“Well, what did you take it away for?” asked the man, who was a stranger to the Curlytops. “That’s my boat. I want to go fishing in it and now you have it.”
“We’d bring it back if we could,” Teddy called back. “We’re sorry. We only went out a little way but we lost our poles and we can’t get back.”
The man stood there and seemed to be thinking for a moment. Then he laughed and said:
“Well, sit quiet and don’t fall out. You’ll be at the other shore soon. Land there and make the boat fast. I’ll walk around and row you back. Don’t be afraid.”
The Curlytops felt better after this. They watched the man turn back with his oars over his shoulder. He was soon lost to sight in the bushes. Then Ted and Janet looked toward the other shore which was coming nearer and nearer. Of course they were really coming nearer to the shore, for the land did not move. But in the boat it looked as though it did.
The wind blew in puffs, and when one stronger than those before it struck the boat it blew it well up on the sandy beach. Ted jumped out and pulled the boat farther up on shore, while Janet remained in it.
“Now you can get out,” Ted told her. “We’ll stay here until the man walks around and rows us back.”
“He was a good man, wasn’t he?” asked Janet, as she handed Ted his shoes and stockings.
“Yes,” he agreed. “He wasn’t very cross ’cause we took his boat. I didn’t know it was anybody’s—hid like that in the bushes.”
“I didn’t, either,” agreed Janet, as she and her brother put on their shoes.