at!" answered Bert. "We're going camping!"

"Camping?" cried the two little Bobbsey twins in the same breath.
"Where?" asked Freddie. "When?" asked Flossie.

"It isn't all settled yet," answered Bert. "You know daddy and mother
talked about it when we were in the big city. And to-day, when I was
down at the lumberyard I heard daddy speaking to a man in there about
some of the islands in Lake Metoka. Daddy wanted to know which one was
the best to camp on."

"And did the man say which was a good one?" asked Freddie.

"I didn't hear. But I asked daddy afterward if we were going to camp
this summer, and he said he guessed so, if mother wanted to."

"Does mother want to?" asked Flossie eagerly.

"She says she does," answered Bert. "So I guess we'll go to camp this
summer all right. Isn't that jolly news?"

"Um," said Freddie, not opening his mouth, for in one pocket of his
little jacket he had found a sweet cracker he had forgotten, and he was
now chewing on it, after having given his sister and Helen some.

"Oh, I wish we could go now and take Whisker with us!" cried Flossie.

"If we go we'll take the goat cart!" decided Bert.

"And we'll take our dog Snap, and our cat Snoop, too!" announced
Freddie. "They'll like to go camping."

Mrs. Bobbsey and Nan were anxiously waiting for Bert to come back with
the runaways, and when he came in sight, driving the goat cart, the
children's mother hurried down the back road to meet them.

"Oh, my dears! you shouldn't go away like that!" she called.

"Whisker wanted to go," said Freddie. "And we had a nice ride even if it
was bumpy. And we thought we heard Mollie's doll calling, but it was
Bert."

"Well, don't do it again," said Mrs. Bobbsey. She always said that,
whenever either set of twins did things they ought not to do, and each
time they promised to mind. But the trouble was they hardly ever did the
same thing twice. And as there were so many things to do, Mrs. Bobbsey
could not think of them all, so she could not tell Nan and Bert,
Flossie and Freddie not to do them.

"When are we going camping?" asked Freddie, as he got out of the goat
cart.

"And what island are we going on?" asked Flossie.

"Oh, my! I see you have it all settled so soon!" laughed Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Your father and I have yet to talk it over.

"We'll do that to-night," she went on. "And now you children come in and
get washed, and Dinah will give you something to eat. You must be
hungry."

"W