“Did they go ashore?” asked Nan. “Oh, Mother! if they did we’ll have to stop the ship and go back after them!”
“They didn’t go ashore,” said Bert. “They couldn’t get there, because the gangplank was pulled in while Freddie was standing here by me, getting out his ball of string.”
“Then they’re all right,” Mr. Bobbsey said. “They are on board, and we’ll soon find them. I’ll ask some of the officers or the crew. The twins can’t be lost.”
“Oh, but if they have fallen overboard!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Don’t worry,” said her husband. “We’d have heard of it before this if anything like that had happened. They’re all right.”
And so it proved. A little later Flossie and Freddie came walking along the deck hand in hand. Flossie was carrying her rubber doll, and Freddie had his ball of string, all ready to begin fishing as soon as the ship should get out of New York Harbor.
“Where have you been?” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “You children have given us such a fright! Where were you?”
“We went to look at a poodle dog,” explained Flossie.
“A lady had him in a basket,” added Freddie.
“What do you mean—a poodle dog in a basket?” asked Bert.
Then Freddie explained, while Mr. Bobbsey went to tell the steward, or one of the officers of the ship, that the lost children had come safely back.
The smaller twins had seen one of the passengers with a pet dog in a blue silk-lined basket, and they had followed her around the deck to the other side of the ship, away from their parents, to get a better look at the poodle. It was a pretty and friendly little animal, and the children had been allowed to pat it. So they forgot what their mother had said to them about not going away.
“Well, don’t do it again,” warned Mr. Bobbsey, and Flossie and Freddie said they would not.
By this time the big ship was well on her way down New York Bay toward the Statue of Liberty, which the children looked at with wondering eyes. They took their last view of the tall buildings which cluster in the lower end of the island of Manhattan, and then they felt that they were really well started on their voyage.
“Oh, I hope we have lots of fun in Florida!” said Nan. “I’ve always wanted to go there, always!”
“So have I,” Bert said. “But maybe we won’t stay in Florida long.”
“Why not?” his sister asked.
“Because didn’t father say Cousin Jasper wanted us to take a trip with him?”
“So he did,” replied Nan. “I wonder where he is going.”
“That’s part of the strange news he’s going to tell,” said Bert. “Anyhow we’ll have a good time.”
“And maybe we’ll get shipwrecked!” exclaimed Freddie, who, with his little sister Flossie, was listening to what the older Bobbsey twins were saying.
“Shipwrecked!” cried Bert. “You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Maybe. If we could live on an island like Robinson Crusoe,” Freddie answered, “that would be lots of fun.”
“Yes, but if we had to live on an island without anything to eat and no water to drink, that wouldn’t be so much fun,” said Nan.
“If it was an island there’d be a lot of water all around it—that’s what an island is,” Flossie said. “I learned it in geogogafy at school. An island has water all around it, my geogogafy says.”
“Yes, but at sea the water is salty and you can’t drink it,” Bert said. “I don’t want to be shipwrecked.”
“Well, maybe I don’t want to, either,” said Freddie, after thinking about it a little. “Anyhow we’ll have some fun!”
“Yes,” agreed Bert, “I guess I will.”
“Now I’m going to fish,” remarked Freddie.
“You won’t catch anything,” Bert said.
“Why not?” Freddie wanted to know, as he again took the ball of string from his pocket.
“’Cause we’re not out at sea yet,” Bert replied. “This is only the bay, and fish don’t come up here on account of too many ships that scare ’em away. You’ll have to wait until we get out where the water is colored blue.”
“Do fish like blue water?” asked Flossie.
“I guess so,” answered Bert. “Anyhow, I don’t s’pose you can catch any fish here, Freddie.”
However, the little Bobbsey twin boy had his own idea about that. He had been planning to catch some fish ever since he had heard about the trip to Florida. Freddie had been to the seashore several times, on visits to Ocean Cliff, where Uncle William Minturn lived. But this was the first time the small chap had been on a big ship. He knew that fish were caught in the sea, for he had seen the men come in with boatloads of them at Ocean Cliff. And he had caught fish himself at Blueberry Island. But that, he remembered, was not in the sea.
