The storm came up more quickly than even the captain or his sailors thought it would. The deep, blue sea, which had been such a pretty color when the sun shone on it, now turned to a dark green shade. The blue sky was covered by black and angry-looking clouds, and the wind seemed to moan as it hummed about the ship.
But the steamer did not stop. On it rushed over the water, with foam in front, at the prow, or bow, and foam at the stern where the big propeller churned away.
“Come, children!” called Mrs. Bobbsey to the twins, as they stood at the rail, looking first up at the gathering clouds and then down at the water, which was now quite rough. “Come! I think we had better go to our cabins.”
“Oh, let us stay up just a little longer,” begged Bert. “I’ve never seen a storm at sea, and I want to.”
“Well, you and Nan may stay up on deck a little longer,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “But you must not go far away from daddy. I don’t want any of you to fall overboard, especially when such big sharks may be in the ocean.”
“Oh, I’m not going to fall overboard!” exclaimed Bert. “Never!”
“Nor I,” added his sister. “I’ll keep tight hold of the rail, and when it gets too rough we’ll come down.”
Mr. Bobbsey and some of the men passengers were still on deck, watching the approach of the storm, and Bert and Nan moved over nearer their father, while Mrs. Bobbsey went below with Flossie and Freddie. The two smaller twins, when they found their older brother and sister were going to stay on deck, also wanted to do this, but their mother said to them:
“No, it is safer for you to be down below with me. It may come on to blow hard at any moment, and then it won’t be so easy to go down the stairs when the ship is standing on its head, or its ear, or whatever way ships stand in a storm.”
“But I want to see the storm!” complained Freddie.
“You’ll see all you want of it, and feel it, too, down in our stateroom, as well as up on deck, and you’ll be much safer,” his mother told him.
The storm came up more and more quickly, and, though it was not yet four o’clock, it was as dark as it usually is at seven, for so many clouds covered the sky. The waves, too, began to get larger and larger and, pretty soon, the steamer, which had been going along smoothly, or with not more than a gentle roll from side to side, began pitching and tossing.
“Oh, my! isn’t it getting dark?” cried Flossie.
“Say, it isn’t time to go to bed yet, is it?” questioned Freddie anxiously.
“Of course not!” answered his twin. “It’s only about the middle of the afternoon, isn’t it, Mother?”
“Just about,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey.
In the meanwhile the others, who were still on deck, were having a decidedly lively time of it.
“Come on, Nan and Bert!” called Mr. Bobbsey, to the older twins. “Better get below while you have the chance. It’s getting too rough for children up here.”
“Are you coming too, Daddy?” asked Nan.
“Yes, I’ll go down with you. In fact, I think every one is going below except the sailors.”
This was so, for the mate was going about telling the passengers still on deck that it would be best for them to get to the shelter of the cabins and staterooms.
Nan and Bert started to walk across the deck, and when they were almost at the stairs, or the “companionway” as it is called, that led to their rooms, the ship gave a lurch and roll, and Bert lost his balance.
“Oh! Oh!” he cried, as he found himself sliding across the deck, which was tilted up almost like an old-fashioned cellar door, and Bert was rolling down it. “Oh, catch me, Dad!”
Luckily he rolled in, and not out, or he would have rolled to the edge of the ship. Not that he could have gone overboard, for there was a railing and netting to stop that, but he would have been badly frightened if he had rolled near the edge, I think.
“Look out!” cried Mr. Bobbsey, as he saw Bert sliding and slipping. “Look out, or you’ll fall downstairs!”
And that is just what happened. Bert rolled to the top of the companionway stairs, and right down them. Luckily he was a stout, chubby boy, and, as it happened, just then a sailor was coming up the stairs, and Bert rolled into him. The sailor was nearly knocked off his feet by the collision with Bert, but he managed to get hold of a rail and hold on.
“My! My! What’s this?” cried the sailor, when he got his breath, which Bert had partly knocked from him. “Is this a new way to come downstairs?”
“I—I didn’t mean to,” Bert answered, as he managed to stand up and hold on to the man. “The ship turned upside down, I guess, and I rolled down here.”
“Well, as long as you’re not hurt it’s all right,” said the sailor with a laugh. “It is certainly a rough storm. Better get below and stay there until it blows out.”
“Yes, sir, I’m getting,” grinned Bert.
“I think that is good advice,” said Mr. Bobbsey to the sailor, with a smile, as he hurried after Bert, but not coming in the same fashion as his son.
Nan had grabbed tightly hold of a rope and clung to it when the ship gave a lurch. She was not hurt, but her arms ached from holding on so tightly.
After that one big roll and toss the steamer became steady for a little while, and Mr. Bobbsey and the two children made their way to the stateroom where Mrs. Bobbsey was sitting with Flossie and Freddie.
“What happened?” asked Bert’s mother, as she saw that he was rather “mussed up,” from what had occurred.
“Oh, I tried to come down the stairs head first,” Bert answered with a laugh. “I don’t like that way. I’m not going to do it again,” and he told what had taken place.
