“patter! patter! i told you to keep away from the crab!” shouted bunny brown, when he saw what had happened to his trick dog.
“wow! wow!” howled patter, limping along and holding up the paw to which the crab—a large one—had fastened itself. “bow-wow!”
“knock the crab off!”
“smash him!”
“give the crab a piece of meat and he’ll let go the dog!”
charlie, harry and george cried this advice to bunny as he ran along after patter, seeking to help his pet.
crabs can pinch very hard, as any of you knows who has been unlucky enough to be nipped by one. i have had even a small one[144] draw blood when he closed his pinchers on my thumb.
and as this crab was a large one, with powerful claws, it had a good grip on poor patter’s paw. luckily the dog’s paw was tough, and was covered with hair which was like a cushion, or a glove, so the crab did not break the skin or draw blood.
but it pinched hard enough to make patter howl, and bunny was afraid his trick dog might run away and be lost. so the boy raced after his four-legged chum calling:
“wait a minute, patter! wait a minute and i’ll take the crab off your paw!”
“better not do that,” advised george. “knock the crab off with a stick. if you try to pull it off you’ll get pinched, too.”
“yes, i guess maybe i shall,” said bunny.
he caught up a stick and ran until he was close enough to reach patter.
“sit up!” commanded bunny, as he knew if the dog did this it would be easier to knock off the pinching crab.
patter did as he was told. even though howling from pain he obeyed his master’s[145] voice. then, when he was sitting on his hind legs with the paw to which the crab was fastened held pitifully out, bunny swung his stick and hit the hard shell of the crab a resounding blow.
the result was that the one claw, by which the crab was then hanging, was broken off. crabs’ claws are easily broken, and it does not seem to hurt the creature. there is a saying that crabs’ claws will grow back on again, but i am not certain of this. i have caught a great many crabs with only one claw—large crabs, too—and it seems to me that if they were going to grow a new claw, in place of the one they have lost, a little claw would have started growing. and this i have never seen.
anyhow, by knocking the crab from patter’s paw the claw of the sea-creature was broken off and left hanging on the dog’s foot, though it no longer pinched. the one-clawed crab scuttled off sideways, which is the way crabs “walk” on dry land, and also the way they often swim, though sometimes they dart backward in the water.
[146]“catch the crab!” cried george. “don’t let it get away! it’s a big one and full of meat!”
“i’ll get it,” offered charlie, while bunny began taking the loose claw from patter’s leg.
there is a certain way to pick up a crab in your hand so he cannot pinch you, and bunny and his chums, being “salt water boys,” knew how to do this.
charlie first put one foot lightly on the crab, hard enough to hold the crawling creature from moving, but not hard enough to crush the upper shell, with its sharp, sticking points. charlie then reached down and took hold, between his thumb and one finger, of one of the hind “flippers” or swimming legs of the crab, close to where it joined the shell. held thus, the crab could not reach around with its one remaining claw to pinch charlie. the boy lifted the crab from under his shoe and tossed the squirming creature into the basket with the other crabs.
“can you get the claw off patter’s leg?” asked george of bunny.
[147]“yes, i got it off,” was the answer. “but it was stuck pretty tight.”
even after a crab’s claw is torn from its body the claw will still cling, for it has sharp points that lock like a spring trap.
patter stopped howling and began to lick his slightly injured paw. bunny watched his pet trick dog anxiously.
“i hope he won’t be lame,” he said. “if he’s lame he can’t do his tricks so well.”
patter limped a little when he put his pinched paw down on the ground, but this soon wore off and a little later he was romping around as if nothing had happened.
but the next time one of the crabs got out of the net and began to scramble around on the ground, patter took care to be far away. he barked and whined at the crab, but he did not put a paw near it. he had learned a lesson.
“well, we have enough crabs,” said charlie, after a while.
“yes, let’s go sell ’em,” suggested george.
it was not as easy to sell hard-shelled crabs in bellemere as it would have been in a town farther away from the seacoast, for in bellemere[148] those who wished this form of sea food generally caught their own crabs. still the boys had peddled crabs before.
putting a stick through the slots in the sides of the peach basket and covering the crabs with wet seaweed to keep them alive—for it is dangerous to one’s health to cook and eat a dead crab—the chums started off on their peddling trip, followed by patter.
