CHAPTER XVIION THE ISLAND
Drifting away the Curlytops surely were. The tide was carrying them down the little bay, and out toward the big bay and the open sea, though this place, where the big waves rolled and where sharks and other big fishes swam, was still a long way off.
“What do you think happened?” asked Janet.
“I guess the anchor stone came loose,” answered her brother. He reached over with the handle of the net and pushed back into the basket one of the big, blue-clawed crabs that was trying to crawl out from beneath the covering of green seaweed.
“The oars are gone, too,” said Janet.
This was true. When Teddy slipped, the time he was lifting in the last crab his sister caught, he had knocked both oars overboard. They were now floating away.
“Maybe I can reach ’em with the crab net,” suggested Ted. He leaned over the side of the punt, stretching as far he could toward one of the floating oars.
“Look out—don’t fall!” warned Janet.
Teddy almost went overboard, but pulled himself back just in time. He could not reach the oar, which drifted farther away.
“Where’s the other oar, Janet?” her brother asked.
“It’s on this side, but it’s farther off than that one,” the little Curlytop girl answered.
Teddy looked over. The second oar was, indeed, at a greater distance from the punt than the one the little boy had been trying to reach. He saw at a glance that it would be of no use to try to get this back.
“Both oars gone!” murmured Teddy, in sorrowful tones. “Jimmie’ll be mad. He won’t want me to take his boat again.”
“Maybe you can get ’em back,” suggested Janet. “But what made the stone anchor let go of us, Teddy?”
“I guess it slipped out of the rope,” he answered. “I’ll look.”
He pulled up the piece of clothesline that had held the boat, keeping it from drifting. As he had guessed, the stone that Jimmie had tied in a loop of the cord had slipped out. The punt had “slipped her anchor,” as a sailor would have said.
“If we get hungry, can we eat crabs?” inquired Janet, after a pause, during which the boat had drifted along on the tide.
“What do you mean—eat crabs?” asked Teddy, in some surprise.
“I mean if we can’t get home, and if we’re shipwrecked, can we eat the crabs we caught?” the little girl explained.
“Hum! I s’pose we could—if they were cooked,” answered Ted. “But we aren’t going to be shipwrecked.”
“What are we going to be, then?” Janet wanted to know. “How we going to get back home, Teddy? Maybe if we could get ashore, or on some island, we could build a fire and cook the crabs.”
“Maybe,” agreed her brother. “That would be a lot of fun!” His eyes sparkled as he thought of it. “Only,” he added, “we haven’t anything to cook the crabs in.”
“And I don’t like crabs, anyhow,” said Janet. “Oh, dear, Teddy! what can we do? We’re drifting away awful fast!”
Indeed this was so. The tide was now running out more strongly, having turned since the Curlytops started crabbing. In the punt they were being rapidly carried out of the little bay.
“Can’t you do something?” Janet begged.
“Maybe I can push us ashore with the handle of the crab net,” Ted replied. “But pretty soon we’ll see another boat and we’ll holler for them to help us.”
This was a new thought, and he and his sister looked out from their small bay, across the wide expanse of water, thinking they might sight another craft that would come to help them. However, as it happened, there was no other boat anywhere near them. Sometimes the water seemed dotted with boats, like raisins in a cake, and again there would be scarcely one. It was so now—the Curlytops appeared to be the only party out crabbing.
“I guess I’d better push along,” remarked Teddy.
“Maybe you can push us to one of those islands out there,” suggested Janet, pointing with her hand to several small ones that showed green down the sparkling bay.
“Maybe I can,” agreed her brother.
Using the handle of the crab net as a pole, Teddy began shoving the boat along. At first this was easy, for they were in a shallow place, and it was not far to the bottom. Teddy tried to push the boat over to one of the oars, for he knew he could work much better if he had one of the broad blades. But the tide had taken them out of reach.
“Well, if we get on one of the islands, maybe we can get some oars there,” said Janet.
“Maybe,” agreed Teddy. He kept on pushing with the crab pole, and as he did so Janet looked around for a sight of some other boats that might come to aid the Curlytops.
Once a motor boat, with a merry party in it, passed not very far off. Ted and Janet raised their voices in shouts for help. But the young people in the motor boat were laughing, talking, and singing, and did not seem to hear the children calling. Or, if they did, they may have thought it was just a boy and a girl skylarking or calling for fun.
At any rate they paid no attention, but sped on, and Ted, who had given up pushing for a time, started to do so again. Once the handle of the net failed to reach bottom. Janet noticed this and said:
“It’s deeper here, isn’t it?”
“Oh, a little,” Teddy answered, for he did not want his sister to become frightened. “But it will soon be shallow again,” he added.
And this proved to be the case.
On and on drifted the Curlytops in their boat, the tide carrying them and Teddy pushing with the crab pole. The crabs in the basket were quiet now, under their covering of seaweed.
