COUSIN JASPER'S STORY
Mr. Bobbsey, who had been talking to the clerk of the hotel at the desk,
looked toward Mrs. Bobbsey, who was hurrying out the front door.
"Wait a minute!" he called after her. "I'll come with you!"
"No, you stay with the other children," she answered. "I'll find
Freddie."
"But you don't know your way about St. Augustine," said Mr. Bobbsey.
"You've never been here before."
"Neither have you," returned his wife with a laugh, for she was not very
much alarmed about Freddie--he had slipped away too often before.
"I can find my way about as well as you can, Dick," went on Mrs.
Bobbsey. "You stay here and I'll get our little fat fireman."
"Maybe he has gone to see a fire engine," suggested Nan.
"I don't believe so," answered her father. "I didn't hear any alarm, but
perhaps they don't sound one here as we do back in Lakeport."
"I guess he's just gone out to look at the things in the streets here,"
said Bert. "They're a lot different from at home."
"Indeed they are!" exclaimed Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, I'll stay here," he
said to his wife, "and you go and look for Freddie. But if you don't
soon find him come back and I'll go out."
"I'll find him," she said, and one of the porters from the hotel offered
to go with her to show Mrs. Bobbsey her way about the strange streets of
St. Augustine--the little, narrow streets that had not been changed much
in three hundred years.
"Oh, what a lovely place this is," said Nan to Bert, while their father
was talking with the hotel clerk. "It's like a palace."
"It looks like some of the places you see in a moving picture," said
Bert.
And indeed the beautiful hotel, with the palms and flowers set all
about, did look like some moving picture play. Only it was real, and the
Bobbsey twins were to stay there until they had seen Cousin Jasper, and
found out what his strange story was about.
Soon after Mr. Bobbsey had finished signing his name and those of the
members of his family in the hotel register book, Mrs. Bobbsey came
back, leading Freddie by the hand.
The little boy seemed to be all right, and he was smiling, while in one
hand he held a ripe banana.
"Where've you been, Freddie?" asked Flossie. "I was afraid you had gone
back home."
"Nope," Freddie answered, as he started to peel the banana. "I was
seeing how they did it."
"How who did what?" asked his father.
"Carried the big baskets on their heads," Freddie answered, and by this
time he had part of the skin off the yellow fruit, and was breaking off
a piece for Flossie. Freddie always shared his good things with his
little sister, and with Bert and Nan if there was enough.
"What does he mean?" asked Bert of his mother. "Was he trying to carry
something on his head?"
"No," answered Mrs. Bobbsey with a laugh, "but he was following a big
colored woman who had a basket of fruit on her head. I caught him
halfway down the street in front of another hotel. He was walking after
this woman, and he didn't hear me coming. I asked him what he was doing,
and he said he was waiting to see it fall off."
"What fall off?" asked Nan, coming up just then.
"I thought maybe the basket would fall off her head," Freddie answered
for himself. "It was an awful big basket, and it wibbled and wobbled
like anything. I thought maybe it would fall, but it didn't," he added
with a sigh, as though he had been cheated out of a lot of fun.
"If it did had fallen," he went on, "I was going to pick up her bananas
and oranges for her. That's why I kept walking after her."
"Did she drop that banana?" asked Mr. Bobbsey, while several smiling
persons gathered about the Bobbsey twins in the hotel lobby.
"No, I bought this with a penny," Freddie answered. "The colored lady
didn't drop any. But if her basket did had fallen from off her head I
could have picked up the things, and then maybe she'd have given me a
banana or an orange."
"And when that didn't happen you had to go buy one yourself; did you?"
asked Mr. Bobbsey with a laugh. "Well, that's too bad. But, after this,
Freddie, don't go away by yourself. It's all right, at home, to run off
and play in the fields or woods, for you know your way about. But here
you are in a strange city, so you must stay with us."
"Yes, sir," answered Freddie, like a good little boy.
"I will, too," promised Flossie.
The Bobbsey family was together once again, and when Flossie and Freddie
had eaten the banana, and porters had taken charge of their baggage,
they all went up to the rooms where they were to stay.
"We don't know just how long we'll be here," said Mr. Bobbsey, as they
were getting ready to go down to supper, as the children called it, or
"dinner," as the more fashionable name has it.
"Are we going out on the ocean again?" asked Nan.
"Did you like it?" her father wanted to know.
"Oh, lots!" she answered.
"It was great!" declared Bert.
"I want to see 'em catch some more sharks," Freddie said.
"I like to see the blue water," added Flossie, who had got out a clean
dress for her rubber doll.
