THE SHARK
There is so much that may happen at the seashore—so many
accidents—that generally when grown folks see a child crying they seek
a reason. The seashore in summer is supposed to be a happy place—not a
place for tears. And usually one does not cry unless something has
happened.
So when Janet, catching sight of Ted being carried out to sea in the
fishing boat, began to sob, several ladies asked:
“What’s the matter, little girl?”
“Oh, it’s—now—it’s Teddy!” she answered. “He—he’s gone!”
“Do you mean a wave carried him out?” asked the fisherman who had cast
off the rope that held the boat. “Where was he? Show me!”
He began to take off his heavy coat and was about to sit down to pull
off his rubber boots when Janet said:
“Oh, he wasn’t washed out by a wave! The boat took him off! There he is
in the fishing boat!”
She pointed to Teddy, who could be seen standing up in the bow of the
craft, which was now far out from shore, heading toward the long, green
swells of the ocean. That the taking away of the Curlytop boy in the
boat had caused excitement among the fishermen in the craft was plain,
for several of the men could be seen talking to Ted.
“Oh, your brother’s in the boat, is he?” asked the man who had been
about to take off his boots. “Well, then he’s all right. I guess he
asked the captain for a ride and he was taken out. Lots of boys go out
to the fish nets.”
“Will he—will he come—back?” faltered Janet, still sobbing.
“Of course he’ll come back!” laughed the fisherman. “He’ll come back
when the boat comes back, and that will be in about two hours. I won’t
say he’ll come back as clean as when he went out,” he added, “for it’s
pretty dirty work filling a boat with slimy, flapping fish. But he may
have a lot of fun.”
“Will he see a lobster pinch a shark?” asked William. And every one
laughed at him again. Even Janet smiled.
“Yes, he may see a lobster pinch a shark,” said the fisherman. “A
lobster will pinch anything that gets near his claws. And if there
should be a shark in the net, and the shark should be put in the boat
and there was a lobster there, the shark would get pinched.”
“I wish Ted would bring me a shark an’ a lobster,” went on William.
“Maybe he will,” chuckled the fisherman.
“Will he bring a nellifunt, too?” the little boy wanted to know.
“An elephant?” questioned the fisherman. “Well, there is such a thing as
a sea elephant. It’s a sort of seal with a long nose like the trunk of
an elephant,” he explained. “But I’ve never seen any in these parts. I
guess, little boy, if your brother comes back with a shark and a
lobster, besides a boat load of fish, he’ll be doing pretty well.”
“I hope the shark won’t bite him,” sighed Janet.
“Don’t worry, little girl,” said one of the women on the beach. “If the
fishermen do catch a shark in their nets they’ll kill it before they
lift it into the boat. It can’t hurt your brother.”
“I’m glad of that,” Janet said.
“I don’t see how the little boy got into the boat,” said another woman.
“My boy has been teasing to go, but the men wouldn’t let him.”
“I don’t see how Teddy got in to go,” said Janet. “My mother will be
worried about him, I’m afraid.”
“He’ll soon be back,” answered the fisherman, consolingly. “He may be
back before your mother has a chance to worry. Sometimes we don’t get
many fish in the nets, and it doesn’t take long to empty them. Now don’t
cry any more.”
So Janet dried her tears and she and William watched the big flat wagon,
loaded with fish, rumble up the sand toward the packing house. Now and
then Janet gazed off to sea, where the fishing boat, containing Ted, was
growing smaller and smaller the farther it went from shore. It was
almost at the fish nets now.
And now, I think, it is time for us to find out how it was that Ted
happened to be in the boat, and how he was taken out to sea.
As I have told you, he and Janet were much interested in seeing the
different kinds of fish brought in by the first boat. The children ran
from one side to the other of the craft, as it rested on the sand,
having been pulled well above the high tide limit.
Then Ted thought he would like to look into the boat that was about to
go out to the nets. He wanted to see what it was like. Now, though these
motor fishing-boats look rather small when they are out on the ocean,
they are, really, quite large and will hold a number of men and many
hundreds of fishes—even several big sharks.
While almost every one else was gathered around the boat that had been
partly emptied of its load, Ted found himself alone near the craft that
was about to go out and bring in what fish remained in the nets.
“I’ll climb up the outside and look over the edge,” said Teddy to
himself.
This he did. He managed to scramble up the outside of the craft, and he
looked down inside on the rubber coats of the men, the oars (to be used
in case the gasolene motor failed) at the sharp pikes for killing
sharks, at the bits of tarred nets and other things.
Then, all of a sudden, Ted overbalanced himself. Head first, he fell
inside the boat on a pile of nets—nets that were being taken out to be
fastened to some of the poles.
“Oh!” gasped Ted. He wasn’t hurt, but the breath was knocked from him,
and he couldn’t get up for several seconds. Then, before he knew it,
there was a shout and the boat began gliding down the beach on the
wooden rollers.
“All in!” cried a voice.
Crouched down inside the boat, tangled up in the mass of nets, Ted saw
hands grasping the gunwhale of the craft. The men were running it down
into the water and holding on to the edge so they could leap in once the
boat was fully afloat.
“Hey! Let me out! I want to get out!” cried Ted, when he understood what
was going to happen.
But the fishermen were shouting orders one to another, and the surf was
booming on the sandy beach, so Ted’s voice wasn’t heard. In another
moment the men had leaped over the side of the craft, the engine was
started, and out to sea Ted was being taken.
