e kitchen where Dinah was working.

"Dinah, where is the biggest basket you have?" asked Freddie.

"And I want the next biggest!" exclaimed Flossie.

"Mah goodness, honey lambs! What am all de meanin' ob big baskets?"
asked the colored cook.

"We're going after chestnuts," explained Freddie, "and we want something
to put them in. Here's just the basket I want," and he took a big one,
that Dinah used sometimes when she went to market.

"I'll take this one," said Flossie, as she picked up one in which Sam,
Dinah's husband, used to bring in kindling wood for the fire.

"Well, if yo' honey lambs brings dem baskets home full ob chestnuts yo'
shore will hab a lot," laughed Dinah.

Flossie and Freddie, with their big baskets, went out in the side yard
where Nan and Bert were waiting for them.

"Oh, look at what those children have!" Nan exclaimed. "You two surely
don't expect to fill those baskets with chestnuts; do you?" she asked,
laughing.

"Of course we do," said Freddie, very seriously.

"No, no!" cried Bert. "Those baskets are too big. There aren't that many
chestnuts in the woods, and, if there were, and you filled the baskets
you couldn't carry them home. Get smaller baskets, or do as Nan and I
do--take salt bags. They're easier to carry, and you can stuff them in
your pocket while you're going to the woods."

Flossie and Freddie still thought the big baskets would be best, but
their mother told them to do as Bert said, and finally the four twins
started off down the road, each one carrying a cloth salt bag.

About a mile from the Bobbsey home was a patch of woodland, in which
were a number of chestnut trees.

"Oh, look! There goes Charley Mason!" called Nan to Bert as they were
walking along the road. "I believe he's going chestnutting, too."

"It looks so," returned Bert. "I say, Charley!" he called, "are you
going to the woods?"

"Yes," came the answer.

"Come along with us," cried Bert.

"All right," Charley answered. "I promised to call for Nellie Parks and
her brother George, though."

"We'll stop and get them on our way past their house," said Nan, "and
then we'll all go on together."

"It will be a regular party; won't it?" cried Freddie.

"It surely will," laughed Nan.

"Only we haven't anything to eat," said Flossie.

"We can eat chestnuts," declared Freddie.

"Too many of them, raw, before they are boiled or roasted, aren't good
for you," said Nan. "So be careful."

Charley Mas