y
won't be so likely to drop them," thought Nan, as she crouched down
behind the rain-water barrel.

"Coop!" cried Nan, this being a signal that she was hidden.

"Ready or not we're coming!" shouted Freddie. He and his sister opened
their eyes and began running about, eagerly searching. It was some
little time before they found Nan behind the barrel, and Flossie spied
her first.

"I see you! I see you!" laughed the delighted little girl, and she was
so excited over finding Nan that she never realized she had only a few
steps to carry the basket of eggs.

Flossie covered those few steps safely, and the eggs were put away in
the closet by Aunt Sarah, later to be made into puddings and cakes for
the Bobbsey twins.

"When are we going to the Bolton County Fair?" asked Bert that evening
after supper, when he and Harry were resting after their sport in
catching bullfrogs.

"And I'm going to ride on a lion!" declared Freddie.

"We might go over to the fair to-morrow," said Mr. Bobbsey. "Do you
folks want to go?" he asked his brother and Aunt Sarah.

"I don't believe I'll have time," answered Mr. Bobbsey's brother.

"Nor I," said Aunt Sarah. "I have a lot of cooking to do."

"Then I'm going to stay at home and help you," offered the mother of the
Bobbsey twins.

"Oh, can't we go to the fair?" wailed Flossie and Freddie, almost ready
to cry.

"Of course you may go!" replied Mother Bobbsey. "I was going to say that
daddy could take you children--Harry may go, may he not?" she asked his
mother.

"Oh, yes."

"Hurray!" cried Harry, and Bert and Nan echoed his cry of joy.

So it was arranged that Mr. Bobbsey would take the children to the
Bolton County Fair, there to see the many wonderful things of which they
had dreamed for days and nights.

The Bolton County Fair was one of the largest in that part of the state.
Every year it was held, and farmers from many miles away brought their
largest pumpkins and squashes, and their longest ears of corn, hoping to
win prizes with them. The farmers' wives brought samples of their
needlework, such as bedquilts, lace or embroidery, and samples of their
cooking and preserving. The farm boys and girls made things or raised
something to exhibit at the fair.

Besides this there were new kinds of machinery for the farmers to look
at, such as windmills and plows and electrical appliances to be used on
the farms. Men who raised horses and cattle took their best specimens to
the