IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS.
IT WAS A GREAT WHITE STEAMER WITH THREE SMOKESTACKS.Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's.Page46
It was a great white steamer with three smoke stacks and a wireless mast. There was so much to see when they first went aboard that the six little Bunkers could not possibly observe everything with only two eyes apiece! They wanted to be down in the saloon and in the staterooms that Daddy Bunker had engaged and out on the deck all at the same time. And how were they to do that?
Russ and Rose, however, were allowed to go out on deck and watch the ship get out of the dock and steam down the harbor. But Mother Bunker at first kept the four smaller children close to her side.
"I never knew Boston was so big," said Rose, as they looked back at the smoky city. "I guess Aunt Jo never showed us all of it, did she, Russ?"
"I don't suppose if we lived there a whole year we should be able to see it all," declared her brother wisely. "Maybe we could see it better from an airplane. I'd like to go up in an airplane."
"No, no! Don't do that, Russ! Maybe the engine would get stalled like the motor-car engine does, and then you couldn't get down," said Rose, very much worried by this thought.
"Well, we could see the city better."
"We can see it pretty well from here," said Rose. "And see the islands. There is a lighthouse, Russ. Would you like to live in a lighthouse?"
"Yes, I would, for a while," agreed her brother. "But I'd rather be right on this boat, sailing out into the ocean. Just think, Rose! We've never been away out at sea before."
"There was lots of ocean at Captain Ben's," said the girl. "I suppose the ocean is all the same everywhere. Just water. I hope it stays flat."
"Stays flat?" repeated Russ, opening his eyes very wide.
"Yes," said Rose gravely. "I don't like water when it's bumpy. It makes me feel funny in my stomach when it's that way."
"Oh! It won't be rough," said Russ, with much assurance. "I heard Daddy say we were going to sail into summer seas. And that must be warm and pleasant water. Don't you think so?"
Rose was looking over the rail now. She pointed.
"That doesn't look as though the water was warm," she cried. "See the lumps of ice, Russ? It must be ice water. Where do you suppose the summer seas are?"
"We are going to them," declared her brother with confidence. "Daddy said so. He said we would go out to a place he called the Gulf Stream and that the water would be warm there and the air would be warmer, too."
"What do you think of that?" gasped Rose. "A stream in an ocean? I guess he was joking."
"Oh, no, he wasn't. He said it real serious. He told Aunt Jo about it."
"But how can a stream—that means a river—berunning in the ocean? There wouldn't be any banks!" declared the doubtful Rose.
"Let's go and ask him about it," suggested Russ. "And we'll want to keep on the lookout for that Gulf Stream too. I wouldn't want to go past it without seeing it."
They were just about to hunt for Daddy Bunker in the crowd on deck when Laddie came running to them. He was very much excited and he could hardly speak when he reached his older brother and sister.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" gasped the smaller boy.
"What is the matter, Laddie?" demanded Russ.
"If it is another riddle, Laddie, take your time. We'll stop and listen to it."
"It isn't a riddle—Yes, it is, too! I guess it's a sort of riddle, anyway," said Laddie. "Have you seen him?"
"That sounds like a riddle," said Rose. "And of course we haven't seen him. What is the answer?"
"Who is it that you are asking your riddle about?" demanded Russ.
"Mun Bun," declared Laddie, breathing very hard, forhe had run all the way from the stateroom.
"Mun Bun isn't a riddle," said his sister. "He can't be."
"Well, he's lost," declared Laddie. "We can't find him. He was there one minute, and just the next he was gone. And Mother can't find him, and Vi's gone to hunt for Daddy, and—and—anyhow, Mun Bun has lost himself and wedon't any of us know what has become of him."
Mun Bun was not a very disobedient little boy; but as Daddy Bunker said, he had a better "forgetery" than he had memory. Mun Bun quite forgot that Mother Bunker had told him not to leave the bigger stateroom where she was setting things to rights in her usual careful way. For, as they were to be several days on the steamship, she must have a place for things and everything in its place, or she could not comfortably take care of Daddy and six children.
Then, Mun Bun was so quick! Just as Laddie said: one minute he was there, and the next minute he wasn't. He seemed to glide right out of sight. Cowboy Jack had called Mun Bun a blob of quicksilver; and you know you cannot put your finger on a blob of quicksilver, it runs so fast.
That is what Mun Bun had done. Mother Bunker's back was turned; Russ and Rose were on deck; the other three children, the twins and Margy, were busy prying into every corner of the stateroom to "see what it was meant for," when Mun Bun just stepped out.
How long he had been gone when their mother discovered the little boy's absence, of course she did not know. She sent Laddie and Vi flying for help—the one for Russ and Rose and the other for their father. She dared not leave the staterooms herself for fear Mun Bun would reappear and be frightened if he did not find her.
She called loudly for him, without getting any answer. Other passengers began to take an interest in the loss of the little boy. Stewards began to hurry about, looking for a lost boy in the most unlikely places. Some of these cubbyholes were so tiny that a canary bird could scarcely have hidden in them, while other places where the stewards looked would have hidden a giant.
When Mr. Bunker appeared in haste fromthe smoking cabin, having been found by Vi, Mrs. Bunker fairly cast herself into his arms.
"Oh, Charles!" she cried. "He's fallen overboard!"
"You would never think of such a thing, Amy," returned her husband, "if the ship wasn't entirely surrounded by water."
"How can you joke, Charles?" she cried.
"I don't joke. Do you know how high the bulwarks are? A little boy like Mun Bun could not have fallen overboard. He could not climb the bulwarks."
"I never thought of that," agreed Mother Bunker more cheerfully.
"He might have fallen into one of the holds; but I don't believe he has done even that. And there are so many officers and men going up and down the ladders that I believe he has not even gone off this deck. For somebody would be sure to see him."
"Of course he didn't go ashore again?" suggested Rose, who with the other children had returned to the staterooms.
"Oh, no. We had started—were well down the harbor in fact—before he disappeared."