"Yes, the blue water is very pretty," remarked Mr. Bobbsey. "Well, we
shall, very likely, sail on it again. I don't know just what Cousin
Jasper wants to tell me, or what he wants me to do. But I think he is
planning an ocean trip himself. I'll go to see him this evening, after
we have eaten, and then I can tell you all about it."
"May I come with you?" asked Bert.
"Well, I think not this first trip," answered Mr. Bobbsey slowly. "I am
going to the hospital where Cousin Jasper is ill, and he may not be able
to see both of us. I'll take you later."
"We can stay and watch the colored people carry things on their heads,"
put in Freddie. "That's lots of fun, and maybe some of 'em will drop
off, and we can help pick 'em up, and they might give us an orange."
"I guess I'd rather buy my oranges, and then I'll be sure to have what I
want," said Bert with a laugh.
"There are plenty of things you can look at while I'm at the hospital,"
said Mr. Bobbsey, and after the meal he inquired the way to the place
where Cousin Jasper was getting well, while Mrs. Bobbsey took the
children down to the docks, where they could see many motor boats, and
fishing and oyster craft, tied up for the night.
It was a beautiful evening, and the soft, balmy air of St. Augustine was
warm, so that only the lightest clothing needed to be worn.
"It's just like being at the seashore in the summer," said Nan.
"Well, this is summer, and we are at the seashore, though it is not like
Ocean Cliff," said Mrs. Bobbsey with a smile. She was glad the children
liked it, and she hoped they would have more good times if they were
again to go sailing on the deep, blue sea.
When they got back to the hotel Mr. Bobbsey had not yet returned from
the hospital, but he came before Flossie and Freddie were ready for bed,
for they had been allowed to stay up a little later than usual.
"Well, how is Cousin Jasper?" asked Mrs. Bobbsey.
"Much better, I am glad to say," answered her husband. "He will be able
to leave the hospital in a few days, and then he wants us to start on a
trip with him."
"Start on a trip so soon!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey. "Where does he want
to go, and will he be well enough to travel?"
"He says he will. And as to where he wants to go, that is a strange
story."
"Oh, tell us about it!" begged Bert.
"We're going to hear Cousin Jasper's secret at last!" cried Nan.
"Is it a real story, with 'once upon a time' in it?" Freddie questioned.
"And has it got a fire engine in it?" he added.
"Well, no, not exactly a fire engine, though it has a boat engine in the
story. And I can make it start with 'once upon a time,' if you want me
to."
"Please do," begged Flossie. "And has it got any fairies in it?"
"No, not exactly any fairies," her father said; "though we may find some
when we get to the island."
"Oh, are we going on an island?" exclaimed Bert.
"There!" cried his father, "I've started at the wrong end. I had better
begin at the beginning. And that will be to tell you how I found Cousin
Jasper.
"He has been quite ill, and is better now. Part of the time he was out
of his head with fever, even after he wrote to me, and for a time the
doctor feared he would not get well. But now he is all right, except for
being weak, and he told me a queer story.
"Once upon a time," went on Mr. Bobbsey, telling the tale as his littler
children liked to hear it, "Cousin Jasper and a young friend of his, a
boy about fifteen years old, set out to take a long trip in a motor
boat. That is it had an engine in it that ran by gasolene as does an
automobile. Cousin Jasper is very fond of sailing the deep, blue sea,
and he took this boy along with him to help. They were to sail about for
a week, visiting the different islands off the coast of Florida.
"Well, everything went all right the first few days. In their big motor
boat Cousin Jasper and this boy, who was named Jack Nelson, sailed
about, living on their boat, cooking their meals, and now and then
landing at the little islands, or keys, as they are called.
"They were having a good time when one day a big storm came up. They
could not manage their boat and they were blown a long way out to sea
and then cast up on the shore of a small island.
"Cousin Jasper was hurt and so was the boy, but they managed to get out
of the water and up on land. They found a sort of cave in which they
could get out of the storm, and they stayed on the island for some
time."
"For years?" asked Bert, who, with the other Bobbsey twins, was much
interested in Cousin Jasper's strange story. "That was just like
Robinson Crusoe!" Bert went on. "Why didn't they stay there always?"
"They did not have enough to eat," said Mr. Bobbsey, "and it was too
lonesome for them there. They were the only people on the island, as far
as they knew. So they made a smudge of smoke, and on a pole they put up
some pieces of canvas that had washed ashore from their motor boat. They
hoped these signals would be seen by some ship or small boat that might
come to take them off."
"Did they get rescued?" asked Bert.
Mr. Bobbsey was about to answer when the telephone, which was in the
room, gave a loud ring.
"Some one for us!" exclaimed Mrs. Bobbsey.