“I want to go to the store, too!” exclaimed Freddie, who came around the corner of the house just then, with his face and hands covered with mud.

“Oh, my dear child! what have you been doing?” cried his mother.

“Oh, just makin’ pies,” answered Freddie, rubbing one cheek with a grimy hand.  “I made the pies and Flossie put ’em in the oven to bake.  We made an oven out of some bricks.  But we didn’t really eat the pies,” he added, “’cause they were only mud.”

“You look as though you had tried to eat them,” laughed Nan.  “Come, Freddie, I’ll wash you clean.”

“No, I want to go to the store!” he cried.

“So do I!” chimed in the voice of Flossie, as she, too, marched around the corner of the house, dirtier, if possible, than her little twin brother.  “If Freddie goes to the store, I want to go with him!” Flossie cried.

“All right,” answered Bert.  “You go and wash Flossie and Freddie, Nan, and I’ll get the express wagon and we’ll pull them to the store with us.  Then we can put the groceries in the wagon and bring them back that way.”

“That will be nice,” put in Mrs. Bobbsey.  “I’ll go and see just what Dinah wants.  Run along with Nan, Flossie and Freddie, and let her wash you nice and clean.”

This just suited the smaller twins, and soon they were being made, by Nan’s use of soap and water in the bath room, to look a little less like mud pies.  While Bert got out the express wagon, Snap, the big dog, saw his little master, and jumped about, barking in joy.

“I don’t care if that is a lion on the back of Miss Pompret’s dishes,” murmured Bert, as he put a piece of carpet in the wagon for Flossie and Freddie to sit on, “it looks just like you, Snap.  And I wonder if I could ever find that milk pitcher and sugar bowl and get that hundred dollars.  I don’t guess I could, but I’d like to awful much.  No, I mustn’t say ‘awful,’ but I’d like to a terrible lot.  A hundred dollars is a pack of money!”

Down the street Nan and Bert pulled Flossie and Freddie in the little express wagon, with Snap running on ahead and barking in delight.  This was the best part of the day for him—­when the children came home from school.  Flossie and Freddie came first, and then Nan and Bert, and then the fun started.

“Now don’t run too fast!” exclaimed Flossie, as the express wagon began to bounce over the uneven sidewalk.

“Oh, yes, let’s go real fast!” cried Freddie.  “Let’s go as fast as the fire engines go.”

“We can’t run as fast as that, Freddie,” declared Nan, who was almost out of breath.  “We’ll just run regular.”

And then she and Bert pulled the younger twins around for a little ride in the express wagon before they did the errand on which they had been sent.

“I had a letter from Mr. Martin to-day,” said Mr. Bobbsey at the supper table that evening.  “He asked to be remembered to you,” he said to Mrs. Bobbsey.  “And Billy and Nell sent their love to you children.”