“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.