“I hope you didn’t get wet!” exclaimed Nan.  “If you did——­”

“Well, I have on a dirty waist, so it won’t hurt me any if I am wet,” said Freddie calmly.  “I want to swing like that, Bert,” he added.  “Give me a swing!”

“After I’ve had my turn I’ll give you and Flossie each one,” promised Nan.  “Watch me, Bert!” she called.

Off the mow swung Nan, clinging to the swaying rope with both hands.

“Come on—­let’s both let go together and see who falls into the hay first!” proposed Bert.

“All right!” agreed Nan.

“One, two, three!” cried Bert.  “Ready!  Let go!”

He and Nan let go of the ropes at the same time.  Together they dropped down to the hay—­and then something happened!  The two older Bobbsey children jumped too near the edge of the mow, where the hay was piled in a big roll, like a great feather bed bolster, over the top rail.  And Bert and Nan, in their drop, caused a big pile of hay—­almost a wagonload—­to slip from the mow and down to the barn floor.  And directly underneath were Flossie and Freddie!

Down on the two little twins fell Bert and Nan and the big pile of dried grass, and, in an instant, the two golden heads were buried out of sight on the barn floor in a large heap of hay.

CHAPTER II

DIGGING OUT

“Oh, Bert Bobbsey! look what you did,” cried Nan.

She picked herself up from the barn floor, to which she had slid after having come down with the pile of hay, with her brother, right where Flossie and Freddie had been playing a moment before.

“Look what you did!” she cried again.

“I didn’t do it any more than you did!” exclaimed Bert.  “But where is Flossie?  And where’s Freddie?” He looked around, not seeing the smaller twins, and not having noticed exactly what had happened to them.  “Where are they, Nan?”

“Under the hay, and we’ve got to dig ’em out!  I’ll get the pitchfork.  That’s what Sam does when he gets the hay to feed the horse.  I can dig out Flossie and Freddie!” cried Nan,

She started to run across the barn floor, but was stopped by a call from Bert.

“Don’t do that!” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“Don’t get the pitchfork!  It’s sharp and might hurt Flossie and Freddie.  I’ll pull the hay off with my hands.  You go and tell mother or Dinah!  Somebody’s got to help!  There’s ’most a whole load of hay on ’em I guess!”

And indeed it was a large part of the pile of hay in the Bobbsey barn that had slid from the mow when Bert jumped on it.  And this hay now covered from sight the “little fireman” and the “little fat fairy,” as Daddy Bobbsey called his two little twins.

“Yes, I’ll go for Dinah!” cried Nan.  “She knows how to dig under the hay, I guess!”

“And I’ll start digging now,” added Bert, as he began tossing aside the wisps of dried grass that covered his small brother and sister from sight.