THE DRIFTING BOAT
At first Nan and Bert did not know whether Freddie was playing some
trick or not. Flossie had gone down to the spring to get a cupful of
water, and so was not near her little brother when he gave the cry of
alarm.
But Bert looked up and had a glimpse of what had startled Freddie.
Certainly there was a queer, blue face staring at the three twins from
over the top of the bushes. And the face did not go away as they looked
at it.
"A blueberry boy! What in the world is a blueberry boy?" asked Nan.
"There he is!" cried Freddie, pointing. "He's been picking blueberries.
That's why I call him a blueberry boy."
"Yes, and he's been eating them, too, I guess," added Bert. "Did you
want anything of us?" he asked of the stranger.
By this time Flossie had come back with the water--that is, what she had
not spilled of it--and she, too, saw the strange boy.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"My name's Tom," was the answer. "What's yours?"
"Flossie Bobbsey, an' I'm a twin an' we're campin' on this island, and
we had some bugs that went around and around and----"
"Flossie, come here," called Nan. She did not want her little sister to
talk too much to the strange boy. Nan had an idea the boy might belong
to the gypsies.
"I saw him first," put in Freddie. "I saw his face all covered with
blueberries, and I dropped my standwich--I did."
He began looking on the ground for what he had been eating, but finding,
when he picked up the bread and bits of chicken, that ants were crawling
all over the "standwich," he tossed it away again.
"Aw, what'd you do that for?" asked Tom, the blueberry boy. "That was
good to eat! Ain't you hungry?"
"Yes, but I don't like ants," returned Freddie. "'Sides, there's more
to eat in the basket!"
"Cracky!" exclaimed Tom. "That's fine! There isn't anything in _my_
basket but blueberries, and not many of them. You get tired of eatin'
'em after a while, too."
"Are you--are you hungry?" asked Bert. As yet no one else had appeared
except the boy. He seemed to be all alone. And he was not much larger
than Bert.
"Hungry? You'd better believe I'm hungry!" answered the boy with a laugh
that showed his white teeth with his blueberry-stained lips and face all
around them. "I thought I'd have a lot of berries picked by noon, so I
could row back to shore, sell 'em and get somethin' to eat. But the
berries ain't as ripe as I thought they'd be--it's too early I guess--so
I've got to go hungry."
Nan whispered something to Bert who nodded.
"We've got more sandwiches here," Bert said to the blueberry boy. "Would
you like one?"
"Would I _like_ one?" asked the boy, who seemed to answer one question
by asking another like it. "Say, you just give me a chance. I ain't had
nothin' since breakfast, and there wasn't much of that."
With a bound he jumped through the bushes and stood in the little grassy
glade where the Bobbsey twins were having a sort of picnic by
themselves. They saw that Tom had on ragged clothes and no shoes.
Indeed, he looked like a very poor boy, but his face, though it was
stained with the blueberries he had eaten, was smiling and kind. The
Bobbsey twins thought they would like him.
"Here--eat this," and Bert held out some sandwiches. Dinah had put in
plenty, as she always did.
"And he can have some cake, too," said Freddie. "I don't want but two
pieces, and I told Dinah to put in three for me."
"Oh, what a hungry boy!" laughed Nan.
"And the blueberry boy can have one of my pieces of cake," said Flossie.
"Where did you get the blueberries?" she asked, looking into his basket.
"I didn't get many--that's the trouble," he said. "It's a little too
early for them. But the earlier they are the better price you can sell
'em for. So I came over alone to-day."
"Where do you live?" asked Bert, as the boy was hungrily eating the
sandwich.
"Over in Freedon," and Tom Turner, for such he said was his name,
pointed to a village on the other side of the lake from that where the
Bobbsey twins had their home. "Our folks come here every year to pick
blueberries, but never as early as this. I guess I've had my trouble for
nothing. I've eaten more berries than I put in my basket, I guess. But I
was so hungry I had to have something. I didn't find many ripe ones at
that, and I guess I got as much outside of me as I did inside," and he
laughed again, showing his white teeth.
"Where do you folks live?" Tom asked, as he took a piece of cake Nan
offered him.
"We're camping on this island."
"You don't mean to say you are gypsies, do you?" asked the blueberry boy
in surprise.
"No, of course not!" Bert answered. "We live in Lakeport--Bobbsey is our
name and----"
"Oh, does your father have a lumberyard?"
"Yes."
"Oh! Well, then you're all right! My father drives one of your father's
lumber wagons. He just got that job this week--been out of work a long
while. I heard him say he had a place in the Bobbsey lumberyard, but I
never thought I'd meet you. I thought maybe you was gypsies at first."
"That's what I thought you were," said Nan.
"We're going to be gypsies when we get older--Freddie and me," announced
Flossie.
"No, we're not, Flossie. We're going to be in a circus."