And then the storm burst with a shower of rain and a heavy wind that tossed and pitched the boat, and made many of the passengers wish they were safe on shore.
The Bobbsey twins had often been on the water, when on visits to Uncle William at the seashore, as I have told you in that book, and they were not made ill by the pitching and tossing of the steamer.
Still it was not much fun to stay below decks, which they and the others had to do all that night and most of the next day. It was too rough for any one to be out on deck, and even the sailors, used as they were to it, had trouble. One of them was nearly washed overboard, but his mates saved him. And one of the lifeboats—the same one in which the men had gone to save the fishermen from the sharks—was broken and torn away when a big wave hit it.
“Is it always rough like this when you go past Cape Hatteras?” asked Bert of his father.
“Very frequently, yes. You see Cape Hatteras is a point of land of North Carolina, sticking out into the ocean. In the ocean are currents of water, and when one rushes one way and one the other, and they come together, it makes a rough sea, especially when there is a strong wind, as there is now. We are in this rough part of the ocean, and in the midst of a storm, too. But we will soon be out of it.”
However, the steamer could not go so fast in the rough water as she could have traveled had it been smooth, and the wind, blowing against her, also held her back. So it was not until late on the second day that the storm passed away, or rather, until the ship got beyond it.
Then the rain stopped, the sun came out from behind the clouds just before it was time to set, and the hard time was over. The sea was rough, and would be for another day, the sailors said.
“And can we go on deck in the morning?” asked Bert, who did not like being shut up in the stateroom.
“I guess so,” his father answered.
The next morning all was calm and peaceful, though the waves were larger than when the Bobbsey twins had left New York.
Every one was glad that the storm had passed, and that nothing had happened to the steamer, except the loss of the one small boat.
“Were those fishermen who fought the sharks out in all that blow in their small motor boat, Dad?” asked Bert.
“Oh, no,” his father told him. “They only go out from shore, take up their nets or lobster pots, and go quickly back again. Their boats are not made for staying out in all night. Though perhaps sometimes, in a fog, when they can’t see to get back, they may be out a long time. But I don’t believe they were out in this storm.”
It was peaceful traveling now, on the deep blue sea, which was a pretty color again, and the Bobbsey twins, leaning over the rail and looking at it, thought they had never come on such a fine voyage.
“It’s getting warmer,” said Bert when they had eaten dinner and were once more on deck.
“Yes, we are getting farther south, nearer to the equator, and it is always warm there,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Are we near Florida?” asked Nan.
“Yes, we will be there this evening,” her father told her.
It was late in the afternoon when the steamer reached Jacksonville. As the arrival of the steamship had been delayed by the storm, the Bobbsey’s were left no time to look about Jacksonville, but hurried at once to the railroad station, and there took the train that carried them to St. Augustine. It was about an hour before sunset when they got out of the train at this quaint, pretty old town.
“Oh, what funny little streets!” cried Bert, as they started for their hotel where they were to stay until they could go to the hospital and see Cousin Jasper. “What little streets!”
“Aren’t they darling?” exclaimed Nan.
“Yes, this is a very old city,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “and some of the streets are no wider than they were made when they were laid out here over three hundred years ago.”
“Oh, is this city as old as that—three hundred years?” asked Nan, while Flossie and Freddie peered about at the strange sights.
“Yes, and older,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States. It was settled in 1565 by the Spaniards, and I suppose they built it like some of the Spanish cities they knew. That is why the streets are so narrow.”
And indeed the streets were very narrow. The one called St. George is only seventeen feet wide, and it is the principal street in St. Augustine. Just think of a street not much wider than a very big room. And Treasury street is even narrower, being so small that two people can stand and shake hands across it. Really, one might call it only an alley, and not a street.
The Bobbseys saw many negroes about the streets, some driving little donkey carts, and others carrying fruit and other things in baskets on their heads.
“Don’t they ever fall off?” asked Freddie, as he watched one big, fat colored woman on whose head, covered with a bright, red handkerchief, or “bandanna,” there was a large basket of fruit. “Don’t they ever fall off?”
“What do you mean fall off—their heads?” asked Bert with a smile.
“No, I mean the things they carry,” said Freddie.
“Well, I guess they start in carrying things that way from the time they are children,” said Mrs. Bobbsey, “and they learn to balance things on their heads as well as you children learn to balance yourselves on roller skates. I dare say the colored people here would find it as hard to roller skate as you would to carry a heavy load on your head.”
“Well, here we are at our hotel,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as the automobile in which they had ridden up from the station came to a stop in front of a fine building. “Now we will get out and see what they have for supper.”
“And then will we go to Cousin Jasper and find out what his strange story is?”
“I guess so,” her father answered.
“Say, this is a fine hotel!” exclaimed Bert as he and the others saw the beautiful palm and flower gardens, with fountains between them, in the courtyard of the place where they were to stop.
“Oh, yes, St. Augustine has wonderful hotels,” said his father. “This is a place where many rich people come to spend the winter that would be too cold for them in New York. Now come inside.”
