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[Illustration: THE BOBBSEYS AND OTHERS WERE ROWED TO THE SHORE.]




THE BOBBSEY TWINS ON THE DEEP BLUE SEA

BY

LAURA LEE HOPE

AUTHOR OF "THE BOBBSEY TWINS," "THE BUNNY BROWN SERIES," "THE OUTDOOR
GIRLS SERIES," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1918, by Grosset & Dunlap




CONTENTS:

    CHAPTER I--ON THE RAFT
    CHAPTER II--TO THE RESCUE
    CHAPTER III--STRANGE NEWS
    CHAPTER IV--GETTING READY
    CHAPTER V--OFF FOR FLORIDA
    CHAPTER VI--IN A PIPE
    CHAPTER VII--THE SHARK
    CHAPTER VIII--THE FIGHT IN THE BOAT
    CHAPTER IX--IN ST. AUGUSTINE
    CHAPTER X--COUSIN JASPER'S STORY
    CHAPTER XI--THE MOTOR BOAT
    CHAPTER XII--THE DEEP BLUE SEA
    CHAPTER XIII--FLOSSIE'S DOLL
    CHAPTER XIV--FREDDIE'S FISH
    CHAPTER XV--"LAND HO!"
    CHAPTER XVI--UNDER THE PALMS
    CHAPTER XVII--A QUEER NEST
    CHAPTER XVIII--THE "SWALLOW" IS GONE
    CHAPTER XIX--AWAY AGAIN
    CHAPTER XX--ORANGE ISLAND
    CHAPTER XXI--LOOKING FOR JACK
    CHAPTER XXII--FOUND AT LAST




CHAPTER I

ON THE RAFT


"Flossie! Flossie! Look at me! I'm having a steamboat ride! Oh, look!"

"I am looking, Freddie Bobbsey!"

"No, you're not! You're playing with your doll! Look at me splash,
Flossie!"

A little boy with blue eyes and light, curling hair was standing on a
raft in the middle of a shallow pond of water left in a green meadow
after a heavy rain. In his hand he held a long pole with which he was
beating the water, making a shower of drops that sparkled in the sun.

On the shore of the pond, not far away, and sitting under an apple tree,
was a little girl with the same sort of light hair and blue eyes as
those which made the little boy such a pretty picture. Both children
were fat and chubby, and you would have needed but one look to tell that
they were twins.

"Now I'm going to sail away across the ocean!" cried Freddie Bobbsey,
the little boy on the raft, which he and his sister Flossie had made
that morning by piling a lot of old boards and fence rails together.
"Don't you want to sail across the ocean, Flossie?"

"I'm afraid I'll fall off!" answered Flossie, who was holding her doll
off at arm's length to see how pretty her new blue dress looked. "I
might fall in the water and get my feet wet."

"Take off your shoes and stockings like I did, Flossie," said the little
boy.

"Is it very deep?" Flossie wanted to know, as she laid aside her doll.
After all she could play with her doll any day, but it was not always
that she could have a ride on a raft with Freddie.

"No," answered the little blue-eyed boy. "It isn't deep at all. That is,
I don't guess it is, but I didn't fall in yet."

"I don't want to fall in," said Flossie.

"Well, I won't let you," promised her brother, though how he was going
to manage that he did not say. "I'll come back and get you on the
steamboat," he went on, "and then I'll give you a ride all across the
ocean," and he began pushing the raft, which he pretended was a
steamboat, back toward the shore where his sister sat.

Flossie was now taking off her shoes and stockings, which Freddie had
done before he got on the raft; and it was a good thing, too, for the
water splashed up over it as far as his ankles, and his shoes would
surely have been wet had he kept them on.

"Whoa, there! Stop!" cried Flossie, as she came down to the edge of the
pond, after having placed her doll, in its new blue dress, safely in the
shade under a big burdock plant. "Who