Bob the Castaway

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

BOB MAKES TROUBLE

"Bob! Bob!" called a woman in loud tones, as she came to the kitchen door, her arms, with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, covered with flour. "Bob, I want you to go to the store for me. I need some more lard for this pie-crust."

There was no answer, and the woman looked across the big yard at one side of the cottage.

"Where can that boy be?" Mrs. Henderson murmured. "I saw him here a little while ago. He's never around when I want him. I shouldn't be surprised but what he was planning some joke. Oh, dear! I wish he was more steady, and wasn't always up to some mischief. Still, he's a good boy at heart, and perhaps he'll grow better when he gets older."

She rubbed her left cheek with the back of her hand, leaving a big patch of flour under one eye. Then she called once more.

"Bob! Bob Henderson! Where are you? I want you to go to the store."

"Here I am, mother. Were you calling me?" asked a boy, emerging from behind a big apple tree.

He was not a bad-looking lad, even if his nose did turn up a bit, though his hair was tinged with red, and his face covered with freckles. His blue eyes, however, seemed to sparkle with mischief.

"Did I call you?" repeated Mrs. Henderson. "I'm hoarse after the way I had to shout—and you within hearing distance all the while! Why didn't you answer me?"

"I guess I was so busy thinking, mom, that I didn't hear you."

"Thinking? More likely thinking of some trick! What's that you've got?"

"Nothing," and Bob tried to stuff pieces of paper into a basket that was already filled to overflowing.

"Yes, 'tis too something. You're making some more of those paper snappers that the teacher kept you in after school for the other night. Bob, can't you settle down and not be always up to some trick?"

"I wasn't making these for myself, mom, honest I wasn't," expostulated Bob, with an innocent look that did not seem in accord with the mischief in his blue eyes. "I was making 'em for Jimmy Smith."

"Yes, and Jimmy Smith would pop 'em off in school, and when he got caught he'd say you gave 'em to him, and you'd both be kept in. Oh, Bob, I don't know what will happen to you next!"

"Why, I wasn't doing anything, honest I wasn't, mom. Oh, how funny you look with that patch of flour on your cheek! Just like a clown in a circus, only he has white stuff all over his face."

"Well, I must say, Bob Henderson, you're not very complimentary to your mother, telling her she looks like a circus clown."

"I didn't say you did, mom. You only look like half a clown."

"That's just as bad."

Bob took advantage of this little diversion to hide the paper snappers behind the tree while his mother was wiping the flour off her face. The snappers were oblong pieces of stout wrapping paper, folded in such a way that when swung through the air they went off like a bag blown up and crushed between the hands. Bob was an expert in their manufacture.

"Come," went on Mrs. Henderson, when she was satisfied that her face was no longer adorned with flour, "I want you to go to the store for some lard....