THE SHIP GAVE A LURCH AND BURT LOST HIS BALANCE.
Into the beautiful hotel they went, and when Mr. Bobbsey was asking about their rooms, and seeing that the baggage was brought in, Mrs. Bobbsey glanced around to make sure the four twins were with her, for sometimes Flossie or Freddie strayed off.
And that is what had happened this time. Freddie was not in sight.
“Oh, where is that boy?” cried his mother. “I hope he hasn’t crawled down another ventilator pipe!”
“No’m,” answered one of the hotel men. “He hasn’t done that. I saw your little boy run back out of the front door a moment ago. But he’ll be all right. Nothing can happen to him in St. Augustine.”
“Oh, but I must find him!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “Dick, Freddie is gone again!” she said to her husband. “We must find him at once!” and she hurried from the hotel.
Mr. Bobbsey, who had been talking to the clerk of the hotel at the desk, looked toward Mrs. Bobbsey, who was hurrying out the front door.
“Wait a minute!” he called after her. “I’ll come with you!”
“No, you stay with the other children,” she answered. “I’ll find Freddie.”
“But you don’t know your way about St. Augustine,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “You’ve never been here before.”
“Neither have you,” returned his wife with a laugh, for she was not very much alarmed about Freddie—he had slipped away too often before.
“I can find my way about as well as you can, Dick,” went on Mrs. Bobbsey. “You stay here and I’ll get our little fat fireman.”
“Maybe he has gone to see a fire engine,” suggested Nan.
“I don’t believe so,” answered her father. “I didn’t hear any alarm, but perhaps they don’t sound one here as we do back in Lakeport.”
“I guess he’s just gone out to look at the things in the streets here,” said Bert. “They’re a lot different from at home.”
“Indeed they are!” exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. “Well, I’ll stay here,” he said to his wife, “and you go and look for Freddie. But if you don’t soon find him come back and I’ll go out.”
“I’ll find him,” she said, and one of the porters from the hotel offered to go with her to show Mrs. Bobbsey her way about the strange streets of St. Augustine—the little, narrow streets that had not been changed much in three hundred years.
“Oh, what a lovely place this is,” said Nan to Bert, while their father was talking with the hotel clerk. “It’s like a palace.”
“It looks like some of the places you see in a moving picture,” said Bert.
And indeed the beautiful hotel, with the palms and flowers set all about, did look like some moving picture play. Only it was real, and the Bobbsey twins were to stay there until they had seen Cousin Jasper, and found out what his strange story was about.
Soon after Mr. Bobbsey had finished signing his name and those of the members of his family in the hotel register book, Mrs. Bobbsey came back, leading Freddie by the hand.
The little boy seemed to be all right, and he was smiling, while in one hand he held a ripe banana.
“Where’ve you been, Freddie?” asked Flossie. “I was afraid you had gone back home.”
“Nope,” Freddie answered, as he started to peel the banana. “I was seeing how they did it.”
“How who did what?” asked his father.
“Carried the big baskets on their heads,” Freddie answered, and by this time he had part of the skin off the yellow fruit, and was breaking off a piece for Flossie. Freddie always shared his good things with his little sister, and with Bert and Nan if there was enough.
“What does he mean?” asked Bert of his mother. “Was he trying to carry something on his head?”
“No,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh, “but he was following a big colored woman who had a basket of fruit on her head. I caught him halfway down the street in front of another hotel. He was walking after this woman, and he didn’t hear me coming. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was waiting to see it fall off.”
“What fall off?” asked Nan, coming up just then.
“I thought maybe the basket would fall off her head,” Freddie answered for himself. “It was an awful big basket, and it wibbled and wobbled like anything. I thought maybe it would fall, but it didn’t,” he added with a sigh, as though he had been cheated out of a lot of fun.
“If it did had fallen,” he went on, “I was going to pick up her bananas and oranges for her. That’s why I kept walking after her.”
“Did she drop that banana?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, while several smiling persons gathered about the Bobbsey twins in the hotel lobby.
“No, I bought this with a penny,” Freddie answered. “The colored lady didn’t drop any. But if her basket did had fallen from off her head I could have picked up the things, and then maybe she’d have given me a banana or an orange.”
“And when that didn’t happen you had to go buy one yourself; did you?” asked Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. “Well, that’s too bad. But, after this, Freddie, don’t go away by yourself. It’s all right, at home, to run off and play in the fields or woods, for you know your way about. But here you are in a strange city, so you must stay with us.”
“Yes, sir,” answered Freddie, like a good little boy.
“I will, too,” promised Flossie.
The Bobbsey family was together once again, and when Flossie and Freddie had eaten the banana, and porters had taken charge of their baggage, they all went up to the rooms where they were to stay.
“We don’t know just how long we’ll be here,” said Mr. Bobbsey, as they were getting ready to go down to supper, as the children called it, or “dinner,” as the more fashionable name has it.
“Are we going out on the ocean again?” asked Nan.
