“Oh, Helen! how glad I am to have you back!” cried Mrs. Porter.  “How did you get away from the gypsies?  Or did they really have you?”

The little girl stopped crying, and all about her the men, women and children waited anxiously to hear what she would say.

“Did the gypsies take you away?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.

“No, the gypsies didn’t get me,” said Helen, her voice now and then broken by sobs.  “But they took Mollie!”

“Took Mollie!” cried Mr. Bobbsey.  “Do you mean to say they really did take a little girl away?”

“They ­they took Mollie!” half-sobbed Helen, “and I ­I tried to get her back, but I couldn’t run fast enough and ­and ­”

“Well, if they really have Mollie,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “we must get right after them and ­”

“Mollie is the name of Helen’s big doll ­almost as large as she is,” explained Mrs. Porter, who was now smiling through her tears.  “Mollie isn’t a little girl, though probably there are several in Lakeport named that.  But the Mollie whom Helen means is a doll.”

“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “But did the gypsies really take your doll, Helen?”

“Yes, they did,” answered the little girl.  “A bad gypsy man took her away.  I was playing with Mollie in Grace Lavine’s yard, and Grace and Mary went into the house to get some cookies.  I stayed out in the yard with my doll, ’cause I wanted her to get tanned nice and brown.  I laid her down in a sunny place, and I went over under a tree to set the tea table, and when I looked around I saw the gypsy man.”

“Where was he?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.

“He was just getting out of one of the red wagons.  And there was a little gypsy girl in the wagon.  She was pointing to my doll, and then the man jumped down off the wagon steps, ran into the yard, picked up my doll, and then he jumped into the wagon again and rode away.  And he’s got my nice doll Mollie, and I want her back, and ­oh, dear!” and Helen began to cry again.

“Never mind,” said Mr. Bobbsey quietly.  “I’ll try to get your doll back again.  How large was it?”

“Nearly as large as Helen herself,” said Mrs. Porter.  “I didn’t want her to play with it to-day but she took it.”

“Yes, but now the gypsy man with rings in his ears ­he took it,” explained Helen.  “He carried my doll off in his arms.”

“Then it must have been the doll which Johnnie saw the gypsy man carrying, and not Helen!” exclaimed Bert.  “Did it look like a doll, Johnnie?”

“Well, it might have been.  It had light hair like Helen’s, though.”

“Helen’s doll had light hair,” said Mrs. Porter.  “And probably if a gypsy put the doll under his arm, and ran past any one it would look as though he were carrying off a little girl.  Especially as the doll really had on a dress Helen used to wear when she was a baby.”

“That is probably what happened,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “The gypsy man’s little girl saw, from the wagon, the doll lying in the Lavine yard.  Gypsies are not as careful about taking what does not belong to them as they might be.  They often steal things, I’m afraid.  And, seeing the big doll lying under the tree ­”

“Where I put her so she’d get tanned nice and brown,” interrupted Helen.

“Just so,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey.  “Seeing the doll under the tree, with no one near, the gypsy man made up his mind to take her for his little girl.  This he did, and when he ran off with Mollie, Johnnie saw what happened and thought Helen was being kidnapped.

“But I’m glad that wasn’t so, though it’s too bad Mollie has been taken away.  However, we’ll try to get her back for you, Helen.  Maybe the gypsies took other things.  If they did we’ll send the police after them.  Now don’t cry any more and I’ll see what I can do.”

“And will you get Mollie back?”

“I’ll do my best,” promised the Bobbsey twins’ father.

There being nothing more he could do just then at the Porter home, Mr. Bobbsey went back to his own family, and told his wife, Flossie, Freddie and Nan what had happened.

“Oh, I’m so glad Helen is all right,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.

“But it’s too bad about her doll,” sighed Nan.  She had a doll of her own ­a fine one ­and she knew how she would feel if that had been taken.

“Helen’s doll could talk,” said Flossie.  “I know, ’cause she let me make it talk one day.  You wind up a winder thing in her back, and then you push on a shoe button thing in her front and she says ‘Mamma’ and ‘Papa’ and other things.”