“Come on, Flossie,” said Freddie, when Bert and Nan had walked away down the deck. “Come on, I’m going to do it.”
“Do what, Freddie?”
“I’m going to catch some fish. I’ve got my string all untangled now.”
“You haven’t any fishhook,” observed the little girl; “and you can’t catch any fish lessen you have a hook.”
“I can make one out of a pin, and I’ve got a pin,” answered Freddie. “I dassen’t ever have a real hook, anyhow, all alone by myself, till I get bigger. But I can catch a fish on a pin-hook.”
He did have a pin fastened to his coat, and this pin he now bent into the shape of a hook and stuck it through a knot in the end of the long, dangling string.
“Where are you going to fish?” asked Flossie. She and her brother were on the deck not far from the two staterooms of the Bobbsey family. Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting in a steamer chair near the door of her room, where she could watch the children.
“I’m going to fish right here,” Freddie said, pointing to the rail at the side of the ship. “I’m going to throw my line over here, with the hook on it, just like I fish off the bridge at home.”
“And I’ll watch you,” said Flossie.
Over the railing Freddie tossed his bent-pin hook and line. He thought it would reach down to the water, but he did not know how large the boat was on which he was sailing to Florida.
His little ball of string unwound as the end of it dropped over the rail, but the hook did not reach the water. Even if it had, Freddie could have caught nothing. In the first place a bent pin is not the right kind of hook, and, in the second place, Freddie had no bait on the hook. Bait is something that covers a hook and makes the fish want to bite on it. Then they are caught. But Freddie did not think of this just now, and his hook had nothing on it. Neither did it reach down to the water, and Freddie didn’t know that.
But, as his string was dangling over the side of the ship there came a sudden tug on it, and the little boy pulled up as hard as he could.
“Oh, I’ve caught a fish! I’ve caught a fish!” he cried. “Flossie, look, I’ve caught a fish!”
Of course Flossie could not see what was on the end of her brother’s line, but it was something! She could easily tell that by the way Freddie was hauling in on the string.
“Oh, what have you got?” cried the little girl.
“I’ve got a big fish!” said Freddie. “I said I’d catch a fish, and I did!”
From somewhere down below came shouts and cries.
“What’s that?” asked Flossie.
“Them’s the people hollering ’cause I caught such a big fish,” answered Freddie. “Look, there it is!”
Something large and black appeared above the edge of the rail.
“Oh! Oh!” cried Flossie.
Mrs. Bobbsey, from where she was sitting in her chair, heard the cries and came running over to the children.
“What are you doing, Freddie?” she asked.
“Catching a fish!” he answered. “I got one and—”
The black thing on the end of his line was pulled over the rail and flapped to the deck. Flossie and Freddie stared at it w
ith wide-open eyes. Then Flossie said:
“Oh, what a funny fish!”
And so it was, for it wasn’t a fish at all, but a woman’s big black hat, with feathers on it. Freddie’s bent-pin hook had caught in the hat which was being worn by a woman standing near the rail on the deck below where the Bobbsey family had their rooms. And Freddie had pulled the hat right off the woman’s head.
“No wonder the lady yelled!” laughed Bert when he came to see what was happening to his smaller brother and sister. “You’re a great fisherman, Freddie.”
“Well, next time I’ll catch a real fish,” declared the little boy.
Bert carried the woman’s hat down to her, and said Freddie was sorry for having caught it in mistake for a fish. The woman laughed heartily and said no harm had been done.
“But I couldn’t imagine what was pulling my hat off my head,” she told her friends. “First I thought it was one of the seagulls.”
Freddie wound up his string, and said he would not fish any more until he could see where his hook went to, and his father told him he had better wait until they got to St. Augustine, where he could fish from the shore and see what he was catching.