"Mun Bun is a reg'lar riddle," said Laddie. "He runs away and we can't find him; and we hunt for him and there he ain't. Then he comes back by himself—sometimes."
"Is that a riddle?" asked his twin scornfully.
"We-ell, maybe it will be when I get it fixed right."
"I don't think much of it," declared Violet. "And I want to find Mun Bun."
"Don't you other children get lost on this big ship," said Mother Bunker. "Don't go off this floor."
"You mean deck, don't you, Mother?" asked Russ politely. "Floors are decks on board ship. Daddy said so."
"You'd better go and look for him, Russ; and you, too, Rose," the anxious woman said, as Daddy Bunker strode away. "But you other three stay right here by me. I thought that traveling on the train with you children was sometimes trying; but living on shipboard is going to be worse."
"Yes, Mother," said Rose gravely. "There are so many more places for Mun Bun to hide in aboard this ship. Come, Russ."
The two older Bunker children did notknow where to look for their little brother. But Russ had an idea. He usually did have pretty bright ideas, and Rose admitted this fact.
"You know we got up early this morning," Russ said to his sister, "and we have been awful busy. And here it is noontime. Mun Bun doesn't usually have a nap until after lunch, but I guess he's gone somewhere and hidden away and gone to sleep. And when Mun Bun's asleep it is awful hard to wake him. You know that, Rose Bunker."
"Yes, I know it," admitted Rose. "But where could he have gone?"
Russ thought over that question pretty hard. Daddy Bunker would have said that the little lost boy's older brother was trying to put himself in Mun Bun's place and thinking Mun Bun's thoughts.
Now, if Mun Bun had been very sleepy and had crept away to take a nap, as he often did after lunch when they were at home, without saying anything to Mother Bunker about it, where would he have gone to take that nap on this steamboat?
Mun Bun was a bold little boy. He wasseldom afraid of anything or anybody. Had he not instantly made friends with Sam, the strange colored boy, at Aunt Jo's house? So Russ knew he would not be afraid to run right out on the deck among the other passengers.
"But that would not be a nice place to go for a nap," said Russ aloud.
"What wouldn't?" asked Rose, quite surprised by her brother's sudden speech.
"Out here on the deck. No, he didn't come out here at all," said Russ, with confidence.
Russ was an ingenious boy, as we have seen. Once having got the right idea in his head he proceeded to think it out.
"Come on back, Rose," he said suddenly, seizing his sister's hand.
"What for?"
"To find Mun Bun."
"But he isn't with Mother!"
"I bet—No, I don't mean that word," said Russ. "I mean Ithinkhe is with Mother, only she doesn't know it."
"Why, Russ Bunker, that sounds awfully silly!"
But she followed after him in much haste. They came running to the two stateroomswhich Daddy Bunker had engaged. Mother and the other children were the center of a group of sympathetic people in the corridor.
"Oh! did you find him?" Rose cried.
"Of course not," said Vi. "Where should we find him?"
"Here," announced Russ, pushing through the crowd.
"Of course he isn't here, Russ," said Vi. "Can't you count us? Mun Bun is not here."
"Well, let me see," said the boy, and he pushed into the bigger stateroom where his mother had been working when Mun Bun disappeared. Then he opened the door between that room and the other room. It was all quiet in there. He glanced into the two berths. There was nobody in either of them.
"You are mistaken, Russ," whispered Rose, looking in at the door he had left open. "He can't be here. Daddy has just come and says the captain has promised to have the ship searched."
But without making any reply Russ Bunker went down on his knees, looked under the lower berth, and then stretched an arm under and grabbed something with his hand.
A sleepy squeal came from under the berth. Russ, laughing, dragged at the chubby ankle his hand had grasped. Mun Bun's cross, sleepy voice was raised in protest:
"Don't you! Don't you! Let me be!"
Mother and Daddy Bunker came running.
"That blessed baby!" cried his mother.
"That pestiferous youngster!" exclaimed his father.
But he smiled happily, too, when Mun Bun was completely drawn out from under the berth by Russ and was in his mother's arms again. She sat down and rocked him to and fro while he "came awake" and looked around at the others.
"You have begun well," said Daddy Bunker gravely. "Stirring up the whole ship's company before we are out of sight of land! I must hurry and tell the captain to call off his sea-dogs. The lost is found."
"What are sea-dogs?" demanded Vi. "Do they have dogs at sea to hunt for lost children—dogs like Alexis?"
Nobody answered that question, but Rose and Russ, trotting along the deck beside their father, were more fortunate in getting their questions answered.
"Are we really going to sail out of sight of land, Daddy?" asked Rose.
"We certainly are," said Mr. Bunker.
"But there is a lot of land," said the girl, pointing. "We can't lose all that, can we?"
"That is just what we are going to do. You watch. By and by the land will be only a line on the horizon, and then it will fade out of sight entirely."
So Russ and Rose remained on deck to watch the land disappear. Rose expected it to go something like a "fade-out" on the moving picture screen. The disappearance of the land proved to be a very long matter, however, and the two children went below for lunch when the first call came.
The purser had arranged for the Bunker family at a side table where they could be as retired as though they were at home. There were not many other children aboard, and the purser liked children anyway. So between his good offices and that of the colored stewards, the Bunkers were well provided for.
Even the captain—a big, bold-looking manwith a gray mustache and lots of glittering buttons on his blue coat—stopped at the Bunker table to ask about Mun Bun.
"So that is the fellow I was going to put about my ship for and go back to Boston to see if he had been left on the dock!" he said very gruffly, but smiling with his eyes at Mun Bun, who smiled back. "He looks like too big a boy to make such a disturbance on a man's ship."
"Oh, I don't think, Captain Briggs, he will do it again," said Mother Bunker.
"I dess wanted to sleep," murmured Mun Bun, holding up his spoon.
"Next time you want your watch below," said Captain Briggs, shaking his head, "you report to me first. Do you hear?"