"Oh, yes! And I'm going to ride a horse standing up."
"And I'm going to be a clown----"
"And he'll have his little fire engine----"
"And squirt water on the other clowns and----"
"And the folks'll holler and laugh. And I'm going to have a
glittery----"
"Dear me, Flossie and Freddie, we've heard all about that at least a
dozen times lately," protested Bert.
"But Tom hasn't heard about it. He's int'rested," declared Freddie.
"I knew a feller once that had been in a circus," said Tom. "He said
they had to work awful hard. There's the show every afternoon and every
night and the parade in the mornin' and the practisin' and gettin'
ready. He said too that the fellers at the head of the show was awful
strict about how everybody behaved themselves. It wasn't much fun, he
said, and it was lots of work."
"My!" gasped Freddie. "I--I guess we'll be gypsies. I don't like to
work--much."
"That is, not very much," agreed Flossie.
"Are there any gypsies here?" asked Bert, for he thought it would be a
good chance to find out what he wanted to know.
"Yes, there are some," was Tom's unexpected answer. "They had a camp on
the lower end of the island last week. I expected to see some of 'em
to-day. They're great blueberry pickers, and that's one reason I came
early. Most always the gypsies get the best of the blueberries 'fore we
white folks have a chance."
"Are there gypsies on this island now?" asked Nan, looking over her
shoulder into the bushes, as though she feared a dark-faced man, with
gold rings in his ears, might step out any moment and make a grab for
Flossie or Freddie.
"Well, I guess they're here now, 'less they've gone," said Tom. "I saw
some of the men and women here day before yesterday. They had been over
to the mainland buyin' things from the store, and they rowed over here.
I'd come to look for blueberries, but there wasn't as many ripe as there
is to-day, though that isn't sayin' much. But the gypsies are here all
right."
"Then we'd better go," said Nan to Bert.
"Why?" Tom asked.
"Because," said Nan slowly, "we don't like gypsies. They might take----"
"They took Helen's talking doll!" exclaimed Flossie. "She cried about
it, too. I would if they'd take my doll, only I got her hid under my
bed. You won't tell the gypsies, will you?"
"No, indeed!" laughed Tom. "You're afraid of them, are you?" he asked
Nan.
"Yes--a little," she said slowly.
"They won't hurt you!" Tom said. "They're not very fond of workin', and
they'll take anything they find lyin' around loose, but they won't hurt
nobody."
"They took Helen's doll," said Freddie, who had finished his two pieces
of cake, "and maybe they got my bugs that go around and around----"
"And around! They go around three times," put in Flossie.
"I was going to say that, only you didn't wait!" cried Freddie. "But
we've got a goat!" he went on, "and he's almost as good as Snap, our
dog, and maybe the gypsies got him."
"My, you don't think of anything but gypsies!" said Tom with a laugh.
"I'm not worried about them. If I see any of 'em on the island I'll ask
'em if they have your dog and bugs."
"And Helen's doll," added Flossie. "She wants Mollie back."
"I'll ask about that," promised Tom. "You've been awful good to me, and
I'd like to do you a favor. I know some of the gypsy boys."
"I guess I'll tell my father they're camping on this island," said Bert.
"Let's go tell him now," suggested Nan. "We've stayed here long enough."
"And I guess I'll row back to the mainland," added Tom. "There's no use
waiting here for the blueberries to get ripe. I'll come next week."
He walked back a little way with the Bobbsey twins to where he had left
his boat. Then he was soon rowing across the lake, waving his hand to
his new friends, his white teeth showing between his berry-stained lips.
"He's a nice boy--that blueberry boy," said Freddie. "I saw him first, I
did!"
Mr. Bobbsey nodded his head thoughtfully when the twins, taking turns,
told him what Tom had told them.
"Gypsies on the island, eh?" remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I suppose they
think they have a right to camp here. But I'll see about it. Maybe some
of them are all right, but I don't like the idea of staying here if the
place is going to be overrun with them. I must see about it."
For the next few days and nights a close watch was kept about Twin Camp,
but no gypsies were seen. Nor did any more blueberry-pickers come.
Indeed, the fruit was not ripe enough, as the Bobbseys could tell by
looking at some bushes which grew near their tents.
It was about a week after this, when Mr. Bobbsey had gone to Lakeport
one morning on business, that Flossie and Freddie went down to the shore
of the lake not far from their camp.
As they looked across the water they saw drifting toward the island an
empty rowboat. There was no one in it, as they could tell, and the wind
was sending it slowly along.
"It's got loose from some dock," said Freddie, who knew more about boats
than most boys of his age.
"Maybe it'll come here and we can get it," said Flossie. "Let's throw
stones at it."
"No, that would only scare it away," said Freddie. "Wait till it gets
near enough, and then I'll wade out and poke it in with a stick."
So the two little twins waited on shore for the drifting boat to come to
them.