of the twins, as you have already learned.

The Bobbsey family lived in an eastern city called Lakeport, at the head
of Lake Metoka. Mr. Bobbsey was in the lumber business and had an office
near his lumberyard, which was "down town" as the children called it.

Now I'll tell you just a little about the four children, their friends
and something about the other books, and then I'll get on with the
story, which I hope you will wish to read.

There were two sets of twins, you see. Bert and Nan were the older. They
each had dark brown hair, brown eyes and were rather tall for their age,
and not so very fat; though, of late, with all the good times they had
had in the country at Blueberry Island and on the deep, blue sea, the
older twins were getting stouter. "Fatter," Freddie called it.

Flossie and Freddie were just the opposite of Bert and Nan. The smaller
pair of twins were short and stout, and each had light hair, and blue
eyes that looked at you, sometimes, in the funniest way you can imagine.

Besides Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey there was Dinah, the fat, good-natured
colored cook, who knew how to make more kinds of cake than you could eat
in one day. And then there was Sam Johnson, her husband. Sam worked
about the Bobbsey house and barn, looked after the horse and sometimes
drove the automobile, though he said he liked a horse better. But the
Bobbsey family liked the automobile, so the horse was used down in the
lumberyard more often than to take Bert, Nan, Flossie and Freddie for a
ride.

The Bobbsey twins had many friends and relations, but I will not take up