"Yes, Ma'am," said Mun Bun, quite sure that he had said the right thing although they all laughed at him.
Mother Bunker kept the little fellow close to her thereafter; but Vi and Laddie followed the two older children out on deck. There was a comfortably filled passenger list on theKammerboy;but the wind was rather heavy that afternoon and many of them remained inthe cabins. But the four children had a great game of hide and seek all over the forward deck.
Finally Daddy Bunker appeared from aft to make sure that none of the quartette was lost. He took Laddie and Vi below with him after a time and the two older children were left alone. They found seats in the lee of what the ship's men called "the house" and sat down to rest and talk. But every now and then one of them jumped up to look astern to see if the land had disappeared, as Daddy Bunker said it would.
"It's a long time going," said Rose.
"Well, there is a lot of it to go. Don't you remember," said Russ, "how big the North American continent is in the geography?"
"Oh! Is that it?" cried Rose.
"Yes. We've got to lose the whole top part of North America," her confident brother declared.
There was some sort of officer (he had brass buttons and wore a cap, so Russ and Rose knew he must be an officer) pacing the deck, back and forth, not far from their chairs. Every time he came near he threw a pleasant word to the brother and sister. Russ and Rose began to ask him questions and sometimes trotted beside him as he paced his lookout watch. Violet would have delighted in this man, for he seemed to know almost everything about ships and the sea and was perfectly willing to answer questions.
Rose asked him if, after they had lost the land, they would find the Gulf Stream that Daddy Bunker had told them about.
"Pretty soon thereafter, little lady," said the man.
"And—and does it have banks?" pursued Rose.
"Does what have banks?" the man asked, in surprise. "The Gulf Stream?"
"Yes, sir."
"No," chuckled the sailor. "It's not like a river—not just like one."
"Then how do you know when you come to the Gulf Stream?" demanded Russ. "I should think you'd sail over it without knowing."
But the sailor told them that the stream, or current, was very broad, that the water wasmuch warmer than the surrounding ocean, and that the Gulf Stream was even a different color from the colder ocean.
"Oh, we won't miss it," declared the man, shaking his head.
Just then Rose saw something out over the ocean, sailing low and making a great flapping of black wings. She pointed eagerly:
"There's a buzzard, Russ—like those we saw in Texas."
"Oh, no, little lady, that isn't a buzzard," said the sailor.
"It must be a gull. There were lots of them back in the harbor, you know, Rose," her brother rejoined.
"And it's not a gull," said the man, squinting his eyes to look at the distant bird. "It's too big. I declare! I think that's an eagle."
"Oh! An eagle like those on top of the flagstaffs?" cried Russ.
"And on the gold pieces?" added Rose, for she had a gold piece that had been given her on her last birthday.
"No, not that kind of eagle," said the man. "But he's related. Yes, sir; it's a sea-eagle; some call 'em, I guess rightly, ospreys. They're fishers, but they can't roost on the sea. That one's a long way off shore. Something is the matter with him."
"Do you suppose he's hungry?" asked Rose doubtfully.
"I shouldn't wonder if hunger drove him out here so far from land," said the sailor, smiling. "But he's been hurt. You can see how his left wing droops. Yes, something has happened to that bird."
The bird beat his way heavily toward the ship. First it rose a little way in the air, and then it slid down as though almost helpless, beating its good wing prodigiously to keep from falling into the water.
"He's making bad weather of it," said the sailor. "Poor chap. If he comes aboard——"
"Oh! we'll feed him and mend his wing," cried Rose. "He's just like—Why, Russ Bunker! that poor bird is just what Aunt Jo called poor Sam, a tramp. That is what he is."
"A sea-going tramp, I guess," said the sailor, laughing.
But he watched the coming sea bird quiteas interestedly as did the two children. The creature seemed to have selected the steamship as its objective point, and it beat its good wing furiously so as to get into the course of theKammerboy.
"Can we have the bird if it gets aboard, Mr. Officer?" asked Russ eagerly.
"If I can catch it without killing it—for they are very fierce birds—it shall be yours," promised the man.
At once, therefore, the eagerness and interest of Russ and Rose Bunker were vastly increased. They clung to the rail and watched the approaching bird with anxious eyes. It was coming head on toward the bow of the ship. Would theKammerboyget past so swiftly that the sea-eagle could not reach it?
The uncertainty of this, and the evident effort of the great bird to fly a little farther, greatlyexcited the two older of the six little Bunkers.
The steamship was pursuing her course so swiftly, but so easily, that Russ and Rose Bunker scarcely realized that the chances of the big bird's landing on the craft were very slim. The children raced along the deck toward the bows, believing that the big bird would alight there. Their friend, the lookout officer, however, remained at his post.
The big wings of the great sea-eagle beat the air heavily. They were covered with almost black feathers above while the feathers on the under side of the wings were pearl-gray, a contrast that Rose said was "awfully pretty."
"I don't see anything pretty about that poor, struggling bird," said Russ shortly. "He's hurt bad. I hope he gets here all right, but—Oh! There he goes!"
It was a fact that the big bird almost fell into the sea, being weakened. The bow of theKammerboyswept past the struggling creature. Russ and Rose lifted a joined complaint:
"Oh, he's drowned! He drowned!"
It was true that the bird was not a water-fowl and, as the officer had told the children, could not "roost" on the sea. It was not web-footed, so could notswim. And with an injured wing it was wonderful that it had kept up as long as it had, for it was now far, far from the shore.
But the bird had wonderful courage. Although plunged into the water and suffering one wave to break and pour over him, the great bird sprang into the air once more. He would not give up the fight! Russ and Rose saw the flashing eyes, the hooked beak parted, and every other evidence of the creature's putting forth a last remaining effort to reach a secure resting place for his feet.
And he made it! He beat his powerful wings for the last time and shot up over the rail of the steamship. The children shouted with delight. Other passengers had been attracted to the place. The officer who had made himself the friend of Russ and Rose was prepared for the bird's coming inboard. He ran with a piece of strong netting in his hands, and as the bird came thumping down on the deck, the man cast this net about the creature.