Not until the boat was beyond the last line of breakers, during which
passage it was tossed up and down and from side to side in a manner most
alarming to the little boy—not until after that was Ted discovered.
Then one of the fishermen looked toward the pile of nets in the bow of
the craft and exclaimed:
“There’s a stowaway on board!”
Ted might have been frightened except that the man laughed so hard that
what had happened could not be very serious.
“A stowaway! Where?” cried the man who was steering the boat by the long
tiller in the stern.
“There he is—a boy!” was the answer.
By this time Ted had freed himself of the tangle of nets and was
standing up. He looked very small in the big boat and amid the big,
husky fishermen, some of whom were putting on their yellow oilskin
coats, for the spray was now flying over the boat.
“How did you get here?” asked one of the men.
“I—I fell in,” Ted answered.
“Well, be careful you don’t fall out!” grumbled a rather cross-looking
fisherman.
“Don’t talk that way,” chided one of his mates. “Don’t frighten the boy.
You’ll be all right, little lad,” he went on, as he saw Ted’s lips begin
to quiver. “We’ll take you safe back to shore with us. How did you
happen to fall in?”
Then Ted related how he was climbing up the outside of the boat as it
waited on the beach to be released.
“No harm done,” said Lars Oleson, who was the captain of the boat.
“You’ll get a bit dirty when we fill up the boat—that is, if we get
enough fish to do so—but you won’t be in any danger. Stow him up in the
bow, some of you, on a pile of nets. It’s getting rough.”
Indeed, the wind was blowing harder now, whipping spray from the crests
of the waves and sending it in a shower over the boat. However, it was
July and the day was warm.
Ted was lifted up farther toward the bow, or front end of the boat,
which was higher than amidships, or the middle. Under the protection of
the high bow, Ted sat down on a pile of nets. He rather liked the tarry
smell, but he was afraid some of the tar would come off on his clothes.
And he was right—it did.
“But it’s my old suit,” he thought. Mrs. Martin had been wise in making
the children don old garments to play down on the sand.
Now the spray from the waves did not reach Ted, though the men were
showered with it. But they did not seem to mind. It was part of their
business. Then, too, they wore heavy oilskin coats which kept them dry.
After the first shock of his fall and his fright, Teddy’s heart did not
beat so hard. He was rather glad, after all, that it had happened this
way.
“But I guess Janet will be scared,” he told himself. “And I wonder what
Mother and Daddy will say?”
There was one consolation, though, he would soon be back on the beach
again. He heard the fisherman say that. They talked of the number of
fish the other boat had brought in. This would not leave many for them,
and they would be through that much more quickly.
Now that he was in a sheltered place, Teddy began to feel better. On, on
to sea, toward the line of nets, rode the craft.
The sea was a bit rough, and the boat moved up and down on the long
swells, like the pendulum of a slowly ticking clock, but in the opposite
direction.
“This is fun!” thought Teddy to himself. He was glad he did not feel
seasick, as many persons might have felt with that slow, heaving motion.
Ted was a pretty good little sailor.
“Here, boy—what’s your name—you’d better wrap this around you,” said
one of the fishermen, handing Ted a piece of an old yellow oilskin coat.
“It will keep you dry, and you won’t get so dirty from the fish. We have
to dump them in anyhow at first, and they flop all over the seats and
everywhere.”
“Thank you,” responded Teddy politely. “My name is Ted Martin, and my
nickname is Curlytop.”
“That’s a good name,” said the fisherman, with a laugh. “My name is Sven
Jensen, and my nickname is Hungry Sven,” and he laughed again, his
companions joining in.
Ted also laughed, and was beginning to feel more jolly. It was a great
adventure to be thus taken out in a fishing boat. He knew his mother
would not worry for long, and Ted thought that some of the people on
shore would take care of Janet and Trouble.
So he wrapped about him the torn piece of the oilskin coat. It was used,
at times, to put over the motor when there was a heavy rain. It was not
very clean—this oilskin—but it would keep some of the fish slime off
Ted’s clothes.
“Well, here we are!” shouted Captain Oleson. “Now to see what we have in
the nets!”
The motor boat began to slow down. It was entering into what seemed to
Ted to be a tangle of nets suspended on poles going deep down into the
water. But to the fishermen what seemed a tangle was nothing of the
sort.
“Hi! Look there! A big one!” suddenly shouted the Swede who had said his
nickname was “Hungry Sven.”
“A shark! A shark!” shouted the others, and Ted felt a thrill go through
him.
“A shark, eh?” muttered Captain Oleson. “I’ll shark him! Give me that
lance!”
A pole with a sharp iron point on the end was handed him. Then, all of a
sudden, something seemed to hit the boat, which tipped to one side.
“Look out! He’s ramming us!” cried one of the men.
“Hold hard!” shouted the captain.
Ted was almost knocked down by the impact of the shark against the side
of the boat. For the big “tiger of the sea” had bumped against the
craft.
“Look out for the boy! Watch the boy! Don’t let him go overboard!”
shouted Captain Oleson. “Let me get at the shark!”
He climbed over the seats to a place in the middle of the boat. Ted had
sunk back on the pile of nets, but he wanted to see the shark caught, so
he stood up again.
“Come here, lad, if you want to look,” invited Hungry Sven. He held out
a rough hand to Ted, who, grasping it, made his way out of the bow.
“He’s gone!” cried one of the men, in disappointed tones.
“No, here he comes at us again! Look out!” cried the captain.
There was a crash against the side of the boat, and Ted felt himself
being tumbled about.