“want to buy any crabs, mrs. jones?” asked george, as the boys appeared at the back door of the lady who had helped to get up the church fair.
“hard or soft?” she asked.
“hard,” answered george.
“thank you, no,” she answered, with a smile. “they’re too much trouble. if you had some soft crabs now, i’d take a dozen. mr. jones is very fond of soft-shelled crabs on toast.”
“we’ll try to get you some soft crabs this afternoon,” offered bunny. “but they’re scarce, i heard bunker blue say.”
“i suppose that’s why my husband wants some,” went on mrs. jones. “people often[149] want strawberries in january and soft crabs when they’re hard to get. well, if you find any bring them to me. but i can’t use the hard kind.”
i might explain that a soft crab is one that has just shed its hard shell. soft crabs are delicious fried in butter and put on a piece of toast. the only way to cook hard crabs is to boil them alive and pick out the meat, which is quite a lot of work. but, as bunny had said, soft crabs were scarce. they are also much harder to catch than hard crabs.
when a hard crab grows, it finds its shell too small for it. the creature then bursts out from its horn-like casing. once it is out it is soft and flabby. it hides away under the seaweed and only sharp eyes can find it. soft crabs are scooped up in a net, as their claws are so flabby they cannot cling to the bait or piece of meat on a string.
“well, we’ll have to try somewhere else,” said bunny, as they walked out of mrs. jones’ yard with the basket.
“sure,” agreed harry. “somebody will want hard crabs.”
[150]after many calls the boys at last succeeded in selling the basket of hard crabs to mrs. hampton for fifty cents. this gave them twelve and a half cents each, and they were quite satisfied with their work.
“it was fun, anyhow,” said bunny, as they divided the money; buying candy with the odd two cents and passing that around.
sue was a little worried that evening when bunny told her that the crab had pinched patter. but when she had looked at the dog’s paw and could see no wound, she felt better.
“see if he’ll do his tricks,” she suggested.
and as patter did them as well as ever, his little friends knew he was all right again.
“we must soon get ready for our show,” said bunny.
“yes,” agreed sue. “and i’ll make a new suit for patter. i’ll make it of silver and gold—like a fairy suit.”
“that will do for one suit, besides the hallowe’en and his clown dress,” observed bunny. “but i think it would look different if he had a tramp suit.”
“what you mean?” asked sue.
[151]“i mean—i mean—well, in a circus or a show lots of times a man comes all dressed up like a ragged tramp, but he can do good tricks. maybe we could have one act where patter wore a ragged and torn suit like a tramp dog, and people would be surprised.”
“oh, that will be fun!” agreed sue. “i’ll make a tramp suit, too, bunny.”
“no, i’ll make that,” said the boy. “you mightn’t make it torn and ragged enough. you make the gold and silver suit and i’ll make the tramp suit.”
so it was agreed, and plans were made for several new tricks it was hoped patter would perform. each day he seemed to learn something new, but the trick bunny and his boy chums liked best of all was where patter swung on the trapeze with wango the monkey.
this trick was practiced whenever they could coax or borrow wango from mr. winkler, and this was pretty often. the trick of having whitefeet also ride on patter’s back was not forgotten.
“i’ll make him do that trick when we have[152] the show, ’cause whitefeet is my kittie,” declared sue.
and so it was agreed.
one day mrs. brown sent bunny and sue down to the boat and fish dock with a note to her husband. he had gone out for a little while, but bunker blue said he would be back soon and advised bunny and his sister to wait.
“we’ll play in a boat while we’re waiting,” said bunny.
there were many boats drawn up on the shore of sandport bay near mr. brown’s dock, and some boats were already in the water. bunny and sue got in one that was floating, and patter scrambled in after them. quite a little wind was blowing, and the children moved about in the boat, putting patter through some of his tricks.
suddenly bunny looked up, glanced about, and cried:
“sue, we’re going adrift!”
that meant the boat had become loosened and was floating away. already it was some distance out in the bay, and there were no people near in other boats to go to the rescue[153] of the children. as there were no oars in their boat they could not row back to shore, though had there been oars bunny or sue could have handled them.
“oh, what are we going to do?” cried sue, as the wind became stronger and stronger, drifting them farther and farther from the shore and their father’s dock.