Then what a flapping and croaking and struggling there was! A sailor ran forward with a boat-stretcher and wanted to hit the bird; but Russ and Rose screamed, and the officer sent the man away.
"We're not going to kill the bird. These little folks want it alive," said the officer. "And so we are going to make a prisoner of it and mend that wing if we can."
"Aye, aye, Quartermaster," said the sailor who had tried to interfere.
"See if you can find a big poultry cage," said the officer. "We had live turkeys aboard for the Thanksgiving run, and what would hold a turkey ought to hold a sea-eagle. Lively now!"
"Aye, aye, sir," said the man, and hurried away.
While they waited for the cage the quartermasterwarned the two Bunker children to remain well back from the struggling bird, for it might get away.
"He is certainly a strong bird," said one of the other passengers, looking on, too, from a safe distance. "Don't you think he'd better be killed, Officer?"
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" chorused Russ and Rose.
"Of course not. You're one of those folks, sir, that would kill an American eagle, too—the bird that is supposed to represent the best fighting spirit of this country. No, sir! this bird is going to have his chance. If we can heal his wounds, we will set him free again—hey, little folks?"
"Of course we will," said Russ stoutly.
"Yes, sir! we'll set him free," agreed Rose. "But when you do it I am going down to the stateroom. I think he is pretty savage."
It was quite true. The injured bird was savage. But when Daddy Bunker heard about the capture and saw the sea-eagle in its cage, he pointed out the fact that there was good reason for the bird to be savage if it had a broken wing.
"You would be cross if you had a broken arm, Russ," Daddy Bunker said soberly, "So come away and let the poor bird alone for a while. Maybe it will eat and drink if it is not watched so closely."
It was found that a bullet had passed through the fleshy part of the great bird's wing. The quartermaster declared that, without much doubt, the bird had been shot at from a small boat and by some idle and thoughtless "sportsman."
"It is wrong," Daddy Bunker said, "to call such people 'sportsmen.' There is no real sport in shooting at and laming an inoffensive creature, one that cannot be made use of for food. That excuse does not hold in this case."
"True word, sir," said the quartermaster. "It was a wicked trick, I'll say. But I think the bird will recover very shortly. Perhaps the little folks can see the bird released before we get to Charleston."
"Not me!" cried Rose again. "I am going right downstairs when you open that cage and set him free. He has got such a wicked eye."
And truly, interested as she was in the poor bird, Rose Bunker did not often go near himduring the time he was in captivity. She found other things to interest her about the swiftly sailingKammerboy.
So did all the other Bunkers. For what interested the six little Bunkers was sure to interest Daddy and Mother Bunker. It justhadto. As Mother Bunker observed, Mun Bun was not the only one of her flock over whom she must keep pretty close watch.
They were really well behaved children; but mischief seemed to crop up so very easily in their lives. Daddy said that any Bunker could get into more adventures nailed into a wooden cage no bigger than the turkey crate the great sea-eagle was housed in than other children could find in a ten acre lot!
Living at sea on this great steamship was a good deal like living in a hotel. And the little Bunkers had lived in hotels, and liked the fun of it. Traveling by water was even more fun than traveling on a train. TheKammerboywas a fine big ship and there was so much to see and to learn that was new and surprising that that first night none of them really wanted to go to bed.
Although even that was a new experience.The staterooms were different from the berths in a sleeping car. Laddie thought they ought all to be tied into their berths so, if the ship rolled, they would not fall out.
"For I don't like falling out of bed," he said. "I always bump myself."
The steamship did not roll that night, however. At least if it did the little Bunkers did not know it. They slept soundly and were up bright and early in the morning and were all dressed and out on deck in the sunshine long before the first breakfast call came.
They made a call on the captive sea-eagle before breakfast and he seemed to be recovering, for he snapped his beak viciously when they drew near and spread his wings as far as the cage would allow.
"I don't think he's very nice," said Rose. "He doesn't seem to know we were kind to him."
"What are you going to do with him, Rose?" asked Vi.
"Let him go when his wing is well."
"But I guess he doesn't know that," said Laddie. "If he did he'd feel better about it."
"He bites," said Mun Bun reflectively."I'd rather have Alexis. Alexis doesn't bite."
"Alexis would bite if he thought anybody was going to hurt him," said Russ. "But we can't make this eagle understand."
"Why not?" immediately demanded Vi.
"Because we can't talk bird-talk," replied Rose, giggling.
"When I go to school I'll learn bird-talk," announced Mun Bun. "And I'll learn to talk dog-talk and cat-talk, too. Then they'll all know what I mean."
"That is a splendid idea, dear," Rose said warmly. "You do just that."
"S'posing they don't teach those languages where you go to school, Mun Bun?" suggested Laddie gravely. "I guess they don't in all schools. They don't in the Pineville school, do they, Russ?"
"I'll ask Mother to send me to a school where they do," declared Mun Bun before Russ could reply. "I don't need to learn to talk our kind of talk. I know that already. But birds and dogs and cats are different."
"You talk pretty good, I guess, Mun Bun," said Russ. Mun Bun was quite proud of this. He did not know that he often said "t" for "c"and "w" for "r." "But you will be a long time learning to speak so that this bird could understand."
"Well, I shall try," the littlest Bunker declared confidently.
Anyhow, it was decided that the sea-eagle would have to be released before Mun Bun learned to talk the eagle language. The quartermaster who was Russ and Rose's particular friend, came along with some raw meat scraps for the big bird; but the children had to go to breakfast before the bird gobbled these up. He was very shy.
Later in the forenoon Russ and Rose were walking along the deck near a little house amidships and they heard a funny crackling sound—a crackling and snapping like a fresh wood fire. They stopped and looked all around.
"I don't see any smoke," said Russ. "But there's a fire somewhere."