“Did you like it?” her father wanted to know.
“Oh, lots!” she answered.
“It was great!” declared Bert.
“I want to see ’em catch some more sharks,” Freddie said.
“I like to see the blue water,” added Flossie, who had got out a clean dress for her rubber doll.
“Yes, the blue water is very pretty,” remarked Mr. Bobbsey. “Well, we shall, very likely, sail on it again. I don’t know just what Cousin Jasper wants to tell me, or what he wants me to do. But I think he is planning an ocean trip himself. I’ll go to see him this evening, after we have eaten, and then I can tell you all about it.”
“May I come with you?” asked Bert.
“Well, I think not this first trip,” answered Mr. Bobbsey slowly. “I am going to the hospital where Cousin Jasper is ill, and he may not be able to see both of us. I’ll take you later.”
“We can stay and watch the colored people carry things on their heads,” put in Freddie. “That’s lots of fun, and maybe some of ’em will drop off, and we can help pick ’em up, and they might give us an orange.”
“I guess I’d rather buy my oranges, and then I’ll be sure to have what I want,” said Bert with a laugh.
“There are plenty of things you can look at while I’m at the hospital,” said Mr. Bobbsey, and after the meal he inquired the way to the place where Cousin Jasper was getting well, while Mrs. Bobbsey took the children down to the docks, where they could see many motor boats, and fishing and oyster craft, tied up for the night.
It was a beautiful evening, and the soft, balmy air of St. Augustine was warm, so that only the lightest clothing needed to be worn.
“It’s just like being at the seashore in the summer,” said Nan.
“Well, this is summer, and we are at the seashore, though it is not like Ocean Cliff,” said Mrs. Bobbsey with a smile. She was glad the children liked it, and she hoped they would have more good times if they were again to go sailing on the deep, blue sea.
When they got back to the hotel Mr. Bobbsey had not yet returned from the hospital, but he came before Flossie and Freddie were ready for bed, for they had been allowed to stay up a little later than usual.
“Well, how is Cousin Jasper?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Much better, I am glad to say,” answered her husband. “He will be able to leave the hospital in a few days, and then he wants us to start on a trip with him.”
“Start on a trip so soon!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. “Where does he want to go, and will he be well enough to travel?”
“He says he will. And as to where he wants to go, that is a strange story.”
“Oh, tell us about it!” begged Bert.
“We’re going to hear Cousin Jasper’s secret at last!” cried Nan.
“Is it a real story, with ‘once upon a time’ in it?” Freddie questioned. “And has it got a fire engine in it?” he added.
“Well, no, not exactly a fire engine, though it has a boat engine in the story. And I can make it start with ‘once upon a time,’ if you want me to.”
“Please do,” begged Flossie. “And has it got any fairies in it?”
“No, not exactly any fairies,” her father said; “though we may find some when we get to the island.”
“Oh, are we going on an island?” exclaimed Bert.
“There!” cried his father, "I’ve started at the wrong end. I had better begin at the beginning. And that will be to tell you how I found Cousin Jasper.
"He has been quite ill, and is better now. Part of the time he was out of his head with fever, even after he wrote to me, and for a time the doctor feared he would not get well. But now he is all right, except for being weak, and he told me a queer story.
“Once upon a time,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, telling the tale as his littler children liked to hear it, "Cousin Jasper and a young friend of his, a boy about fifteen years old, set out to take a long trip in a motor boat. That is it had an engine in it that ran by gasolene as does an automobile. Cousin Jasper is very fond of sailing the deep, blue sea, and he took this boy along with him to help. They were to sail about for a week, visiting the different islands off the coast of Florida.
"Well, everything went all right the first few days. In their big motor boat Cousin Jasper and this boy, who was named Jack Nelson, sailed about, living on their boat, cooking their meals, and now and then landing at the little islands, or keys, as they are called.
"They were having a good time when one day a big storm came up. They could not manage their boat and they were blown a long way out to sea and then cast up on the shore of a small island.
“Cousin Jasper was hurt and so was the boy, but they managed to get out of the water and up on land. They found a sort of cave in which they could get out of the storm, and they stayed on the island for some time.”
“For years?” asked Bert, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, was much interested in Cousin Jasper’s strange story. “That was just like Robinson Crusoe!” Bert went on. “Why didn’t they stay there always?”
“They did not have enough to eat,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “and it was too lonesome for them there. They were the only people on the island, as far as they knew. So they made a smudge of smoke, and on a pole they put up some pieces of canvas that had washed ashore from their motor boat. They hoped these signals would be seen by some ship or small boat that might come to take them off.”
“Did they get rescued?” asked Bert.
Mr. Bobbsey was about to answer when the telephone, which was in the room, gave a loud ring.
“Some one for us!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
Mr. Bobbsey arose to answer the telephone, which big hotels put in the rooms of their guests nowadays instead of sending a bellboy to knock and say that the traveler is wanted.
“I wonder who wants us?” murmured Mr. Bobbsey.
