

The salt bags which the Bobbsey twins had brought with them, and the bags Nellie and Charley carried, were soon filled with nuts.  Nellie picked up nuts for her brother, who was in the tree shaking them down, and Bert said: 

“We’ll all give George a share of ours, as he can’t pick up any while he’s in the tree.”

“He can have half of mine,” offered Freddie.

“Oh, no, little man, not as many as that,” laughed George.

“I wish he’d come down pretty soon,” murmured Flossie, after a bit.