From the time they came on board until it was the hour to eat, the Bobbsey twins looked about the ship, seeing something new and wonderful on every side. They hardly wanted to go to bed when night came, but their mother said they must, as they would be about two days on the water, and they would have plenty of time to see everything.
Bert, Freddie and their father had one stateroom and Mrs. Bobbsey and the two girls slept in the other, “next door,” as you might say.
The night passed quietly, the ship steaming along over the ocean, and down the coast to Florida. The next day the four children were up early to see everything there was to see.
They found the ship now well out to sea, and out of sight of land. They were really on the deep ocean at last, and they liked it very much. Bert and Nan found some older children with whom to play, and Flossie and Freddie wandered off by themselves, promising not to go too far from Mrs. Bobbsey, who was on deck in her easy chair, reading.
After a while Flossie came running back to her mother in great excitement.
“Oh, Mother! Oh, Mother!” gasped the little girl. “He’s gone!”
“Who’s gone?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, dropping her book as she quickly stood up.
“Freddie’s gone! We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he went down a big pipe, and now I can’t see him! He’s gone!”
CHAPTER VII
The Shark
Mrs. Bobbsey hardly knew what to do for a moment. She just stood and looked at Flossie as if she had not understood what the little girl had said. Then Freddie’s mother spoke.
“You say he went down a big pipe?” she asked.
“Yes, Mother,” answered Flossie. “We were playing hide-and-go-seek, and it was my turn to blind. I hollered ‘ready or not I’m coming!’ and when I opened my eyes to go to find Freddie, I saw him going down a big, round pipe.”
“What sort of pipe?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey, thinking her little boy might have crawled in some place on deck to hide, and that to Flossie it looked like a pipe.
“It was a pipe sticking up like a smokestack,” Flossie went on, “and it was painted red inside.”
“Oh, you mean a ventilator pipe!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “If Freddie crawled down in one of those he’ll have a dreadful fall! Flossie, call your father!”
Flossie did not exactly know what a ventilator pipe was, but I’ll tell you that it is a big iron thing, like a funnel, that lets fresh air from above down into the boiler room where the firemen have to stay to make steam to push the ship along. But, though Flossie did not quite know what a ventilator pipe was, she knew her mother was much frightened, or she would not have wanted Mr. Bobbsey to come.
Flossie saw her father about halfway down the deck, talking to some other men, and, running up to him, she cried:
“Freddie’s down in a want-you-later pipe!”
“A want-you-later pipe?” repeated Mr. Bobbsey. “What in the world do you mean, Flossie?”
“Well, that’s what mother said,” went on the little girl. “Me and Freddie were playing hide-and-go-seek, and he hid down in a pipe painted red, and mother said it was a want-you-later. And she wants you now!”
“A want-you-later pipe!” exclaimed one of the men. “Oh, she must mean a ventilator. It does sound like that to a little girl.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Flossie. “And please come quick to mother, will you, Daddy?”
Mr. Bobbsey set off on a run toward his wife, and some of the other men followed, one of them taking hold of Flossie’s hand.
“Oh, Dick!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey as her husband reached her, “something dreadful has happened! Freddie is down a ventilator pipe, and I don’t know what to do!”
Neither did Mr. Bobbsey for a moment or two, and as the men came crowding around him, one of them bringing up Flossie, a cry was heard, coming from one of the red-painted pipes not far away. It was not a loud cry, sounding in fact, as if the person calling were down in a cellar.
“Come and get me out! Come and get me out!” the voice begged, and when Flossie heard it she said:
“That’s him! That’s Freddie now. Oh, he’s down in the pipe yet!”
“Which pipe?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
Flossie pointed to a ventilator not far away. Mr. Bobbsey and the men ran toward it, and, as they reached it, they could hear, coming out of the big opening that was shaped somewhat like a funnel, a voice of a little boy, saying:
“Come and get me out! I’m stuck!”
Mr. Bobbsey put his head down inside the pipe and looked around. There he saw Freddie, doubled up into a little ball, trying to get himself loose. Flossie’s brother was, indeed, stuck in the pipe, which was smaller below than it was at the opening—too small, in fact, to let the little boy slip through. So he was in no danger of falling.
