“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.”