The children looked disappointed that the telling of the story had to be stopped.
“Hello!” said their father into the telephone.
Then he listened, and seemed quite surprised at what he heard.
“Yes, I’ll be down in a little while,” he went on. “Tell him to wait.”
“What is it?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “Was that Cousin Jasper?”
“Oh, no indeed!” her husband answered. “Though he is much better he is not quite well enough to leave the hospital yet and come to see us. This was an old sea captain talking from the main office of the hotel downstairs.”
“Is he going to take us for a trip on the ocean?” asked Bert eagerly.
“Well, that’s what he wants to do, or, rather, he wants me to see about a big motor boat in which to take a trip. Cousin Jasper sent him to me. But let me finish what I was saying about the island, and then I’ll tell you about the sea captain.”
Mr. Bobbsey hung up the telephone receiver and took his seat between Flossie and Freddie where he had been resting in an easy chair, telling the story.
“Cousin Jasper,” went on Mr. Bobbsey, “was quite ill on the island, and so was Jack Nelson. Just how long they stayed there, waiting for a boat to come and take them off, they do not know—at least, Cousin Jasper does not know.”
“Doesn’t that boy—Jack Nelson—know?” asked Bert.
“No, for he wasn’t taken off the island,” said Mr. Bobbsey. "And that is the strange part of Cousin Jasper’s story. He, himself, after a hard time on the island, must have fallen asleep, in a fever probably. When he awakened he was on board a small steamer, being brought back to St. Augustine. He hardly knew what happened to him, until he found himself in the hospital.
“There he slowly got better until he was well enough to write and ask me to come to see him. He wanted me to do something that no one else would do.”
“And what is that?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“He wants me to get a big motor boat, and go with him to this island and get that boy, Jack Nelson.”
“Is that boy still on the island?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey. “Why how long ago was this?”
“About three weeks,” her husband answered. “Cousin Jasper does not know whether or not the boy is still there, but he is afraid he is. You see when the boat came to rescue Mr. Dent, as my cousin is called at the hospital, they did not take off with him his boy friend. The sailors of the rescue ship said they saw Cousin Jasper’s canvas flag fluttering from a pole stuck up in the beach, and that brought them to the island. They found Cousin Jasper, unconscious, in a little cave-like shelter near shore, and took him away with them.”
“Didn’t they see the boy?” asked Nan.
"No, he was not in sight, the sailors afterward told Mr. Dent. They did not look for any one else, not knowing that two had been shipwrecked on the island. They thought there was only one, and so Cousin Jasper alone was saved.
“When he grew better, and the fever left him, he tried to get some one to start out in a boat to go to the island and save that boy. But no one would go.”
“Why not?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Because they thought Cousin Jasper was still out of his mind from fever. They said the sailors from the rescue ship had seen no one else, and if there had been a boy on the island such a person would have been near Mr. Dent. But no one was seen on the island, and so they thought it was all a dream of Cousin Jasper’s.”
“And maybe that poor boy is there yet!” exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.
“That’s what my cousin is afraid of,” her husband said. "And that is why he sent for me, his nearest relative. He knew I would believe him, and not imagine he was dreaming. So he wants me to hire for him, as he is rich, a motor boat and go to this island to rescue the boy if he is still there. Cousin Jasper thinks he is. He thinks the boy must have wandered away and so was not in sight when the rescue ship came, or perhaps he was asleep or ill further from the shore.
“At any rate that’s Cousin Jasper’s strange story. And now he wants us to help him see if it’s true—see if the boy is still on the island waiting to be rescued.”
“How can you find the island?” asked Nan.
“Cousin Jasper says he will go with us and show us the way. The sea captain who called me up just now from down in the office of the hotel is a man who hires out motor boats. Cousin Jasper knows him, and sent him to see me, as I am to have charge of everything, Mr. Dent not yet being strong enough to do so.”
“And are you going to do it?” asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Oh, yes,” her husband said. “I came here to help Cousin Jasper, and if he wants me to set off on a sea voyage to rescue a poor lonely boy from an island, why I’ll have to do it.”
“May we go?” eagerly asked Bert.
“Yes, I think so. Cousin Jasper says he wants me to get for him a big motor boat—one large enough for all of us. We will have quite a long trip on the deep, blue sea, and if we find that the boy has been taken off the island by some other ship, then we can have a good time sailing about. But first we must go to the rescue.”
“It’s just like a story in a book!” cried Nan, clapping her hands.
“Is they—are there oranges and bananas there?” asked Freddie.
“Where?” his father asked.
“On the island where the boy is?”
“Well, I don’t know,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “Perhaps bananas may grow there, though I doubt it. It is hardly warm enough for them.”
“Well, let’s go anyhow,” said Freddie. “We can have some fun!”
“Yes,” said Flossie, who always wanted to do whatever her small brother did, “we can have some fun!”
“But we are not going for fun—first of all,” said Mr. Bobbsey. "We are going to try to rescue this poor boy, who may be sick and alone on the island. After we get him off, or find that he has been taken care of by some one else, then we will think about good times.