“I wish we had a basket of apples instead of a basket of crabs,” murmured Janet, after a time.
“Why?” Teddy wanted to know.
“So I could eat one.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Course I am! Aren’t you?”
“A little,” admitted Teddy. It was long past the time when, each afternoon, the Curlytops were in the habit of having a little lunch.
“Maybe we’ll get something to eat on that island,” suggested Janet.
“Where?” asked her brother.
“Over there,” and she pointed to one in the distance. It was the nearest island to the drifting boat. “Why don’t you push over that way, Teddy?” Janet asked. “Steer over there.”
“I will,” answered the boy, and he changed the direction of the punt so that it was headed for the island.
The shore which Teddy and Janet had left to take to the boat—the shore where their summer cottage was located—seemed very far away indeed. Janet found herself wondering if they would ever get back to it. But now there was something else to wonder about, for they were nearing the island.
“We’ll land there in a minute,” Teddy said, for the tide was carrying them toward it.
“Do you s’pose anybody lives there?” Janet inquired.
“I don’t know—maybe,” Teddy answered.
The punt struck the soft sand and mud of the island beach with a little thump. The children had made a landing—no longer were they adrift. They were a little way out on the large bay, but were not being carried toward the open sea; though, as a matter of fact, they had not worried about this.
“Well, here we are,” announced Ted, as he jumped out and pulled the boat farther up on shore. “I’ll help you out, Janet.”
“Are you going to take the crabs?” she asked.
“Course not! We’ll leave ’em in the boat. But I’ve got to make the boat fast so it won’t drift away. If it did, we might have to stay on this island all night.”
“Do you s’pose anybody lives here on this island, Ted?” asked his sister. From where they stood they could see nothing but trees and bushes, but the Curlytops knew that there were summer cottages on some of the islands.
“I don’t know. We’ll soon find out,” he answered.
“If there does anybody live here,” went on the little girl, “maybe we could sell ’em the crabs we caught—I mean we could give ’em the crabs and they’d give us something else to eat for ’em.”
“We caught the crabs for Daddy!” objected Teddy, having finished making fast the boat.
“I know we did, but he wouldn’t want us to be hungry.”
“No, I s’pose not,” assented Ted. “Well, if nobody will give us something to eat for nothing, we’ll trade ’em the crabs. But we’ll leave ’em here in the boat until we find out.”
“Yes,” remarked Janet, “’cause, now, maybe if we carried the basket of crabs through the woods they’d get lost. And, besides, they might reach out and pinch us, the crabs might.”
“They might,” admitted Teddy. “We’ll leave ’em in the boat. Now come on and we’ll see if anybody lives here.”
Hand in hand the Curlytops started to follow a path that led through the trees and shrubbery. As they went along it became certain that some one lived, or had lived, on the island. For they could see where trees had recently been cut down and brush trimmed away.
Then, a little farther along, they saw a place where a little hut had been built. It was rather tumble-down now, the window glass was broken, and the door hung crookedly on one hinge.
“I guess that’s maybe where fishermen stay, sometimes,” suggested Teddy.
“I wish there was a fisherman here now, with something to eat,” murmured Janet. “I’m hungry!”
“So’m I,” admitted Ted. “But maybe we’ll soon come to a house.”
They walked on a little farther. The path was broader now, and the woods showed that they were under care, for the underbrush had been cleared away.
“Teddy!” called Janet, coming to a stop as they were about to go down into a little dell, or glade—a place where tall ferns grew and where it seemed dismal and dark. “Teddy!”
“What’s the matter?” he asked, for he felt his sister hanging back. “Are you scairt?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“What of?”
“Snakes!”
“Snakes! There aren’t any snakes here!” laughed Ted.
“Well, I heard a noise,” said Janet, taking a few steps backward. “It sounded just like a rattlesnake that Daddy told us about. Listen!”
The children remained quiet for a few moments and listened. A peculiar whirring, buzzing, rattling sound came to their ears.
“There! Hear that!” cried Janet. “It’s a rattlesnake! I’m going back to the boat!”
She started to run, but with a laugh Ted ran after her, caught her and pulled her back.
“That wasn’t a rattlesnake!” he chuckled.
“What was it?”
“Nothing but a locust! Listen! There he goes again.”
Janet listened. The sound was nearer now, and as it died away in faintness the little girl remembered that it was the song of the locust—the hot-day call of this curious insect.
“Oh, all right!” Janet murmured. “I’m glad it wasn’t a snake!”
“Come on!” insisted Ted. “We’ll soon be out of this dark place!”
But as they went down into the little dell, and were in the very gloomiest spot of all, there suddenly sounded a rustling in the bushes, which moved and shook.
“Oh!” screamed Janet, drawing back.