skates or on the ice-boat. And you can skate all you like when you get
up there."

The next day Freddie was playing quite a game. He had a little toy
village, made of pasteboard houses, and this he had set up in the
playroom. He was pretending that a fire had broken out in one of the
dwellings and he was going to put it out with his toy engine. Of
course there was not even a match on fire, for Mrs. Bobbsey was very
careful about this, but Freddie pretended to his heart's content. He
was allowed to have real water, but Dinah had spread on the floor an
old rubber coat so that the spray would do no harm.

With a great shout Freddie came running out of the "engine house,"
which was a chair turned on its side. He was pulling his toy after
him, racing to the make-believe blaze.

Just then Flossie came into the room with her new walking doll, and,
not seeing her, Freddie ran into and knocked her over.

Flossie sat down quite hard, and for a moment was too surprised to
cry. But a moment later, when she saw Freddie's fire engine run over
her new doll, which cried out "Mamma!" as if in pain, the tears came
into Flossie's eyes.

"Oh, you bad boy!" she exclaimed, forgetting her own pain, at the
sight of her doll, "you've run right over her!"

"I--I couldn't help it!" said Freddie, stopping in his rush to the
fire to pick up his sister's toy. "You got right in my way."