Flossie and Freddie looked up at the tall man, who smiled kindly down at them. He seemed to be laughing at something, though whether it was Flossie's flaxen hair, now rather tangled because the monkey had pulled off her hat, or because Freddie looked so funny asking his question, the children could not tell.
"So you want a hat for the little girl?" asked the floorwalker, as the man was called. He walked up and down in the store to see that the clerks waited properly on the customers, and he told strangers where to go.
"Flossie wants a hat," went on Freddie. "The monkey ate the cherries off hers."
"No; he didn't really _eat_ them," Flossie explained, anxious to have everything just right. "He _tried_ to chew 'em, but he didn't like 'em. Anyhow, my hat's gone!"
"What kind of a hat did you want?" asked the store man, not quite sure how to treat the children.
"One with feathers on," suggested Freddie.
"No, I want one with flowers on!" insisted Flossie.
"How much did you want to pay?" asked the man, shaking his head in a puzzled way.
"My father will pay," replied Freddie, "You just send the bill to him--Mr. Richard Bobbsey, of Lakeport. He has a lumber mill and----"
"What seems to be the trouble?" broke in a new voice, and the two children, as well as the floorwalker, turned to see standing near them a stout man, with gray hair, who was smiling kindly at them.
"Oh, Mr. Whipple!" exclaimed the tall man, glad to have some one else to help him. "I don't know what to do about these children. They want a hat for the little girl, and----"
"It's because a monkey ate Flossie's hat!" broke in Freddie. "We're lost. We were on an express train, but we got off and we heard music and please charge it to our father--charge the hat, I mean, not the music, for we didn't pay anything for that. Did we Flossie?"
"No; but I'm not going to have a hat with feathers on. I want one with flowers on, and I wish mamma was here--or Nan--to help pick it out."
"I guess you had better come with me," said the stout man, who, as the children learned afterward was Mr. Daniel Whipple, owner of the big store into which Flossie and Freddie had wandered. "I'll take you up to my office," Mr. Whipple went on, "and you can tell me about yourselves. I'll try to find your folks for you."