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 with 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 sh.o.r.e 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 pa.s.sed 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, d.i.c.k!" 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.