The Bobbsey twins ­all four of them ­stood in a circle about their mother, looking eagerly at her and at the postal card which Nan had handed to her.  Freddie and Flossie were smiling expectantly while Nan and Bert looked as though they were not quite sure whether or not it was a joke.

“Is it really a goat, Mother?” asked Bert.

“Well, that’s what this postal says,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey.  “A goat and cart have arrived at the express office, and your father is asked to come to get them and take them away.”

“Course he’s got to take ’em away,” said Freddie.  “The goat’ll be hungry there, for he can’t get anything to eat.”

“And he might butt somebody with his horns,” added Flossie.

“Daddy wouldn’t buy a butting goat,” Freddie declared.  “Anyhow, let’s go and get him.  I want to have a ride.”

“If there really is a goat outfit at the express office for us,” said Bert, “we’d better get it I think.  I’ll take the postal down to the lumberyard office and ask daddy ­”

“I’m going with you!” cried Freddie.

“I’m comin’, too!” added Flossie.

“Suppose you all go,” suggested Mrs. Bobbsey.  “Your father will tell you what to do, for I’m sure I don’t know what to say.  I never had a goat.  Four twins, a dog and a cat are about all I can manage,” she said laughingly, as fat Dinah came waddling into the room to ask what to order from the grocery.

“A goat!  Good lan’ ob massy!” exclaimed the colored cook.  “Dere suah will be trouble if de honey lambs takes t’ playin’ wif goats!  Um!  Um!  Um!  A goat!  Oh, landy!”

“I know how to drive a goat!” declared Freddie.  “Mike, the red-haired boy in New York, showed me.  Flossie and I had a ride in his wagon for two cents apiece.  It was fun, wasn’t it, Flossie?”

“Yep.  I liked it.  We had lots of fun in New York.  Freddie rode on a mud turtle’s back and we had bugs that went around and around and around.”

“Maybe the goat will go around and around and around,” said Nan, half laughing.

“Well, hurry down to your father’s office with the postal,” advised Mrs. Bobbsey.  “He’ll know what to do.”

And when the four excited Bobbsey twins ­for even Bert was excited over the chance of owning a goat ­reached their father’s office he told them all about it.

“You remember,” he said, “that when Freddie and Flossie ‘almost’ bought the goat in New York I promised that if I could find a good one for sale, with a harness and wagon I’d buy it for you this summer.  Well, I heard of one the other day, and I got it, having it sent on here by express.  Now we’ll go down and see what it looks like.”

“It’s going to be my goat ­Flossie’s and mine, isn’t it?” asked Freddie, as they started for the express office down near the railroad station.

“No more yours than it will be Nan’s and Bert’s, my little fat fireman,” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh.  “You must all be kind to the goat and take turns riding in the wagon.”

“Can’t we all ride at once?” asked Nan.

“Well I don’t know how large the wagon is,” answered Mr. Bobbsey, as he started from his lumberyard for the express office with the children.  “Maybe you can all get in at once if the goat is strong enough to pull you.”

“I hope he’s a big goat,” said Freddie.  “Then me and Bert will drive him and ride you and Flossie, Nan.”

“Don’t let him run away with me, that’s all I ask!” begged Nan, laughing.

They found the goat in a crate on the express platform.  Near him was a good-sized wagon, like those the children had seen in Central Park when on their visit to New York.

“Oh, we can all get in it!” cried Freddie, as he ran from the wagon over to where the goat was bleating in his crate.  The animal was a large white one, and he seemed gentle when Flossie and Freddie put their hands in through the slats of the crate and patted him.

“I think he’d like to get out where he can walk around and have something to eat and drink,” said Mr. Bobbsey.  “We must take him out of his crate.”

This was soon done with the help of the express agent, and, when the last piece of wood was taken off, the goat stepped out of his crate in which he had traveled from a distant city, and gave a loud,

“Baa-a-a-a-a!”

Then he stamped his forefeet on the platform, and shook his head, on which were two horns.

“Oh, look out!  He’ll run away!” cried Freddie, who was afraid of losing his goat before there was a chance for a ride.

But the goat seemed tame, kind and gentle, and after walking about a little, stood still beside the crate and let the children pat him, while Mr. Bobbsey paid the express agent.

There was a piece of paper pasted on the crate in which the goat had traveled.  One end of the paper was flapping loose, and, seeing it, the white animal nibbled at it, and finally ate it, chewing it up as though he liked it; as indeed he did, not so much for the paper as for the dried paste by which it had been stuck on.

“Oh, look!” cried Nan.  “The goat’s eating the label off his crate so we can’t send him back.  He likes us, I guess.”

“We like him, anyhow,” said Freddie, laughing and patting the billy.  “Come on, Bert.  Hitch him up and give us a ride.”

“Shall I?” asked Bert of his father.

“Why, yes, I guess so.  Might as well start now as any time.  The man I bought him from said he was kind and gentle and liked children.  Harness him up, Bert.”

A complete harness had come with the goat and wagon, and when the white animal had been given a drink of water and fed some grass which Flossie and Freddie pulled for him, Bert, helped by his father and the express agent, put the harness on.

“What are we going to call him?” asked Nan.  “We’ll have to have a name for our goat.  We don’t want to call him ‘it,’ or ‘Billy.’”

“Name him Whisker,” said Bert.  “See, he has whiskers just like an old man.”