"What is that mast with the wires up there for, Russ?" asked his sister, looking upward.
"Oh! Daddy told me that was the wireless mast," Russ exclaimed.
"But that can't be," said Rose warmly. "Ithas wires hitched to it; so it can't be wireless."
"You know, Rose, they talk from ship to ship, and to the shore, by wireless."
"What does that mean?" returned the girl. "A telegraph?"
"That's it!" cried Russ. "And I guess that is what the crackling is. Listen!"
"Isn't it a fire, then, that we hear?" for the crackling sound continued.
"That's the electric spark," said her brother eagerly. "That is what it must be. Let's peep into this room, Rose. It is where the telegraph machine is."
There was a window near by, but as they approached it the two children found a door in the wireless house, too, and that door was open. A man in his shirt-sleeves and with a green shade over his eyes and something that looked like a rubber cap strapped to his head was sitting on a bench in front of some strange looking machinery.
He was writing on a pad and the crackling sound came from an electric spark that flickered back and forth in the machine before him. Russ and Rose gazed in, wide-eyed.
At length the crackling stopped and thespark went out with a sputter. The man stopped writing and wheeled about in his seat. He saw them looking in at the doorway.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "If here aren't two of the little Bunkers. Do you want to send a message by wireless?"
"Thank you," said Rose promptly. "I think it would be nice to send word to Aunt Jo that we are all right and that the ship is all right and that we caught an eagle."
"It costs money to send messages," said the wiser Russ.
"Oh! Does it?" asked his sister.
"I am afraid it does," replied the operator, laughing. "You had better ask Mr. Bunker about sending a message to your aunt, after all. Some messages we do not charge for. But the rules demand that all private messages must be paid for in advance."
"Well, then, I guess we'd better write a letter to Aunt Jo," said Rose, who was practical, after all. "That won't cost anything but a two cent stamp."
"Oh, my!" laughed Russ. "Going to mail it in the ocean?"
"We'll mail it when we get to Charleston," said Rose cheerfully. "I guess Aunt Jo won't mind."
Just at this moment there seemed to be some excitement on the deck up forward. Two officers who stood on what the children had learned was called the quarter were talking excitedly to one of the lookout men. They were pointing ahead, and one of the officers put a double-barreled glass to his eyes and stared ahead.
The operator came to the doorway of his cabin and looked forward, too. He could see over the bulwarks and marked what had caused the excitement.
"Ah-ha!" he said. "Come up here, little folks, and you can see it too."
Russ and Rose were quite excited. They stepped up into the doorway beside the wireless operator. They both saw at once the two-masted vessel that was rolling sluggishly in the sea. Her rail seemed almost level with the water and from one of the masts several flags were strung.
"What is it?" cried Russ. "That ship looks as though it was going down."
"I guess you've hit it right. She does look so," said the operator. "She has sprung a leak, sure enough. And she's set distress signals."
"Those flags?" asked Russ. "Do those flags say she is sinking?"
"Those flags ask for help. That schooner doesn't carry a wireless outfit as this vessel does. Few small vessels do. I guess we will have to help her out," said the wireless operator.
Russ and Rose Bunker were very much excited by the discovery of the schooner in distress. They were actually afraid that the vessel was going to sink in the ocean right before their eyes!
But the wireless operator reassured them. He said it probably would not sink at all. He seemed to have learned at first glance a lot about that schooner.
"It's lumber laden, from some Maine port. Probably going to Baltimore, or some port down that way. They have jettisoned her deck load, and now she'll just float soggily. But her sails will never carry her to port."
Russ eagerly asked what "jettisoned" meant, and the man explained that the crew had pushed overboard all the deckload of lumber.The hold was filled with the same kind of cargo, and of course lumber would not really sink. But the dirty, torn sails which the children saw did not promise to hold wind enough to propel the water-logged craft.
"She's got to have help," said the wireless operator, and Russ and Rose realized that theKammerboywas slowing down.
"Are we going to stop?" asked Rose. "Will they take the men off that ship into our small boats? Oh, it's a regular shipwreck, Russ!"
"Not much it isn't, little girl," said the operator. "And this steamer can't stop to do much in the way of rescue. The crew wouldn't want to leave that schooner in good weather, anyway."
"What shall we do, then?" Rose asked again.
Just then their friend, the quartermaster, hurried up with a written paper which he handed to the operator.
"Get that out, Sparks," he said, and the operator turned swiftly to his instrument and fitted on his cap and "earlaps" again. At least, Rose said they were "earlaps."
"Can't we help that schooner?" asked Russ of the quartermaster.
"They don't need us to help them. Only to send a message," was the reply, as the wireless spark began to crackle again. "We are telling the Government about her plight and a revenue cutter will be sent out to tow the schooner into some near port. She has drifted a good way off shore, but the weather is settled and there is nothing to fear."
In a few moments the operator had sent the message and got a reply.
"Right out of the air," breathed Rose wonderingly. "I think that is very funny, Russ. If that mast isn't exactly wireless, it is almost wireless. Anyway, the wires aren't long enough to take much of a message, I should think."
This was a mystery that Russ could not expound, so they went to hunt up Daddy Bunker for further information regarding the wonder of the wireless service. The other four little Bunkers were already greatly interested in the deeply rolling lumber schooner.
After more signals with flags had been exchanged between the steamship the children were on and the schooner, the former pickedup speed again. Soon the masts of the schooner were almost out of sight; but the little Bunkers continued to discuss the strange incident.
"I wish we could have put out boats and saved them," said Rose. "Like a regular wreck, I mean."
"The crew of the schooner would be castaways, then," Russ mused. "I like to read stories about castaways."
"Robinson Crusoe had goats," remarked Laddie. "I like goats."
"You wouldn't like goats if they butted you, would you?" asked Vi.
"All goats don't butt," said her twin with assurance.
"Have those men got goats on that wabbly schooner?" Margy demanded. "I didn't see any."
"Of course they haven't," Rose replied.
