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THE BOBBSEYS AND OTHERS WERE ROWED TO THE SHORE.]
THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA
BY
LAURA LEE HOPE
AUTHOR OF "THE BOBBSEY TWINS," "THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES," "THE OUTDOORGIRLS SERIES," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1918, by Grosset & Dunlap
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER I--ON THE RAFT CHAPTER II--TO THE RESCUE CHAPTER III--STRANGE NEWS CHAPTER IV--GETTING READY CHAPTER V--OFF FOR FLORIDA CHAPTER VI--IN A PIPE CHAPTER VII--THE SHARK CHAPTER VIII--THE FIGHT IN THE BOAT CHAPTER IX--IN ST. AUGUSTINE CHAPTER X--COUSIN JASPER'S STORY CHAPTER XI--THE MOTOR BOAT CHAPTER XII--THE DEEP BLUE SEA CHAPTER XIII--FLOSSIE'S DOLL CHAPTER XIV--FREDDIE'S FISH CHAPTER XV--"LAND HO!" CHAPTER XVI--UNDER THE PALMS CHAPTER XVII--A QUEER NEST CHAPTER XVIII--THE "SWALLOW" IS GONE CHAPTER XIX--AWAY AGAIN CHAPTER XX--ORANGE ISLAND CHAPTER XXI--LOOKING FOR JACK CHAPTER XXII--FOUND AT LAST
CHAPTER I
ON THE RAFT
"Flossie! Flossie! Look at me! I'm having a steamboat ride! Oh, look!"
"I am looking, Freddie Bobbsey!"
"No, you're not! You're playing with your doll! Look at me splash,Flossie!"
A little boy with blue eyes and light, curling hair was standing on araft in the middle of a shallow pond of water left in a green meadowafter a heavy rain. In his hand he held a long pole with which he wasbeating the water, making a shower of drops that sparkled in the sun.
On the shore of the pond, not far away, and sitting under an apple tree,was a little girl with the same sort of light hair and blue eyes asthose which made the little boy such a pretty picture. Both childrenwere fat and chubby, and you would have needed but one look to tell thatthey were twins.
"Now I'm going to sail away across the ocean!" cried Freddie Bobbsey,the little boy on the raft, which he and his sister Flossie had madethat morning by piling a lot of old boards and fence rails together."Don't you want to sail across the ocean, Flossie?"
"I'm afraid I'll fall off!" answered Flossie, who was holding her dolloff at arm's length to see how pretty her new blue dress looked. "Imight fall in the water and get my feet wet."
"Take off your shoes and stockings like I did, Flossie," said the littleboy.
"Is it very deep?" Flossie wanted to know, as she laid aside her doll.After all she could play with her doll any day, but it was not alwaysthat she could have a ride on a raft with Freddie.
"No," answered the little blue-eyed boy. "It isn't deep at all. That is,I don't guess it is, but I didn't fall in yet."
"I don't want to fall in," said Flossie.
"Well, I won't let you," promised her brother, though how he was goingto manage that he did not say. "I'll come back and get you on thesteamboat," he went on, "and then I'll give you a ride all across theocean," and he began pushing the raft, which he pretended was asteamboat, back toward the shore where his sister sat.
Flossie was now taking off her shoes and stockings, which Freddie haddone before he got on the raft; and it was a good thing, too, for thewater splashed up over it as far as his ankles, and his shoes wouldsurely have been wet had he kept them on.
"Whoa, there! Stop!" cried Flossie, as she came down to the edge of thepond, after having placed her doll, in its new blue dress, safely in theshade under a big burdock plant. "Whoa, there, steamboat! Whoa!"
"You mustn't say 'whoa' to a boat!" objected Freddie, as he pushed theraft close to the bank, so his sister could get on. "You only say 'whoa'to a horse or a pony."
"Can't you say it to a goat?" demanded Flossie.
"Yes, maybe you could say it to a goat," Freddie agreed, after thinkingabout it for a little while. "But you can't say it to a boat."
"Well, I wanted you to stop, so you wouldn't bump into the shore," saidthe little girl. "That's why I said 'whoa.'"
"But you mustn't say it to a boat, and this raft is the same as a boat,"insisted Freddie.
"What must I say, then, when I want it to stop?"
Freddie thought about this for a moment or two while he paddled his barefoot in the water. Then he said:
"Well, you could say 'Halt!' maybe."
"Pooh! 'Halt' is what you say to soldiers," declared Flossie. "We saidthat when we had a snow fort, and played have a snowball fight in thewinter. 'Halt' is only for soldiers."
"Oh, well, come on and have a ride," went on Freddie. "I forget what yousay when you want a boat to stop."
"Oh, I know!" cried Flossie, clapping her hands.
"What?"
"You just blow a whistle. You don't say anything. You just go 'Toot!Toot!' and the boat stops."
"All right," agreed Freddie, glad that this part was settled. "When youwant this boat to stop, you just whistle."
"I will," said Flossie. Then she stepped on the edge of the raft nearestthe shore. The boards and rails tilted to one side. "Oh! Oh!" screamedthe little girl. "It's sinking!"
"No it isn't," Freddie said. "It always does that when you first get on.Come on out in the middle and it will be all right."