“And now, my dear,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife, “the question is, would you like to go?”
“Will it be dangerous?” she asked.
“No, I think not. No more so than coming down on the big ship. It is now summer, and there are not many storms here then. And we shall be in a big motor boat with a good captain and crew. Cousin Jasper told me to tell you that. We shall sail for a good part of the time—or, rather, motor—around among islands, so each day we shall not be very far from some land. Would you like to go?”
“Please say yes, Mother!” begged Bert.
“We’d like to go!” added Nan.
“Well,” answered Mrs. Bobbsey slowly, “it sounds as if it would be a nice trip. That is it will be nice if we can rescue this poor boy from the lonely island. Yes,” she said to her husband, “I think we ought to go. But it is strange that Cousin Jasper could not get any one from here to start out before this.”
“They did not believe the tale he told of the boy having been left on the island,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “They thought Cousin Jasper was still out of his head, and had, perhaps, dreamed this. He was very anxious to get some one started in a boat for the island, but no one would go. So he had to send for me.”
“And you’ll go!” exclaimed Bert.
“Yes, we’ll all go. Now that I have told you Cousin Jasper’s strange story I’ll go down and talk to the sea captain. I want to find out what sort of motor boat he has, and when we can get it.”
“When are we going to start for the island?” asked Bert.
“And what’s the name of it?” Nan questioned.
“Is it where Robinson Crusoe lived?” queried Freddie.
“I’ll have to take turns answering your questions,” said Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "In the first place, Bert, we’ll start as soon as we can—that is as soon as Cousin Jasper is able to leave the hospital. That will be within a few days, I think, as the doctor said a sea voyage would do him good. And, too, the sooner we start the more quickly we shall know about this poor boy.
“As for the name of the island, I don’t know that it has any. Cousin Jasper didn’t tell me, if it has. We can name it after we get there if we find it has not already been called something. And I don’t believe it is the island where Robinson Crusoe used to live, Freddie. So now that I have answered all your questions, I think I’ll go down and talk to the captain.”
Flossie and Freddie were in bed when their father came back upstairs, and Nan and Bert were getting ready for Slumberland, for it was their first day ashore after the voyage, and they were tired.
“Did you get the motor boat?” asked Bert.
“Not yet,” his father answered with a laugh. “I am to go to look at it in the morning.”
“May I come?”
“Yes, but go to bed now. It is getting late.”
Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey stayed up a little longer, talking about many things, and sending a few postcards to friends at home, telling of the safe arrival in St. Augustine.
Freddie was up early the next morning, standing with his nose flattened against the front window of the hotel rooms where the Bobbseys were stopping.
“I see one!” he cried. “I see one!”
“What?” asked Flossie. “A motor boat?”
“No, but another colored lady, and she’s got an awful big basket on her head. Come and look, Flossie! Maybe it’ll fall off!”
But nothing like that happened, and after breakfast Mr. Bobbsey suggested that the whole family set out to see some of the sights of St. Augustine—the oldest city of the United States—and also to go to the wharf and view the motor boat.
“Can’t we send some postcards before we start, Mother?” questioned Nan eagerly.
“Certainly,” returned Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I think I’ll send a few to my friends,” said Bert, and he and Nan spent some time picking out the postcards.
Even Flossie insisted upon it that she be allowed to send several to her best friends at home.
I wish I had room to tell you all the things the children saw—the queer old streets and houses, the forts and rivers, for there are two rivers near the old city. But the Bobbsey twins were as anxious as I know you must be to see the motor boat, and hear more about the trip to the island to save the lonely boy, so I will go on to that part of our story.
“Glad to see you! Glad to see you! Come right on board!” cried a hearty voice, as the Bobbsey twins and their father and mother walked down the long dock which ran out into the harbor of St. Augustine.
“That’s Captain Crane, with whom I was talking last night,” said Mr. Bobbsey to his wife in a low voice.
“And is that the boat we are to take the trip in?” she asked, for the seaman was standing on the deck of a fine motor craft, dark red in color, and with shiny brass rails. A cabin, with white curtains at the portholes, or windows, seemed to offer a good resting place.
“Yes, that’s the Swallow, as Captain Crane calls his boat,” Mr. Bobbsey said.
“She’s a beaut!” exclaimed Bert.
“Come on board! Come on board! Glad to see you!” called the old captain again, as he waved his hand to the Bobbseys.
“Oh, I like him, don’t you?” whispered Nan to Bert.
“Yes,” he replied. “He’s fine; and that’s a dandy boat!”
Indeed the Swallow was a beautiful craft. She was about eighty feet long, and wide enough to give plenty of room on board, and also to be safe in a storm. There was a big cabin “forward,” as the seamen say, or in the front part of the boat, and another “aft,” or at the stern, or back part. This was for the men who looked after the gasolene motor and ran the boat, while the captain and the passengers would live in the front cabin, out of which opened several little staterooms, or places where bunks were built for sleeping.