“Oh, Freddie! what made you get in there?” asked his father, as he reached in, and, after pulling and tugging a bit, managed to get him out. “What made you do it?”
“I was hiding away from Flossie,” answered the little fellow. “I crawled in the pipe, and then I waited for her to come and find me. She didn’t know where I was.”
“Yes, I did so know where you went,” declared Flossie. “I saw you crawl into the pipe, and I didn’t peek, either. I just opened my eyes and I saw you go into the pipe, and I was scared and I ran and told mother.”
“Well, if you didn’t peek it’s all right,” Freddie said. “It was a good place to hide. I waited and waited for you to come and find me and then I thought you were going to let me come on in home free, and I tried to get out. But I couldn’t—I was stuck.”
“I should say you were!” laughed Mr. Bobbsey. He could laugh now, and so could Mrs. Bobbsey, though, at first, they were very much frightened, thinking Freddie might have been hurt.
“Don’t crawl in there again, little fireman,” said one of the men with whom Mr. Bobbsey had been talking, and who knew the pet name of Flossie’s brother. “This pipe wasn’t big enough to let you fall through, but some of the ventilator pipes might be, and then you’d fall all the way through to the boiler room. Don’t hide in any more pipes on the steamer.”
“I won’t,” Freddie promised, for he had been frightened when he found that he was stuck in the pipe and couldn’t get out. “Come on, Flossie; it’s your turn to hide now,” he said.
“I don’t want to play hide-and-go-seek any more,” the little girl said. “I’d rather play with my doll.”
“If I had my fire engine I’d play fireman,” Freddie said, for he did not care much about a doll.
“How would you like to go down to the engine room with me, and see where you might have fallen if the ventilator pipe hadn’t been too small to let you through?” asked Mr. Bobbsey.
“I’d like it,” Freddie said. “I like engines.”
So h
is father took him away down into the hold, or lower part of the boat, and showed him where the firemen put coal on the fire. There Freddie saw ventilator pipes, like the one he had hid in, reaching from the boiler room up to the deck, so the firemen could breathe cool, fresh air. And there were also pipes like it in the engine room.
Freddie watched the shining wheels go spinning round and he heard the hiss of steam as it turned the big propeller at the back of the ship, and pushed the vessel through the waters of the deep blue sea.
“Now we’ll go up on deck,” said Mr. Bobbsey, when Freddie had seen all he cared to in the engine room. “It’s cooler there.”
Freddie and his father found several women talking to Mrs. Bobbsey, who was telling them what had happened to her little boy, and Bert and Nan were also listening.
“I wonder what Freddie will do next?” said Bert to his older sister. “First he catches a lady’s hat for a fish, and then he nearly gets lost down a big pipe.”
“I hope he doesn’t fall overboard,” returned Nan.
“So do I,” agreed Bert. “And when we get on a smaller ship, if we go on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, we’ll have to look after Flossie and Freddie, or they will surely fall into the water.”
“Are we really, truly going on a voyage with Cousin Jasper, do you think?” Nan asked.
“Well, I heard father and mother talking about it, and they seemed to think maybe we’d take a trip on the ocean,” went on Bert.
“I hope we do!” exclaimed Nan. “I just love the water!”
“So do I!” her brother said. “When I get big I’m going to have a ship of my own.”
“Will you take me for a sail?” asked Nan.
“Course I will!” Bert quickly promised.
The excitement caused by Freddie’s hiding in the ventilator pipe soon passed, and then the Bobbsey family and the other passengers on the ship enjoyed the fine sail. The weather was clear and the sea was not rough, so nearly every one was out on deck.
“I wonder if we’ll see any shipwrecks,” remarked Bert a little later, as the four Bobbsey twins were sitting in a shady place not far from Mrs. Bobbsey, who was reading her book. She had told the children to keep within her sight.
The Bobbsey Twins Megapack Page 124