"But it feels so--so funny on my toes!" said Flossie, with a littleshiver. "It's tickly like."
"That's the way it was with me at first," Freddie answered. "But I likeit now."
Flossie wiggled her little pink toes in the water that washed up overthe top of the raft, and then she said:
"Well, I--I guess I like it too, now. But it felt sort of--sortof--squiggily at first."
"Squiggily" was a word Flossie and Freddie sometimes used when theydidn't know else to say.
The little girl moved over to the middle of the raft and Freddie beganto push it out from shore. The rain-water pond was quite a large one,and was deep in places, but the children did not know this. When theywere both in the center of the raft the water came only a little wayover their feet. Indeed there were so many boards, planks and rails inthe make-believe steamboat that it would easily have held more than thetwo smaller Bobbsey twins. For there was a double set of twins, as Ishall very soon tell you.
"Isn't this nice?" asked Freddie, as he pushed the pretend boat fartherout toward the middle of the pond.
"Awful nice--I like it," said Flossie. "I'm glad I helped you make thisraft."
"It's a steamboat," said Freddie. "It isn't a raft."
"Well, steamboat, then," agreed Flossie. Then she suddenly went:
"Toot! Toot!"
"Here! what you blowin' the whistle now for?" asked Freddie. "We don'twant to stop here, right in the middle of the ocean."
"I--I was only just trying my whistle to see if it would toot,"explained the little girl. "I don't want to stop now."
Flossie walked around the middle of the raft, making the water splashwith her bare feet, and Freddie kept on pushing it farther and fartherfrom shore. Yet Flossie was not afraid. Perhaps she felt that Freddiewould take care of her.
The little Bobbsey twins were having lots of fun, pretending they wereon a steamboat, when they heard some one shouting to them from theshore.
"Hi there! Come and get us!" someone was calling to them.
"Who is it?" asked Freddie.
"It's Bert; and Nan is with him," answered Flossie, as she saw a largerboy and girl standing on the bank, near the tree under which she hadleft her doll. "I guess they want a ride. Is the raft big enough forthem too, Freddie?"
&n
bsp; "Yes, I guess so," he answered. "You stop the steamboat, Flossie--andstop calling it a raft--and I'll go back and get them. We'll pretendthey're passengers. Stop the boat!"
"How can I stop the boat?" the little girl demanded.
"Toot the whistle! Toot the whistle!" answered her brother. "Don't you'member, Flossie Bobbsey?"
"Oh," said Flossie. Then she went on:
"Toot! Toot!"
"Toot! Toot!" answered Freddie. He began pushing the other way on thepole and the raft started back toward the shore they had left.
"What are you doing?" asked Bert Bobbsey, as the mass of boards andrails came closer to him. "What are you two playing?"
"Steamboat," Freddie answered. "If you want us to stop for you, why,you've got to toot."
"Toot what?" asked Bert.
"Toot your whistle," Freddie replied. "This is a regular steamboat. Tootif you want me to stop."
He kept on pushing with the pole until Bert, with a laugh, made thetooting sound as Flossie had done. Then Freddie let the raft stop nearhis older brother and sister.
"Oh, Bert!" exclaimed Nan Bobbsey, "are you going to get on?"
"Sure I am," he answered, as he began taking off his shoes andstockings. "It's big enough for the four of us. Where'd you get it,Freddie?"
"It was partly made--I guess some of the boys from town must havestarted it. Flossie and I put more boards and rails on it, and we'rehaving a ride."
"I should say you were!" laughed Nan.
"Come on," said Bert to his older sister, as he tossed his shoes over towhere Flossie's and Freddie's were set on a flat stone. "I'll help youpush, Freddie."
Nan, who, like Bert, had dark hair and brown eyes, began to take off hershoes and stockings, and soon all four of them were on the raft--orsteamboat, as Freddie called it.
Now you have met the two sets of the Bobbsey twins--two pairs of them asit were. Flossie and Freddie, the light-haired and blue-eyed ones, werethe younger set, and Bert and Nan, whose hair was a dark brown, matchingtheir eyes, were the older.
"This is a dandy raft--I mean steamboat," said Bert, quickly changingthe word as he saw Freddie looking at him. "It holds the four of useasy."
Indeed the mass of boards, planks and rails from the fence did not sinkvery deep in the water even with all the Bobbsey twins on it. Of course,if they had worn shoes and stockings they would have been wet, for nowthe water came up over the ankles of all of them. But it was a warmsummer day, and going barefoot especially while wading in the pond, wasfun.
Bert and Freddie pushed the raft about with long poles, and Flossie andNan stood together in the middle watching the boys and making believethey were passengers taking a voyage across the ocean.
Back and forth across the pond went the raft-steamboat when, all of asudden, it stopped with a jerk in the middle of the stretch of water.
"Oh!" cried Flossie, catching hold of Nan to keep herself from falling."Oh, what's the matter?"
"Are we sinking?" asked Nan.
"No, we're only stuck in the mud," Bert answered. "You just stay there,Flossie and Nan, and you, too, Freddie, and I'll jump off and push theboat out of the mud. It's just stuck, that's all."
"Oh, don't jump in--it's deep!" cried Nan.
But she was too late. Bert, quickly rolling his trousers up as far asthey would go, had leaped off the raft, making a big splash of water.