"Then how could they be castaways?" put in Vi promptly. "If castaways have goats——"
"Oh! you don't understand," declared Russ. "They only get the goats after they get to the desert islands. That is what Laddie means."
"Of course," agreed Laddie.
"Do they eat 'em?" Margy asked.
"Only if they need to," Russ told her, with superior wisdom. "Of course, they most always make pets of them."
"Oh!"
"I guess," said Russ, becoming reflective, "that we might play at castaway."
"When we get ashore, do you mean, Russ?" Vi asked.
"Right here."
"No," said Vi. "We'd get our feet wet. We can't play on the ocean, can we?"
"We can play on this deck. The officers won't mind. Now all of you come up on to this life raft. We'll play you are floating around on the sea waiting for somebody to come along in a boat and rescue you."
"Who is going to be the rescuer?" Vi asked.
"I am."
"Are you sure you can rescue us, Russ?" she demanded. "Where's your boat?"
Russ pointed to a long lifeboat covered with canvas which lay some distance from the life-raft. "That will be my boat," he said eagerly. "Rose, you must be in command of theraft. Of course, you have been drifting about a long time and you are all hungry and thirsty."
"Mun Bun wants bwead and milk," put in the littlest Bunker, on hearing this.
"Well," said Laddie soberly, "you've got to want it a lot before you get rescued, Mun Bun. Castaways have to drink the ocean and eat their shoes before anybody rescues them."
At this Mun Bun set up a wail. It seemed that his shoes were brand new and he was very proud of them. He would not consider eating them for a moment!
"Never mind," said Rose, hugging him. "If you get so very hungry before Russ rescues us, you can chew on your belt. That is what Laddie means."
Mun Bun observed his belt with round eyes. It seemed to him, and he confessed it to Rose, that he would have to be awfully hungry to chew that belt. The others entered into the spirit of the play and when Vi chanced to step off the raft her twin and Margy seized her and screamed.
"You'll be drowned, Vi Bunker!" said Margy.
"You'll more than get your feet wet if you don't stay on the raft," her twin scolded. "And, then, maybe there are sharks."
"Sharks?" put in Margy.
"Yes, big sharks."
"What do they do?" asked Margy, who had not heard so much about this castaway play as the older children.
"Big fish," said Laddie promptly.
"I like fish," Margy announced. "You know, Grandma Bell had goldfish. They were pretty."
"And I like fish to eat," said Vi. "Are sharks good to eat?"
"Maybe they will eat you," warned Laddie, who had entered into the play with all his thought and interest.
"Oh, Laddie Bunker! They wouldn't," cried Vi.
"Well, they might. Anyway, you've got to be afraid of the sharks and not step off the raft."
Meanwhile Russ had gone over to the lifeboat. He had not asked even his friend, the quartermaster, if he could play in that boat. But he saw no reason why he could not, as nobody seemed to be using it.
The canvas cover was tied down with many strings; but the knots slipped very easily and the boy pulled out three of the knots and then laid back a corner of the canvas. It was dark inside the boat, and before Russ crept into it as he intended, he bent over the gunwale and peered in.
Suddenly he gasped, and pulled his head back. He was startled, but Russ Bunker was a courageous boy. He had seen something—or he thought he had seen something—squirming in the brown darkness inside the boat.
He waited a little, and then put his head under the canvas and took a long look. Was there something or somebodythere? Russ was determined to find out!
Russ Bunker looked very funny—Rose said he did—when he suddenly came back to the raft. Vi and Margy shouted to him that he would be drowned; and Laddie said something more about sharks. But their older brother paid little attention to them.
He had tied the cover down over the lifeboat again and he would not look toward it, not even when Rose asked him what the matter was and if he was going to leave all five of the castaways on the raft to starve and be thirsty until luncheon time.
"I guess this isn't a very good place to play castaway, after all," said Russ gravely. "And, anyway," he added, with sudden animation, "there's the man with the gong. We'll have to run down andget cleaned up before we go to the table."
"Dear me!" complained Laddie, "we never can have any fun. We always have to stop and eat or go to bed, or something. Even on this ship we have to."
Laddie thought that the most important thing in the world was play. Rose watched Russ with a puzzled look. She felt that something had happened that her brother did not want to talk about. Russ had a secret.
The latter did not even look again at the lifeboat as the little party passed it on the way to the staterooms. But Russ Bunker's mind was fixed upon that boat and what he had seen in it, just the same. He really could not decide what to do. He was very much puzzled.
Even his mother and father noticed that Russ was rather silent at the lunch table; but he said he was all right. He had something to think about, he told them. Daddy and Mother Bunker looked at each other and smiled. Russ had a way of thinking over things before he put his small troubles before them, and they suspected that nothing much was the matter.
But Rose whispered to her brother before they left the table.
"I think that isn't very polite, Russ Bunker."
Russ looked startled.
"What isn't polite?" he asked almost angrily.
"I saw you do that," she said, in the same admonishing way.
"Do what?" he demanded boldly.
"Put those rolls and the apple in your pocket. You wouldn't do that at home."
"Well, we're not at home, are we?" he said. "You just keep still, Rose Bunker."
Russ ran away directly after he had been excused from the table and they did not find him again for quite a while. He appeared with his usual cheerful whistle on his lips and made up a fine game of hide and seek on the afterdeck. But it was noticeable, if anybody had thought to notice it at all, that Russ kept them all from going near the lifeboat and the raft, and he would not hear to their playing castaway at all.
"Why not?" asked Vi.
"Oh, that's too old," Russ declared. "We can play that at any time. Let's go and listento the wireless spark. When we get to that plantation where we are going maybe I can set up a wireless mast and we will send messages."
"To Grandma Bell? And to Aunt Jo?" asked Vi.
"Oh!" cried Laddie, "let's send one to Cowboy Jack. I know he'd be glad to hear from us."
So Russ turned the interest of his brothers and sisters away from the castaway play. All but Rose. She wondered just what it was that was troubling Russ and what the lifeboat had to do with it.
