with them.

One day Bob and Paul and Roy saw some big boys standing on the wharf.
They were catching crabs. First they baited their lines and then threw
them into the water. When the crabs "bit" they drew them in. It looked
very exciting. The three little boys wanted to try.

So they found strings and the big boys gave them some bait. Bob and Roy
had good luck. But Paul was so excited he couldn't pull his line in
quickly enough to catch a crab. At last he thought, "If I wade into the
water I'll be near the crabs. Then it won't be so hard to pull them in."

[Illustration: PAUL AND THE CRAB]

So down he climbed and into the water he waded. Soon Bob and Roy heard
him call, "Oh, Oh, Oh, come quick!"

"What is it?" called Bob. "Have you caught a big crab?"

"Oh, no," said Paul. He was half laughing and half crying, and all the
time he was shaking his foot as hard as he could. "Oh, no, I haven't
caught a crab. A--crab--has--caught me!" And sure enough, a big fat crab
had nipped Paul's toe and was holding it fast.

Bob climbed down and pulled it off. Paul went home and tied up his sore
toe. Then he came back and sat on the wharf and watched the others.
Somehow, he didn't feel like catching crabs. So he pretended he was a
sailor who had been bitten by a big shark.

One day Bob and Paul found a very nice bottle on the beach. It had a
tight cork so that the water could not soak in. At first they thought
they would hide it in their treasure cave. But that didn't seem exciting
enough. So they thought and thought what to do with it. At last Bob
said, "I know! Let's write our names and where we live on a piece of
paper and put it in the bottle. Then let's throw the bottle out to sea."
So he wrote:

[Illustration: Handwritten: Bob Johnson

Paul Ray

Fairport, Maine]

They put the paper in the bottle and corked the bottle tightly. Then
they threw it out into the ocean. At first the bottle bobbed up and down
in the water. But soon a big wave caught it and carried it out of
sight.

"Suppose," said Paul, "the bottle goes way out to sea and a big whale
swallows it. And suppose it makes the big whale so sick that he swims
near to the shore. Then some fishermen will catch him and kill him. When
they cut him open they will find the bottle, and when they read our
names they will know we are the boys who helped them get the great big
whale."

"Or," said Bob, "suppose the bottle goes out to sea and a man in a
seaplane sees it