DRIFTING AWAY
Side by side, carrying their crab nets, an empty peach basket and their
bait, Ted and Janet walked toward a small bay that was part of the big
bay on which Sunset Beach faced. The little bay was long, but not very
wide, nor was it very deep. Near it were several small islands, where
summer residents had built cottages.
“I guess we’ll get this more than full of big crabs,” said Ted to his
sister, swinging the empty peach basket.
“I hope we do,” remarked Janet. “There’ll be a lot for Daddy, won’t
there? I hope they don’t bite us.”
“Crabs won’t bite if you know how to take hold of ’em,” Teddy explained.
“You got to grab ’em by one of their back flippers.”
“I’ll let you grab ’em,” said Janet.
Norah had given the children some chunks of raw meat, which they tied on
short lengths of string, for, as Teddy had said, the bay was not very
deep, and the bottom, on which the crabs crawled in search of food, was
not far down.
“I’ve got three strings apiece and bait,” said Teddy. “We can put three
lines out on each side of the boat.”
“Then we’ll catch lots of crabs,” remarked Janet.
When you go crabbing you can have almost as many lines out as you can
watch—it is not like catching fish with a hook. Crabs do not take the
bait in their mouth. They catch hold of it in their front claws, and
start to go away with it to some quiet hole, or under some rock, where
they may eat as they please.
But as soon as they start to walk along the bottom, or swim in the
water, taking away the bait with them, they tighten the string, which
should be made fast to something, or, if you are using but one cord,
held in the hand.
“And you want to pull up your strings carefully, when you do pull them,”
Teddy advised his sister. “If you don’t, the crab will let go the bait
and swim off and you haven’t got him.”
“I know,” she said. “I lost a dandy big one when I was crabbing on the
dock last week.”
The Curlytops soon reached the edge of the long, shallow bay in which
they were going to crab. It was a warm, pleasant day of sunshine, with
scarcely a cloud in the sky.
“Where’s the boat?” asked Janet, looking about as she and her brother
reached the place.
“I know how to find it—come on,” answered Ted.
He led the way along the shore of the bay, in and out along the windings
and turns of a path which wandered amid the sedge grass that grew thick
and tall along the shore.
“Jimmie hides his boat in the weeds so no one can find it,” explained
Ted.
“Then how _you_ going to find it?” Janet wanted to know.
“He told me how to look for it,” her brother explained. “You go along
until you see three sticks sticking up—three sticks in a row.”
“Yes,” murmured Janet.
“Well, the boat isn’t there. You go along a little farther till you see
two stakes—one straight and the other crooked.”
“Yes,” murmured Janet. “Is the boat there?”
“No,” answered Ted. “You go along a little more until you see two
crooked stakes stuck up, and there’s the boat.”
“It’s like a game, isn’t it?” asked his sister.
“Kind of,” Ted admitted.
The Curlytops tramped along until they came to the first three sticks
sticking up, as Jimmie had described them. Then they reached the spot
along the shore of the bay where one stick was crooked and the other
straight.
“We’re ’most there now!” Teddy exclaimed.
“Oh, I see the two crooked stakes!” cried Janet, a few minutes later,
and there, in a little hollow of the weeds, a sort of tiny harbor well
hidden, was the boat.
“Now we’ll get a lot of crabs for Daddy!” said Ted, as he pulled the
boat out so Janet could get in.
It was not much of a boat. A flat-bottomed punt, it might be called. It
was square and broad at either end, not pointed in the bow and
gracefully rounded in the stern, as are most boats.
“It’s a dandy boat!” cried Ted, as he worked it out. “I wish I had one
like it.”
Janet looked at some muddy water in the bottom—muddy water that sloshed
around under the seats.
“It leaks!” she objected. “Look at the water coming in!”
“Aw, it’s only a little,” said Teddy. “You can take off your shoes and
stockings and put them on the seat, if you’re afraid of getting wet.”
“I guess I will,” Janet said, and, sitting down on the edge of the boat,
she began to do this. “But maybe we’ll get so full of water we’ll sink
when we get out crabbing,” she added.
“Oh, no!” her brother hastened to assure her. “I guess this is only a
little water that rained in. Anyhow, if the boat was going to sink from
the leaks it would be sunk now, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess so,” said Janet, slowly. “Anyhow I hope it doesn’t sink.”
“We could wade ashore if it did,” Teddy told her. “This little bay isn’t
deep at all.”
