CHAPTER XXI

THE QUEER BOX AGAIN

Russ at first thought his smaller brother was playing a joke.

"You can't fool me," cried Russ. "I don't want to guess any of your riddles!"

"This isn't a riddle!" declared Laddie. "It's a real fish, and it's got real legs. Come and look at it!"

He was pointing to something on the beach, which seemed to have been washed in by the tide.

"Come on!" cried Laddie again. "It isn't a riddle--honest! It's a fish with legs. I didn't see him walk, but it sort of--sort of stands up!"

Still Russ was afraid of being fooled. So he called over to his father and Cousin Tom, who were fishing in the surf not far away.

"Daddy, is there a fish with legs? Laddie says he's found one on the beach."

"Well, you might call 'em legs," answered Cousin Tom, as he flung his hook and sinker as far as he could out into the ocean. "I guess what Laddie has found is a skate."

"But he says it's a fish!" exclaimed Russ. "Now you call it a skate! I guess you're both trying to make up riddles."

"No, Russ," said his father, as he reeled in his line. "The fish Laddie sees, and I can see it from where I stand, really has some long, thin fins, which are like legs. And the name of the fish is 'skate,' so you see they are both right. Come, we'll go and look at it."

And when Russ got to where Laddie was standing over the queer creature on the beach he had to laugh, for surely the fish was a very queer one.

"Isn't it funny?" asked Laddie.

"I should say so!" cried Russ. "It's as funny as some of your riddles."

And if any of you have ever seen a skate at the seash.o.r.e I think you will agree with Russ. Imagine, if you have never seen one, a fish as flat as a flounder, with a flat, pointed nose sticking out in front.

Away back, under this nose, and out of sight from the top, or the back of the fish, is its mouth. And the mouth is rather large and has sharp teeth.

Fastened to the back of the skate is a long, slender tail, like that of a rat, only larger, and between the tail and the round, flat body on the under side, are two things that really look like legs. Perhaps the skate may use them to walk around on the bottom of the ocean, as a horseshoe crab uses his legs for walking. But a skate can also swim, and in that way it comes up off the bottom, and often bites on the hooks of fishermen who do not at all want to catch such an unpleasant fish.

The skate swims, using the things like legs as a fish uses its fins, and sometimes, when landed on the sh.o.r.e, the fish really seems to be standing up on these legs, so Laddie was not so far wrong. On each side of the skate were thin, flat fins, which were something like wings. The skate had a humpy head and big, bulging eyes.

"What's a skate for?" asked Russ, as he looked at the queer creature.

"And who gave it that name?" Laddie wanted to know.

"My! You two are getting as bad at asking questions as Violet!" laughed Mr. Bunker. "Well, I'll answer as well as I can. I don't know how the fish came to be called a skate unless it sort of skates around on the bottom of the ocean. Though when a skate is dead its tail curls up and around like the old-fashioned skates once used in Holland. It may get its name from that."

"Are they good to eat?" asked Russ.

"Some kinds are said to be," answered Cousin Tom, "though I never tasted one myself. I have heard of fishermen eating certain parts of the skates caught along here. But I never saw any one do it. Whenever I catch a skate I throw it back into the water. I can't see that they are good for anything."

The skate which Laddie and Russ were watching, and which seemed to have been cast up on the beach by the waves, was flopping about, now and then raising itself on its queer legs, until, finally, the tide came up higher and washed it out into the sea again.

"I guess it's glad to get back in the ocean," said Russ.

"Yes," agreed his brother. "I'd have put it back in only I was afraid it might bite me."

"No, I don't believe it would," said Cousin Tom.

"There's heaps of funny things down at the seash.o.r.e," said Laddie, as he watched to see if the skate would swim back, but it did not.

"Lots of funny things," agreed Russ.

"The sh.o.r.e is a good place to make riddles," went on Laddie.

"And it's a bad place to lose things," said his brother. "Look how Rose lost her locket."

"Yes, that was too bad," said Daddy Bunker. "I'm afraid we shall never find that now. There is so much sand here."

"We've dug holes and looked all over," said Russ, "but we can't find it."

"I wish we could find that box we had up on sh.o.r.e and that the waves came up and washed away," remarked Laddie. "Don't you 'member the box you were going to open, Daddy?"

"Yes, I remember," answered Mr. Bunker. "I would like to know what was in that. But I don't suppose we ever shall."

"And I guess we'll never get back Vi's doll that I lost," said Russ.

"But when I get back home I'm going to save up and buy her another."

"That will be a nice thing to do," replied Mr. Bunker. "Of course Violet has, in a way, forgotten about her doll, but I'm sure she would like to have you get her another."

"And I will!" exclaimed Russ. He did not even dream how soon he was to do this.

"Well," said Cousin Tom, after the skate had been washed out to sea, "I don't believe, Daddy Bunker, that we are going to have any luck fishing to-day. I think we might as well go back to the bungalow and see what they have to eat."

"I hope they didn't count on us bringing some fish," said the father of the six little Bunkers with a laugh. "If they did we'll all go hungry."

"I don't want to be hungry," murmured Laddie, with a queer look at his father.

"Oh, he's only joking," whispered Russ. "I can tell by the way he laughs around his eyes."

"Yes, I'm only joking," said Laddie's father. "I guess Cousin Ruth will have plenty to eat. We'll walk along the beach a little way and then go home."

The two men reeled in their fish lines and, with the two little boys, strolled along the sand. Laddie and Russ were wondering what they could do to have some fun, and they were thinking of different things when Cousin Tom, who was a little way ahead, cried:

"Look! Isn't that a box being washed up on the beach?"

They all looked and saw something white and square being rolled over and over in the waves nearest the sh.o.r.e. It was quite a distance ahead of them, but Cousin Tom, handing his pole and basket to Daddy Bunker, ran and, wading into the surf with his high rubber boots, caught hold of the box.

"It shan't get away from us this time!" he called to Daddy Bunker, Russ and Laddie as they hastened toward him. "I'll keep it safe this time, all right!" and he carried the box well up among the sand dunes, or little hills, well out of reach of the highest tide.