But there were so many new things to be interested in aboard the steamship that even Rose forgot to be puzzled after a while. Their friend, the quartermaster, took them all over the ship. They saw the engines working, and peered down into the stoke hole which was very hot and where the firemen worked in their undershirts and trousers and a great clanging of shovels and furnace doors was going on.
"I guess the steampipes always hum on thisboat," remarked Laddie. "It is not like it was at Aunt Jo's before that Sam boy came to make the furnace go."
Whether the steampipes hummed or not, the children found that it was quite balmy on the boat. Although a strong breeze almost always blew, it was a warm one. They had long since entered into the Gulf Stream and the warm current seemed to warm the air more and more as theKammerboysailed southward.
It was only two hours after passing the schooner that was in distress when they "spoke," as the quartermaster called it, the revenue cutter which had been sent to help the disabled vessel, steaming swiftly toward the point of the compass where the schooner was wallowing. Mr. Sparks, as the wireless operator was called, had exchanged messages with the Government vessel and he told the little Bunkers that the lumber schooner would be towed into Hampton Roads, from which the cutter had come.
All this time Russ Bunker stayed away from the covered boat on the hurricane deck. Daddy Bunker, as well as Rose, began to wonder at the boy's odd behavior. When dinner time came, Mr. Bunker watched his oldest son sharply.
"Can I go out on deck again for a while?" asked Russ politely, as he moved back his chair at the end of the meal.
"I don't see why you can't. And Rose too," said their mother. "It is not yet dark. But you other children must come with me."
They had all played so hard that it was no cross for the little ones to prepare for bed. Mun Bun and Margy were already nodding.
When Rose looked about for Russ, he had disappeared again. So had Daddy. They had both slipped out of the saloon cabin without a word.
Russ was hurrying along the runway between the house and the bulwarks, and going forward, when Daddy Bunker came around a corner suddenly and confronted him. Russ was so startled that he almost cried out.
"Let's see what you have in your pockets, Russ," said Mr. Bunker seriously, yet with twinkling eyes. "I noticed that you feared there was going to be a famine aboard thissteamer, and that you believe in preparing for it. Let me see the contents of your pockets."
"Oh, Father!" gasped Russ.
"Aren't afraid, are you, Russ?" asked Daddy Bunker. "If you weren't afraid to take the food you needn't be afraid to show it."
"It—it was all mine," said Russ, stammeringly. "I only took what was passed to me."
"I know it," said Daddy. "That is one reason why I want to know the rights of this mystery. I can't have my son starving himself for the sake of feeding a sea-eagle."
"Oh! It isn't the eagle, Daddy."
"What is it, then?"
"It—it isn't an it at all!" exclaimed Russ Bunker and he was so very much worried that he was almost in tears.
"What do you mean?" asked his father.
"I—I can't tell you," Russ faltered. "It isn't about me at all. It's somebody else, and I oughtn't to tell you, Daddy."
A boy hates to tell on another person if he is the right kind of boy. And Russ was the right kind of boy.
Daddy Bunker knew this; so he did not scold. He just said quietly:
"Very well, my boy. If you are mixed up in something of which you cannot tell your father, but which you are sure is all right, then go ahead. I am always ready to advise and help you, but if you are sure you do not need my advice, go ahead."
He turned quietly away. But these words and his cheerful acceptance of Russ' way of thinking rather startled the boy, used as he was to Daddy Bunker's ways. He called after him:
"Daddy! I don't know whether I amright or wrong. Only—only I know somebody that needs this bread and meat because he is hungry. He'srealhungry. Can't I give it to him?"
"I think that hunger should be appeased first. Go ahead," said Mr. Bunker, but still quite seriously. "Then if you feel that you can come and tell me about it, all right."
At that Russ hurried away, much relieved. Rose came into sight and would have run after him, but Daddy Bunker stopped her.
"Don't chase him now. He has something particular to do, Rose."
"I think that's real mean!" exclaimed Rose. "He's hiding something from me!"
"My!" said Daddy, "do you think your brother should tell you everything he knows or does?"
"Why not?" retorted Rose. "I'm sure, Daddy, he is welcome to know everything I know."
"Are you sure? Moreover, perhaps he does not care to know all your secrets," said Mr. Bunker.
"Anyhow, you must learn, Rose, that other people have a right to their own private mysteries;you must not be inquisitive. Russ has got something on his mind, it is true; but without doubt we shall all know what it is by and by."
"Well!" exclaimed Rose, with almost a gasp. She could not quite understand her father's reasoning.
Russ Bunker appeared after a while, looking still very grave indeed for a boy of his age. Daddy kept from saying or doing anything to suggest that he was curious; but Rose found it hard not to tease her brother to explain his taking food from the table and hiding it in his pockets.
"Of course he can't eat it," she whispered to herself. "And he doesn't give it to the eagle. Who ever heard of an eagle eating pound cake with raisins and citron in it? And I saw Russ take a piece of that.
"But he didn't eat much himself. I wonder if he is sick and is hiding it from Mother and Daddy?"
She watched her brother very closely. After a time he seemed more cheerful, and they ran races on the open deck. They knew many of the passengers by this time to speakto. And there were some few other children of about their own ages, too. They talked with these other boys and girls, found out where they lived when they were at home, and learned where they were going to, when they left theKammerboyat Charleston or Savannah.
Just the same Rose knew that her brother was disturbed in his mind. Daddy Bunker's words to her had been sufficient, and Rose said nothing. But she began to believe that she should sympathize with Russ instead of being vexed with him. He did look so serious when he was not talking.
The evening wore on. The moon rose and silvered the almost pond-like sea through which theKammerboysteamed. Even the children were impressed by the beauty of the seascape. Far, far away against the rising moon appeared a fairylike ship sailing across its face, each spar and mast pricked out as black as jet.