He, too, took off his shoes, and when the peach basket, the crab nets
and the baited lines had been put in the punt, Ted pushed off from shore
with one of the oars which he found hidden in the tall grass, at a place
Jimmie had told him to look for them.
“We’re going to have a lovely time,” said Janet, as she sat on one of
the seats, idly splashing her bare feet in the water that sloshed around
on the bottom of the boat. “I wish I had brought one of my dolls with
me.”
“You don’t want any doll when you come crabbing,” Teddy answered. “She
might fall out of the boat or a crab might get loose and pinch her.”
“That’s so!” agreed Janet. “Oh, Teddy!” she cried, “s’posin’ a crab gets
loose in the boat and scrabbles all over? He’ll bite our toes! I wish
I’d let my shoes stay on!”
“You can hold your feet up in the air if a crab gets loose,” Teddy told
her, after thinking it over, “till I catch him and put him back in the
basket.”
“Oh, all right,” Janet remarked, after a moment or two.
She had often seen crabs “skiddering” around on the dock, either after
they had crawled out of a basket piled too full or when they had escaped
from the net as they were being landed. And once a crab had caught hold
of the tip of Janet’s shoe in his claws. Of course he did not hurt the
little girl, but, afterward, she could see where the leather had been
cut, for a crab can pinch very hard with his claws—often drawing blood
from some unlucky fisherman’s finger.
“Well, I hope no crab pinches me,” murmured the little girl.
Teddy was now rowing out toward the middle of the little bay, for there,
Jimmie had told him, was the best crabbing. The clumsy punt was not easy
to send along, and Teddy was not very strong on the oars. But he and his
sister were in no hurry, and they soon found that the tide, which was
coming in, helped to carry them along.
“It’s best to catch crabs when the tide comes in,” said Teddy, with the
air of an old “sea dog.”
“Why?” asked Janet.
“’Cause it’s then they come in from the ocean to eat up in the inlets
and bays, and they’ll bite better,” Teddy answered.
“We’re out awful far from shore,” Janet remarked, after Teddy had rowed
for several minutes. “Look, how far it is, Teddy.”
“Oh, this isn’t far,” he said. “And, anyhow, the water isn’t deep. Look,
I can touch bottom with an oar,” and he did this, pulling one in from
the lock to show his sister. The water was, really, only about three
feet deep, so that only shallow draught boats could be used, even at
high tide; nor was the “little bay” very wide, and the children were
still within this small bay.
“Well, don’t you guess we’re out far enough?” asked Janet, after Teddy
had rowed a bit farther.
“Yes, I guess so,” he agreed. “Now we’ll anchor and catch a lot of
crabs.”
Those of you who have been crabbing know that the boat must be kept
still, or nearly so, while the crab fishing goes on. For this reason all
crabbing boats are provided with anchors.
Jimmie had a stone for his anchor—a stone tied on the end of a rope,
the other end of the rope being fast to the boat. Teddy cast the stone
anchor overboard. It fell in with a splash, the tide swung the boat
around, facing up the bay, and the Curlytops cast their six lines of
bait over the side. Each string was made fast to nails driven in the
edge, or gunwale, of the boat for this purpose.
[Illustration: HE MADE A QUICK SCOOP WITH THE NET, AND OUT OF THE WATER
CAME MR. CRAB.]
“Now you watch your lines and I’ll watch mine,” Teddy said, in a
whisper. He had an idea—as did many other boys—that to catch crabs or
fish one must not be too noisy. I suppose too much noise might frighten
away the fish, but whether or not they can hear ordinary talk and
laughter when they are down under the water, I don’t know.
At any rate, Ted and Janet kept as quiet as they could, though they had
to talk and laugh a little. It was a wonderful day and they felt very
jolly.
Suddenly Janet murmured:
“I’ve got a bite!”
“Pull him in, then,” Teddy whispered in answer. “But pull it up slow!
I’ll get the net ready!”
A look at his three lines showed that all of them were loose, or
“slack,” as a fisherman would say. This showed no crabs were trying to
walk or swim away with the piece of meat. But one of Janet’s cords was
pulled out straight, and it was jerking in a queer way.
Carefully she began to pull it up, a few inches at a time. But, somehow,
the line came up only a little way, and then Janet could pull it no
more.
“It’s stuck,” she told her brother.
“I guess the crab’s holding on to the bottom of the bay with his legs,”
Ted explained. “They’ve got sharp legs, besides their claws, and they
stick their legs down in the mud and hold on. Pull a little harder, but
don’t jerk!”