The Swallow was close to the dock, so one could step right on board without any trouble, and the children were soon standing on the deck, looking about them.
“Oh, I like this!” cried Freddie. “It’s a nicer boat than the Sea Queen!” This was the name of the big steamer on which they had come from New York. “Have you got a fire engine here, Captain?” asked the little Bobbsey twin.
“Oh, yes, we’ve a pump to use in case of fire, but I hope we won’t have any,” the seaman said. “I don’t s’pose you’d call it a fire engine, though, but we couldn’t have that on a motor boat.”
“No, I guess not,” Freddie agreed, after thinking it over a bit. “I’ve a little fire engine at home,” he went on, “and it squirts real water.”
“And he squirted some on me,” put in Flossie. “On me and my doll.”
“But I didn’t mean to—an’ it was only play,” Freddie explained.
“Yes, it was only in fun, and I didn’t mind very much,” went on the little girl. “My rubber doll—she likes water,” she added, holding out the doll in question for Captain Crane to see.
“That’s good!” he said with a smile. “When we get out on the ocean you can tie a string around her waist, and let her have a swim in the waves.”
“Won’t a shark get her?” Flossie demanded.
“No, I guess sharks don’t like to chew on rubber dolls,” laughed Captain Crane. “Anyhow we’ll try to keep out of their way. But make yourselves at home, folks. I hope you’ll be with me for quite a while, and you may as well get used to the boat. Mr. Dent has sailed in her many times, and he likes the Swallow first rate.”
“Can she go fast?” asked Bert.
“Yes, she can fairly skim over the waves, and that’s why I call her the Swallow,” replied the seaman. “As soon as Mr. Dent heard I was on shore, waiting for some one to hire my boat, he told me not to sail again until you folks came, as you and he were going on a voyage together. I hope you are going?” and he looked at Mr. Bobbsey.
“Yes, we have made up our minds to go,” said the children’s father. “We are going to look for a boy who may be all alone on one of the islands off the Florida coast. We hope we can rescue him.”
“I hope so, too,” said Captain Crane. “I was shipwrecked on one of those islands myself, once, as your Cousin Jasper was. And it was dreadful there, and I got terribly lonesome before I was taken off.”
“Did you have a goat?” asked Flossie.
“No, my little girl, I didn’t have a goat,” answered Mr. Crane. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because Robinson Crusoe was on an island like that and he had a goat,” Flossie went on.
“When you were shipwrecked did you have to eat your shoes?” Freddie queried.
“Oh, ho! No, I guess not!” laughed Captain Crane. “I see what you mean. You must have had read to you stories of sailors that got so hungry, after being shipwrecked, that they had to boil their leather shoes to make soup. Well, I wasn’t quite so bad off as that. I found some oysters on my island, and I had a little food with me. And that, with a spring of water I found, kept me alive until a ship came and took me off.”
“Well, I hope the poor boy on the island where Cousin Jasper was is still alive, or else that he has been rescued,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I hope so, too,” said the captain. “Now come and I’ll show you about my boat.”
He was very proud of his craft, which was a beautiful one, and also strong enough to stand quite a hard storm. There was plenty of room on board for the whole Bobbsey family, as well as for Mr. Dent, besides a crew of three men and the captain. There were cute little bedrooms for the children, a larger room for Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, one for the captain and there was even a bathroom.
There was also a kitchen, called a cook’s galley, and another room that could be used in turn for a parlor, a sitting-room or a dining-room. This was the main cabin, and as you know there is not room enough on a motor boat to have a lot of rooms, one has to be used for different things.
“What do you call this room?” questioned Flossie, as she looked around at the tiny compartment.
“Well, you can call this most anything,” laughed the captain. “When you use it for company, it’s a parlor; and when you use it for just sitting around in, it’s a sitting-room; and when you use it to eat in, why, then what would you call it?”
“Why, then you’d call it a dining-room,” answered the little girl promptly.
“And if I got my hair cut in it, then it would be a barber shop, wouldn’t it?” cried Freddie.
“Why, Freddie Bobbsey!” gasped his twin. “I’m sure I wouldn’t want my dining-room to be a barber shop,” she added disdainfully.
“Well, some places have got to be barber shops,” defended the little boy staunchly.
“I don’t think they have barber shops on motor boats, do they, Daddy?”
“They might have if the boat was big enough,” answered Mr. Bobbsey. “However, I don’t believe we’ll have a barber shop on this craft.”
“When are we going to start?” asked Bert, when they had gone all over the Swallow, even to the place where the crew slept and where the motors were.
“We will start as soon as Cousin Jasper is ready,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “It may be a week yet, I hope no longer.”
“So do I, for the sake of that poor boy on the island,” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Tell me, has nothing been heard of him since he was shipwrecked there with Mr. Dent?” she asked Captain Crane. “Has no other vessel stopped there but the one that took off Cousin Jasper?”
“I guess not,” answered Captain Crane. “According to Mr. Dent’s tell, this island isn’t much known, being one of the smallest. It was only because the men on the ship that took him off saw his flag that they stood in and got him.”
