“I hope so, too,” said Captain Crane. “I was shipwrecked on one of those islands myself, once, as your Cousin Jasper was. And it was dreadful there, and I got terribly lonesome before I was taken off.”
“Did you have a goat?” asked Flossie.
“No, my little girl, I didn’t have a goat,” answered Mr. Crane. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because Robinson Crusoe was on an island like that and he had a goat,” Flossie went on.
“When you were shipwrecked did you have to eat your shoes?” Freddie queried.
“Oh, ho! No, I guess not!” laughed Captain Crane. “I see what you mean. You must have had read to you stories of sailors that got so hungry, after being shipwrecked, that they had to boil their leather shoes to make soup. Well, I wasn’t quite so bad off as that. I found some oysters on my island, and I had a little food with me. And that, with a spring of water I found, kept me alive until a ship came and took me off.”
“Well, I hope the poor boy on the island where Cousin Jasper was is still alive, or else that he has been rescued,” said Mrs. Bobbsey.
“I hope so, too,” said the captain. “Now come and I’ll show you about my boat.”
He was very proud of his craft, which was a beautiful one, and also strong enough to stand quite a hard storm. There was plenty of room on board for the whole Bobbsey family, as well as for Mr. Dent, besides a crew of three men and the captain. There were cute little bedrooms for the children, a larger room for Mr. and Mrs. Bobbsey, one for the captain and there was even a bathroom.
There was also a kitchen, called a cook’s galley, and another room that could be used in turn for a parlor, a sitting-room or a dining-room. This was the main cabin, and as you know there is not room enough on a motor boat to have a lot of rooms, one has to be used for different things.