Janet tried this way, and found, to her delight, that her cord was now
coming in. There was a weight on the end, she could tell, but this might
be only the weight of the chunk of meat used for bait. It is not always
easy to tell when a crab is on, as, once they are raised up off the
bottom, they swim along, making themselves very light.
But Janet’s bait was now only a little way below the surface of the bay,
and Ted, looking over the side of the boat, exclaimed:
“Oh, you’ve caught a big one! You have a whopper! A blue claw one!
Regular giant!”
“Oh, I hope I don’t lose him!” exclaimed Janet. The children had now
forgotten all about talking quietly.
“I’ll get him!” declared Ted.
Quickly and quietly, as he had seen the fishermen do, Ted slipped the
short-handled net into the water and under Janet’s crab, including the
bait, for the crab was clinging with both claws to the chunk of beef,
eating as he was lifted up. The crab did not know what was going to
happen to him.
“I’ve got him!” cried Teddy.
He made a quick scoop with the net, and out of water came Mr. Crab. As
soon as he found himself raised up out of the water where he lived, the
crab let go the meat and began kicking with all his legs, his claws and
his flippers, trying to escape. But he was entangled in the meshes of
the net, and a moment later Ted turned the net upside down over the
waiting peach basket.
“Don’t let him get loose!” squealed Janet, sitting up on the seat and
drawing her bare feet off the bottom of the boat.
“He won’t get loose!” declared Ted, and the crab was soon scuttling
around on the bottom of the basket, opening and closing its big, blue
claws, shooting out its eyes, which seemed to be on hinges. And from the
crab’s mouth came foam and bubbles as if he were very angry, as, no
doubt, he was.
“You caught a dandy, Janet!” exclaimed Teddy, as he untangled his
sister’s line and bait from the net and tossed the meat overboard again.
“Now it’s my turn to get one.”
And, surely enough, a moment later one of Ted’s lines started to move,
and, taking hold, he could feel a crab pulling. He lifted his bait
toward the surface, and Janet, using the net, soon landed another crab.
It was not as large as the one she had caught, but it was of good size.
“We’re having good luck!” said Teddy.
“And lots of fun!” added his sister.
They caught several more crabs, some large and some smaller. The peach
basket was filling up. Suddenly one of the crabs scrambled over the side
of the peach basket to the bottom of the boat.
“Oh, one’s loose! One’s loose!” screamed Janet. “He’ll bite my toes!”
“I’ll catch him! He won’t hurt you!” shouted Ted. He knew just how to
catch up a crab by one of the back “flippers,” so that the sea creature
could not turn its claws around to pinch. “Get back in your basket where
you belong!” laughed Ted, as he tossed the crab—a big one with blue
claws—in on top of the others. There was a great clashing of claws, the
crabs pinching one another.
“I’m glad he didn’t get me!” exclaimed Janet, as she saw the lively
fellow settle down.
“I’ll put some seaweed on top of them,” offered Teddy.
This he did, scooping up some green weed, like immense leaves of
lettuce, from the bottom of the bay in his net. Thus covered, the crabs
grew quieter.
Then the Curlytops went on catching crabs, hauling up line after line as
they saw the cords straighten out, one after another. The crabs were
biting well—not exactly biting as a fish bites, but taking hold of the
bait in their claws, which was much the same thing.
“Well, I guess we have enough,” said Teddy, after a while. “The basket’s
nearly full.”
“Oh, I’ve got one more on my line!” exclaimed Janet. “I think he’s a big
one, for he pulls hard. Let me get him, Ted.”
“All right,” he agreed. And when Janet had pulled up her cord Teddy
leaned over, ready with the net.
His foot slipped on some of the slimy, green seaweed in the bottom of
the boat, and Ted almost fell overboard. However, he saved himself by
grasping one of the oars, though both of the wooden blades rattled about
in the boat.
“Don’t let my crab get away!” cried Janet.
“I’ve got him!” shouted her brother. And he did get the squirming
creature in the net, dumping Mr. Crab into the basket.
“There, that’s the last one!” said Janet, with a sigh of satisfaction.
“Now we’ll go home. Oh, but, Teddy! Look!” she suddenly cried.
“What’s the matter?” asked the boy.
“The oars are gone!” Janet answered. “And we’re drifting away! Oh,
Teddy, we’re adrift, and we’ll go out to sea! Oh, dear!”