The Bobbsey Twins on the Deep Blue Sea Part 28

"Maybe there are," said Mrs. Bobbsey. "Perhaps, after all, some one lives here, on the other side where we haven't been. And they may keep chickens."

"Oh, no," answered her husband.

"I hardly think so," said Cousin Jasper. "But we'll go to look at what Freddie has found."

Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, with Cousin Jasper, followed by Bert and Nan, hurried down the beach to Flossie and Freddie, standing beside a hole they had dug in the sand. The children were looking down into it.

"I busted one egg with my clam-sh.e.l.l shovel," Freddie was saying, "but there's a lot left."

"They were all covered with sand," added Flossie. "And we dug 'em up!

Didn't we, Freddie? We dug up the chickie's nest!"

"But we didn't see any chickens," said the little boy.

"And for a very good reason," stated Cousin Jasper with a laugh, as he looked down into the little sand pit. "Those are the eggs of a turtle.

Perhaps the very turtle that had hold of your dress, Flossie."

"Do turtles lay eggs?" asked Freddie in surprise.

"Indeed they do," said Cousin Jasper.

"O-o-oh!" gasped Flossie.

"And the turtle's eggs are good to eat, too. They are not quite as nice as the eggs of a hen, but lots of people, especially those who live on some of these islands, like them very much," went on Mr. Dent.

"Does a turkle lay its eggs in a nest like a hen?" Flossie questioned.

"What made them all be covered up?"

"Well," answered Cousin Jasper, as they all looked at the eggs in the sand, "a turtle lays eggs like a hen, but she cannot hover over them, and hatch them, as a hen can, because a turtle has no warm feathers. You know it takes warmth and heat to make an egg hatch. And, as a turtle isn't warm enough to do that, she lays her eggs in the warm sand, and covers them up. The heat of the sun, and the warm sand soon hatch the little turtles out of the eggs."

"Would turtles come out of these eggs?" asked Nan.

"Really, truly?" added Flossie.

"Just as surely as little chickens come out of hen's eggs," answered Cousin Jasper. "But they must be kept warm."

"Then we'd better cover 'em up again!" exclaimed Freddie. "We found the turtle's eggs when we were digging in the sand--Flossie and me. And I didn't know they were there and I busted one of the eggs. First I thought they were white stones, but when I busted one, and the white and yellow came out, I found they were eggs."

"And the sh.e.l.ls aren't hard," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she leaned over the hole and touched the queer eggs in the sand-nest. "The sh.e.l.ls are like the sh.e.l.l of a soft egg a hen sometimes lays."

"Except that the sh.e.l.ls, or rather, skins, of these eggs are thicker than those of a chicken," explained Cousin Jasper. "These egg-skins are like a piece of leather. If they were hard, like the eggs of a hen, perhaps the little turtles could not break their way out, as a turtle, though it can give a hard bite, has no pointed beak to pick a hole in the sh.e.l.l."

"Well, you have made quite a discovery," said Mr. Bobbsey to the little twins. "Better cover the eggs up now, so the little turtles in them will not get cold and die."

"Are there turtles in them now?" asked Freddie.

"No, these eggs must be newly laid," Cousin Jasper said. "But if they are kept warm long enough the little turtles will come to life in them and break their way out. Would you like some to eat?" he asked Mr.

Bobbsey.

The father of the twins shook his head.

"I don't believe I care for any," he answered. "I'm not very fond of eggs, anyhow, and I'll wait until we can find some that feathered chickens lay."

"Well, I'll take a few for myself, and I know Captain Crane likes them,"

said Cousin Jasper. "The rest we will leave to be hatched by the warm sun."

Mr. Dent took some of the eggs out in his hat, and then Flossie and Freddie covered the rest with sand again.

"We'll dig in another place, so we won't burst any more turtle's eggs,"

said the little boy, as he walked down the beach with Flossie, each one carrying a clam sh.e.l.l.

It was so nice on Palm Island that Mrs. Bobbsey said they would have supper there, before going back on board the _Swallow_ to spend the night. So more things to eat were brought off in the small boat, and, as the sun was sinking down in the west, turning the blue waves of the sea to a golden color, the travelers sat on the beach and ate.

"Maybe we could build a little campfire here and stay for a while after dark," suggested Bert, who felt that he was getting to be quite a large boy now.

"Oh, no indeed! We won't stay here after dark!" cried Mrs. Bobbsey.

"Snakes and turtles and all sorts of things might crawl up out of the ocean and walk all around us on the beach. As soon as it gets dark we'll go back to the s.h.i.+p."

"Yes, I think that would be best," said Mr. Bobbsey. "When we get to the other island, where we hope to find Jack, it will be time enough to camp out."

"Shall we stay there long?" Bert wanted to know.

"It all depends on how we find that poor boy," answered Cousin Jasper.

"If he is all right, and doesn't mind staying a little longer, we can make a camp on the island. There are some tents on board and we can live in them while on sh.o.r.e."

"Oh, that'll be almost as much fun as Blueberry Island!" cried Nan.

"It'll be nicer!" Bert said. "Blueberry Island was right near sh.o.r.e, but this island is away out in the middle of the ocean, isn't it, Cousin Jasper?"

"Well, not exactly in the middle of the ocean," was the answer. "But I think, perhaps, there is more water around it than was around your Blueberry Island."

After supper, which, like their lunch, was eaten on the beach under the palm trees, the Bobbsey twins and the others went back to the _Swallow_.

The men working for the engineer, Mr. Chase, had not yet gotten the engine fixed, and it would take perhaps two more days, they said, as the break was worse than they had at first thought.

"Well, we'll have to stay here, that's all," said Cousin Jasper. "I did hope we would hurry to the rescue of Jack, but it seems we can't. Anyhow it would not do to go on with a broken engine. We might run into a storm at sea and then we would be wrecked. So we will wait until everything is all right before we go sailing over the sea again."

"It seems like being back home," said Mrs. Bobbsey, as she sat down later in a deck chair.

"Didn't you like it on the island?" asked Bert.

"Yes. But after it got dark some big turtle might have come up out of the sea and pulled on you, as one did on Flossie," and Bert's mother smiled.

"Well, no mud turkles can get on our s.h.i.+p, can they?" asked the little "fat fairy."

"No turtles can get on board here, unless they climb up the anchor cable," said Captain Crane with a laugh. "Now we'll get all snug for the night, so if it comes on to blow, or storm, we shall be all right."

It was a little too early to go to bed, so the Bobbsey twins and the grown folks sat on deck in the moonlight. The men of the crew, and the cook, sat on the other end of the deck, and also talked. It was very warm, for the travelers were now in southern waters, nearer the equator than they had ever been before. Even with very thin clothes on the air felt hot, though, of course, just as at Lakeport or Meadow Brook, it was cooler in the evening than during the day.

"It's almost too hot to go down into the staterooms," said Mrs. Bobbsey.