“Yes, that’s right,” said Nan.  “Mollie is a talking doll.  I guess she has a little phonograph inside her.  Maybe that’s the noise Johnnie heard when the gypsy man carried the doll past him, and Johnnie thought it was Helen crying.”

“I guess that was it,” agreed Mr. Bobbsey.

“Well, it’s too bad to lose a big talking doll.  I must see what I can do to help get it back.  I’ll call up the chief of police.”

“It would be worse to lose your toy fire engine,” declared Freddie.

“Why, Freddie Bobbsey!” exclaimed his little sister, “nothing could be worse than to lose your very best doll ­your very own child!”

Mr. Bobbsey, being one of the most prominent business men in the town, had considerable business at times with the police and the fire departments, and the officers would do almost anything to help him or his friends.

So, after supper ­at which Dinah had served the pudding with the shaved-up maple sugar over the top, Flossie and Freddie each having had two helpings ­Mr. Bobbsey called up the police station and asked if anything more had been heard of the gypsies.

“Well, yes, we did hear something of them,” answered Chief Branford, over the telephone wire.  “They’ve gone into camp, where they always do, on the western shore of the lake, and as I’ve had several reports of small things having been stolen around town, I’m going to send on officer out there to the gypsy camp, and have him see what he can find.  You say they took your little girl’s doll?”

“No, not my little girl’s,” answered Mr. Bobbsey, “but the talking doll belonging to a friend of hers.”

“Her name is Molly, Daddy,” said Flossie, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, was listening to her father talk over the telephone.  “I mean the doll’s name is Mollie, not Helen’s name.”

“I understand,” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh, and he told the chief the name of the doll and also the name of the little girl who owned it.

“Well, what is to be done?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, as her husband hung up the receiver.

“I think I’ll go with the policeman and see what I can find out about the gypsies,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “If they are going to take things that do not belong to them they may pay a visit to my lumberyard, if they have not done so already.  I think I’ll go out to the gypsy camp.”

“Oh, let me come!” begged Bert, always ready for an adventure.

“I wouldn’t go ­not at night, anyhow,” remarked Nan.

“Nor I,” added Freddie, while Flossie crept up into her mother’s lap.

“Oh, I’m not going until morning,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “Then I’ll take you, Bert, if you’d like to go.  We’ll see if we can find Helen’s big, talking doll.”

“She must feel bad at losing it,” said Nan.

“She does,” said Bert.  “Though how any one can get to like a doll, with such stupid eyes as they have, I can’t see.”

“They’re as good as nasty old knives that cut you, and kite strings that are always getting tangled,” said Nan with a laugh.

“Yes, I guess we like different things,” agreed her brother.  “Well, I’m glad it wasn’t Flossie or Freddie the gypsies took away with them.”

“I wouldn’t go!” declared Freddie.  “And if they took Flossie, I’d get my fire engine and squirt water on those men with rings in their ears till they let my sister go!”

“That’s my little fat fireman!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey.  “But now I think you’re getting sleepy.  Your row on the lake made the sandman come around earlier than usual I guess.  Off to bed with you.”

Flossie and Freddie went to bed earlier than Nan and Bert, who were allowed to sit up a little later.  There was much talk about the gypsies, and what they might have taken, and Nan and Bert were getting ready for bed when a pattering of bare feet was heard on the stairs, and a voice called: 

“Where’s Snoop?”

“Why, it’s Flossie and Freddie!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, as she saw the two small twins.  “Why are you out of bed?” she asked.

“Freddie thought maybe the gypsies would take our cat Snoop,” explained Flossie, “so we got up to tell you to bring him in.”

“And bring in Snap, our dog,” added Freddie.  “The gypsies might take him, ’cause he does tricks and was once in a circus.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey.  “Get back to bed before you take cold.”

“But you won’t let the gypsies take them, will you?” asked Flossie anxiously.

“No, indeed!” promised her mother.  “Snoop is safely curled up in his basket, and I guess Snap wouldn’t let a gypsy come near him.”

But Flossie and Freddie were not satisfied until they had looked and had seen the big black cat cosily asleep, and had heard Snap bark outside when Bert called to him from a window.

“The gypsies won’t take your pets,” their father told the small twins, and then, hand in hand, they went upstairs again to bed.