“Oh, that’s a nice, funny name!” laughed Flossie, and Freddie thought so too.  So the goat was named Whisker, and he seemed to like that as well as any.  What he had been called before they got him, the children did not know.

Whisker did not seem to mind being hitched to the wagon, and when Mr. Bobbsey had made sure that all the straps were well fastened, Bert took the front seat, with Nan beside him, while Flossie and Freddie sat in the back.  They set off, Mr. Bobbsey walking beside the goat to make sure he did not run away.

But Whisker seemed to be a very good goat indeed, and went along nicely, and so slowly and carefully that Freddie, several times, begged to be allowed to drive.

“I will let you after a while,” promised Bert.  “Let me get used to him first.”

When the Bobbsey twins came riding down their street in the goat wagon you can imagine how surprised all the other children were.  They gathered in front of the house and rushed into the yard when Bert turned Whisker up the driveway.

“Oh, give us a ride!  Give us a ride!” cried the playmates of the Bobbsey twins.

“Yes, I’ll give you all rides,” promised Bert good-naturedly.

Then began a jolly time for the Bobbsey twins and their friends.  Whisker did not seem to mind how many children he hauled around the smooth level yard at the side of the house, and sometimes the wagon was as full as it could hold.  Nor did the goat try to butt any one with his horns, letting the boys and girls pet him as much as they pleased.

“He’s almost as nice as my doll the gypsies took,” said Helen Porter, after she had had a ride.  “I like Whisker.”

“Did you find your doll?” asked Flossie.

“No.  I can’t find Mollie anywhere.  I just know she’s been turned into a gypsy.  Oh, dear!”

“Flossie and I’ll help you find her,” promised Freddie once again.  “Some day I’m going to drive the goat all alone, and I’ll give you and Flossie a long ride, Helen.  Then we’ll go off and find your doll.”

“That’ll be nice,” said Helen.

The Bobbsey twins never knew how many friends they had until they got the goat wagon.  For a time Snoop and Snap were forgotten, because there was so much fun to be had with Whisker.  Bert gave many rides to his little sister and brother and to their playmates, and in a few days Freddie was allowed to drive the goat, so gentle was the white animal.

One day, soon after Bert had hitched Whisker to the wagon, and was going to give his two sisters and brother a ride, a telephone message came from Mr. Bobbsey, asking Bert to come to the lumber office to get something Mr. Bobbsey had to send home to his wife.

“I’ll give you a ride when I come back,” promised Bert, hurrying down the street.

“We’ll leave Whisker hitched up,” said Nan.  “I’ll go in and finish sewing up that hole in my stocking I was mending.”

“And I’ll stay out here in the goat wagon,” said Freddie, while Flossie nodded her head to say she would do the same thing.

A little later, and before Bert had come back from his father’s office, Helen Porter came walking past the Bobbsey house.  Looking in the yard, she saw Flossie and Freddie seated in the goat wagon.

“Come on in,” invited Flossie.  “We’re having a make-believe ride, and you can ride too.  Can’t she, Freddie?”

“Yep.  An’ I’m going to drive ­make-believe.  Come on, Helen.  When Bert comes I’ll ask him to take us to help find the gypsies and get back your doll.”

Helen hurried in and took her place in the wagon, and the three children had lots of fun pretending they were going on a long trip.  They did not really go, for the goat was tied to a post.

“I wish Bert would hurry back,” said Flossie, after a bit.  “I’m tired of staying in one place so long.”

“So’m I,” said Freddie.  Then he got out of the wagon and began loosening the strap by which the goat was fastened to the post.

“What’re you doing?” Flossie asked.

“I ­I just want to see what Whisker’ll do,” answered the little boy.  “Maybe he’s tired of standing still.”

Indeed, the goat seemed to be, for no sooner had Freddie got into the wagon again than off Whisker started, walking slowly toward the back of the yard, where there was a gate to a rear street which led to the woods.

“Whoa!” cried Freddie, but he did not say it very loudly.  “Whoa, Whisker!  Where you going?”

“Oh, he’s runnin’ away!” cried Helen.  “Let me out!  He’s runnin’ away!”

“No, he’s only walking,” said Freddie.  “It’s all right.  As long as he walks, you won’t get hurt.  I guess I’d better drive him, though.”

“Can’t you stop him?” asked Flossie.  “Bert won’t like it to have us take him away.”

“We aren’t taking him away; he’s taking us away,” said Freddie.  “I can’t make him stop.  Look!” Again he called:  “Whoa!” but the goat did not obey.

On and on went Whisker, slowly at first, then walking a little faster and pulling after him the wagon with the children in it.

“Oh, he’s going to the woods!” cried Flossie, as she saw the goat heading for the patch of trees at the end of the back street.  “Stop him, Freddie!”

“Maybe he wants to go there,” said Freddie.  “He won’t stop for me.”

“But it ­it’s such a bumpy road,” said Helen, the words being fairly jarred out of her.  “It’s all ­all bu-bu-bumps and hu-hu-humps.”

“That’s ’cause we’re in the woods,” said Freddie, for by this time the goat had drawn the wagon into the shade of the woods, not far from the Bobbsey home.  It was indeed a bumpy place, Whisker pulling the children over tree roots and bits of broken wood.  But the wagon was stout, and the goat was strong.  Then, suddenly, Freddie had an idea.

“Oh, Helen!” he cried, “I guess Whisker is taking us to find your lost doll!”