"Just like those silhouettes Aunt Jo cut out for us," declared Rose. "Did you ever see anything so cute?"
Russ didn't have much to say about it. Hewas very grave again. Bedtime came, and the brother and sister went below. The little folks, Margy and Mun Bun, were in the first stateroom with Mother. Already the twins were fast asleep in the second stateroom. Rose was going to sleep with Vi in the lower berth and Russ was to crawl in beside Laddie in the upper.
But Russ did not seem in a hurry to undress and go to bed. Mother brushed Rose's hair for her and the girl got ready for bed in the larger stateroom. When she went into the other room there was Russ sitting on the stool with only his jacket off.
"Why, Russ Bunker! aren't you going to bed to-night?" demanded Rose.
"I suppose so," admitted Russ.
"Well, you'd better hurry. I want you to put out the light. How do you suppose we can sleep?"
Russ reached up and snapped out the electric bulb as Rose threw aside her bath-gown and hopped into bed beside her sister.
"You can't see to undress in the dark, Russ," scolded Rose.
Russ did not say a word. He got up andwalked into his mother's and father's stateroom, and greatly to his sister's vexation he closed the door between the two rooms.
Daddy Bunker had just come in.
"Why, Russ," said he, "haven't you gone to bed yet?"
"No, sir," said Russ. "And I guess I can't. I've got to talk to you first. I guess I can't go to sleep till I've told you something."
Daddy smiled at Mother Bunker but nodded to Russ.
"All right," he said. "We will go out on deck again and take a turn up and down and you shall tell me all about it."
Mother made no objection, although the hour was getting late, and she smiled, too, when she saw Russ slip into his jacket again and follow his father out of the stateroom. On the deck Russ burst out with:
"I promised I wouldn't tell anybody. But when I gave him his supper I told him I'd just have to tell my father, I was afraid; and he said he didn't have any father and he didn't know whether fathers wouldn't 'snitch,' and I said my father wouldn't."
"I see," said Mr. Bunker gravely. "Yourecommended me as being a safe person to trust a secret with. I am glad you did so."
"Yes, sir. For you see he's got to be fed until we get to Charleston."
"Do you mind telling me who this new friend of yours is, and where he is, and why he must be fed?"
"He's a sailor boy. He belongs on a destroyer and got left at Boston when his ship started for Charleston two days ago."
"He is in the Navy?" exclaimed Mr. Bunker, in surprise.
"Yes, sir. And he spent all his money and did not know how to get down there where the fleet will be in winter quarters, he says, unless he went secretly on one of these steamers."
"He is stealing his passage, then?" asked Daddy Bunker.
"I suppose he is, Daddy," said Russ, ruefully enough. "He is in a boat, all covered up with canvas. Up there on the deck. I can show you. I found him quite by myself, and I was sorry for him, 'specially when he said he didn't have anything to eat. And he said, would I keep still about it? And at first I said I would."
"I see," said Daddy Bunker, smiling. "Then you thought that you ought not to keep the secret from me?"
"That's it, Daddy."
"Quite right," rejoined Mr. Bunker encouragingly. "It is not good policy to keep secrets from your mother and father. What do you want to do about it now?"
"Why—why, I want you to tell me," confessed Russ. "I got him some food."
"I see you did," returned his father, smiling. "At your own cost, Russ."
"We-ell, yes, I could have eaten more if I hadn't taken what I did for the sailor boy."
"We'll have to see about that——"
"I don't mind—much. I'm not very hungry," said Russ hurriedly. "It wasn't that made me tell you."
"I know it wasn't, Russ," said Daddy Bunker, with a pride that the little boy did not understand, and he dropped an approving hand upon Russ' shoulder. "Now, I will tell you what we will do. This sailor boy shall have his chance to rejoin his ship without getting into any more trouble than is necessary. He is probably very young and foolish."
"He isn't very old, I guess," said Russ. "He has been in the Navy only a little while, and it was his first 'shore leave,' he called it, in Boston. He had some cousins there. They begged him to stay longer than he should have. And so he got left."
"I'll fix it if I can," promised Daddy Bunker. "Of course, the first thing to do is to pay his fare and then he can come out of the lifeboat and have his proper meals. I will see the purser, and the captain if it is necessary, and you go to bed, Russ."
"That will be nice!" cried the boy, greatly relieved. "Of course I ought to have told you right at first. You always do know how to straighten things out, Daddy!"
"That is what fathers and mothers are for," replied Mr. Bunker. "Go down and go to sleep, Son, and I will do my best for this young deserter."
When Mr. Bunker entered the stateroom an hour later Mother Bunker wanted to know all about it, of course. And if Russ had known just what they both said of him he would certainly have been proud.
"He's a manly boy," said Daddy Bunker in conclusion. "I am glad he is our son."
The trouble about it all was, in Rose's opinion, that she never quite understood it. If Russ had done anything to be punished for, he certainly didn't seem to mind the punishment! And Daddy and Mother seemed to have a little secret between them, as well as Russ.
"I don't like secrets," she complained the next day, on thinking it all over.
"Oh, I do!" cried Laddie. "'Specially now that Christmas is coming."
But Rose knew this was not a Christmas secret. She wondered where the nice, pleasant-faced sailor boy came from who seemed to know Russ and Daddy Bunker so well. She had not seen him before. And that was another mystery that nobody seemed willing to explain to her.
They all had so many good times on theKammerboy, however, that Rose really could not be vexed for long. It proved, as had been announced in Boston, that the ship sailed into summer seas. There was scarcely a cloud in sight for the entire voyage, and certainly the steamship did not roll.
At length, late one afternoon, the children were taken up on the hurricane deck to see the islands of Charleston Harbor ahead. Many warships, and of all sizes, lay in the roadstead, but they did not see much of these vessels save their lights that evening.
TheKammerboywas docked to discharge freight and some of her passengers. Daddy Bunker arranged for the boy lost from the destroyer to be put aboard his ship. Russ hoped that he would not be punished very sorely for being left behind.