on crossed the street to join the Bobbsey twins, and a little
later they reached the house where Nellie Parks and her brother lived.
These two were on the steps waiting.

"Oh, hello, Nan!" cried Nellie. "I didn't expect to see you. Charley
said he'd stop for us, but I'm glad you did, too. The Bobbseys are going
with us, Mother," Nellie called back to her mother who was looking out
of a window.

"It's a regular chestnutting party," said Flossie.

"Only we haven't anything to eat," added Freddie, and all the others
laughed.

"That's so!" exclaimed Nellie's brother George, who was older than any
of the others. "It isn't much of a party, even to go after chestnuts,
unless you have something to eat. Wait a minute."

He hurried back into the house, and soon came out with a pasteboard box.

"What's in there?" asked his sister.

"Lunch for the chestnutting party," George answered. "Now you won't have
to worry, Flossie and Freddie."

"That's nice!" said the two little twins in a chorus.

Together the children walked down the street, past Mr. Bobbsey's lumber
yard, and then they were out in a part of the city where there were very
few houses. It was almost like the country. A little later they came to
the woods. The woods were on both sides of a broad road, and before the
children reached the clump of trees they could see other boys and girls
scurrying around, poking in among the leaves on the ground to get the
nuts which had fallen down when the frost cracked open the burrs.

"I hope they'll leave some for us," said Nellie Parks.

"Oh, I guess there will be plenty," returned her brother.

The Bobbsey twins and their friends hurried into the woods. Flossie and
Freddie were the first to begin poking among the leaves with sticks
which they picked up.

"Have you found any nuts yet?" asked Freddie, after a minute or two.

"Oh yes, I've got one!" cried Flossie. "I've got two--three--a whole
lot," and she showed some brown things in her fat little hand.

"Let's see," called Bert, and when Flossie held them out to him he
laughed and said:

"Those aren't chestnuts. They are acorns. You have been looking under an
oak tree, Flossie. You must look under a chestnut tree."

"Aren't these all chestnut trees?" asked Freddie.

"Oh, no," replied Bert, whose father had told him something of the
different kinds of trees, from which lumber is made. "There are oak,
hickory, maple and elm trees in these woods. Here, I'll show you