"Where"s my doll, Freddie Bobbsey? Where"s my nice rubber doll that you took? I want her! Where is she?"
"I--I guess the fish swallowed her," Freddie answered.
"The fish!" cried all the others.
"Yes. You see I tied the rubber doll on the end of the line "stid of a hook," the little boy added. "I knew I had to have something for to bait the fish, so they"d bite, so I tied Flossie"s doll on. The fish couldn"t hurt it much," he went on. ""Cause once Snap had your rubber doll in his mouth, Flossie, and she wasn"t hurt a bit."
"And is my doll in the fish now?" the little girl demanded, not quite sure whether or not she ought to cry.
"I guess it swallowed the doll," returned Freddie. "Anyhow the doll was on the end of the string, and now the string is in the fish"s mouth. But maybe you can get your doll back, Flossie, when the fish is cooked."
Captain Crane bent over the fish, which was flopping about on deck.
"It has swallowed the end of the line, and, I suppose, whatever was fast on the cord," he said. "If it was Flossie"s doll, that is now inside the fish."
"And can you get it out?" asked Bert.
"Oh, yes, when we cut the fish open to clean it ready to cook, we can get the doll."
"Is that fish good to eat?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Very good indeed. It"s one of our best kind," the captain said.
"Freddie is a better fisherman than he knew."
And the little Bobbsey twin had really caught a fish. Just why it was the fish had bit on the line baited with Flossie"s rubber doll, no one knew. But Captain Crane said that sometimes the fish get so hungry they will almost bite on a bare hook, and are caught that way.
This fish of Freddie"s was so large that it had swallowed the doll, which was tied fast on the end of the line, and once the doll was in its stomach the fish could not get loose from the heavy cord.
"But you mustn"t take Flossie"s doll for fish-bait again," said Mrs.
Bobbsey.
"No"m, I won"t!" Freddie promised. "But now maybe I can have a real hook and bait."
"Well, we"ll see about that," said Mr. Bobbsey with a smile.
The line was cut, close to the mouth of the big fish, which weighed about fifteen pounds, and then Freddie"s prize was taken by the cook down to the galley, or kitchen. A little later the cook brought back Flossie"s rubber doll, cleanly washed, and with the piece of string still tied around its waist.
"Is she hurt?" asked Flossie, for her doll was very real to the little girl, since she often pretended she was alive.
"No, she"s all right--not even a pinhole in her," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"There are a few marks of the teeth of the fish, where it grabbed your rubber doll, but she was swallowed whole, like Jonah and the whale, so no harm was done."
"I"m glad," said the little girl, as she cuddled her plaything, so strangely given back to her. "And don"t you dare take her for fish-bait again, Freddie Bobbsey."
"No, Flossie, I won"t," he said. "I"ll use real bait after this."
"But you mustn"t do any more fishing without telling me or your mother,"
cautioned Mr. Bobbsey. "You might have been pulled overboard by this one."
"Oh, no, I couldn"t," Freddie declared. "Only my head could go through the porthole."
"Well, don"t do it again," his father warned him, and the little boy promised that he would not.
The fish was cooked for supper, and very good it was, too. Flossie and Freddie ate some and Flossie pretended to feed her doll a little, though of course the doll didn"t really chew.
"The fish tried to eat you, and now you can eat some of the fish,"
Flossie said, with a laugh.
The Bobbsey twins wanted to stay up late that night, and watch the moonlight on the water, but their mother, after letting them sit on deck a little while, said it would be best for them to "turn in," as the sailors call going to bed. They had been up early, and the first day of their new voyage at sea had been a long one.
So down to their berths they went and were soon ready for bed.
"My, we had a lot of things happen to-day!" remarked Flossie.
"Well, I"m sorry I took the doll, but I"m awful glad I caught that great big fish," answered Freddy.
"But you"re never going to take her for fish bait again, Freddie Bobbsey!" repeated his twin.
"I didn"t say I was. I guess the next time I want to go fishing I"ll get a regular piece of meat from the cook."
"Children, children! It"s time to go to sleep now," broke in their mother. "Remember, you"ll want to be up bright and early to-morrow."
"If I don"t wake up, you call me, please," cried Freddie; and then he turned over and in a few minutes was sound asleep, and soon the others followed.
The next day pa.s.sed. The children had fun on board the motor boat, and the older folks read and talked, among other things, of how glad they would be to rescue Jack from the lonely island. The following day it rained hard, and the four twins had to stay in the cabin most of the time. But they found plenty to amuse them.
The third morning, as they came up on deck, the sun was shining, and one of the men was looking at something through a telescope.
"Does he see another fish, or maybe a whale or a shark?" asked Freddie.
The sailor answered for himself, though he was really speaking to Captain Crane, who was at the steering wheel.
"Land ho!" cried the sailor.
"Where away?" asked the captain.
"Dead ahead!" went on the sailor.
That is the way they talk on board a ship and it means:
"I see some land."
"Where is it?"
"Straight ahead."
The Bobbsey twins looked, but all they could see was a faint speck, far out in the deep, blue sea.