“And then they didn’t find the boy,” said Mr. Bobbsey.
“Perhaps he wasn’t there,” Captain Crane said. “He might have found an old boat, or made one of part of the wrecked motor boat, and have gone away by himself.”
“And he may be there yet, half starved and all alone,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“Yes, he may be,” admitted the old seaman. “But we’ll soon find out. Mr. Jasper Dent is very anxious to start and look for this boy, who had worked for him about two years on his boat. So we won’t lose any time in starting, I guess.”
“But how do you like my boat? That’s what your cousin will be sure to ask you. When he heard that you were coming to see him, and heard that I was free to take a trip, he wanted you folks to see me and look over the Swallow. Now you’ve done it, how do you like it?”
“Very much indeed,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “We like the boat exceedingly!”
“And the captain, too,” added Mrs. Bobbsey, with a smile.
“Thank you kindly, lady!” said the seaman, with a smile and a bow. “I hope we’ll get along well together.”
“And I like the water pump!” exclaimed Freddie. “Please may I squirt the hose some day?”
“I guess so, when it’s nice and warm, and when we wash down the decks,” said Captain Crane. “We use the pump for that quite a lot,” he added. “We haven’t had to use it for fire yet, and I hope we never have to.”
“That’s what we all say,” put in Mr. Bobbsey. But no one could tell what might happen.
The Bobbsey twins went about the Swallow as they pleased, having a good time picking out the rooms they wanted to sleep in. Bert said he was going to learn how to run the big gasolene motors, and Freddie said he was going to learn how to steer, as well as squirt water through the deck hose.
“I want to cook in the cute little kitchen,” said Nan.
“And I’ll help set table,” offered Flossie.
“We’ll have a good time when we get to sea in this boat,” declared Bert.
“And I hope we find that boy on the island,” added Nan.
“Oh, yes, I hope that, too,” agreed Bert.
None of the crew of the Swallow was on board yet, Captain Crane not having any need for the men when the boat was tied up at the dock.
“But I can get ’em as soon as you say the word,” he told Mrs. Bobbsey when she asked him.
“And what about things to eat?”
“Oh, we’ll stow the victuals on board before we sail,” said the seaman. “We’ll take plenty to eat, even though lots of it has to be canned. Just say the word when you’re ready to start, and I’ll have everything ready.”
“And now we’ll go see Cousin Jasper,” suggested Mr. Bobbsey, when at last he had managed to get the children off the boat. “He will be wondering what has become of us.”
They went to the hospital, and found Mr. Dent much better. The coming of the Bobbseys had acted as a tonic, the doctor said.
“Do you like the Swallow and Captain Crane?” asked the sick man, who was now getting well.
“Very much,” answered Mr. Bobbsey.
“And will you go with him and me to look for Jack Nelson?”
“As soon as you are ready,” was the answer.
“Then we’ll start in a few days,” decided Cousin Jasper. “The sea-trip will make me entirely well, sooner than anything else.”
The hospital doctor thought this also, and toward the end of the week Mr. Dent was allowed to go to his own home. He lived alone, except for a housekeeper and Jack Nelson, but Jack, of course, was not with him now, being, they hoped, either on the island or safely rescued.
“Though if he had been taken off,” said Mr. Dent, “he would have sent me word that he was all right. So I feel he must still be on the island.”
“Perhaps the ship that took him off—if one did,” said Mr. Bobbsey, “started to sail around the world, and it will be a long while before you hear from your friend.”
“Oh, he could send some word,” said Cousin Jasper. “No, I feel quite sure he is still on the island.”
Just as soon as Mr. Bobbsey’s cousin was strong enough to take the trip in the Swallow, the work of getting the motor boat ready for the sea went quickly on. Captain Crane got the crew on board, and they cleaned and polished until, as Mrs. Bobbsey said, you could almost see your face in the deck.
Plenty of food and water was stored on board, for at sea the water is salt and cannot be used for drinking. The Bobbseys, after having seen all they wanted to in St. Augustine, moved most of their baggage to the boat, and Cousin Jasper went on board also.
“Well, I guess we’re all ready to start,” said Captain Crane one morning. “Everything has been done that can be done, and we have enough to eat for a month or more.”
“Even if we are shipwrecked?” Freddie questioned.
“Yes, little fat fireman,” laughed the captain. “Even if we are shipwrecked. Now, all aboard!”
They were all present, the crew and the Bobbseys, Captain Crane and Cousin Jasper.
“All aboard!” cried the captain again.
A bell jingled, a whistle tooted and the Swallow began to move away from the dock. She dropped down the river and, a little later, was out on the ocean.
“Once more the deep, blue sea, children!” said Mrs. Bobbsey. “Shall you like the voyage?”
“Oh, very much!” cried Nan, and the others nodded their heads to agree with her.
And then, as they were puffing along, one of the crew called to Captain Crane:
“There’s a man in that motor boat who wants to speak to you! Better wait and see what he wants!”