MAROONED
"That's a nice little island over there," said Mun Bun to Margy as they
waded along.
"Yes, it's a terrible nice little island," agreed his sister.
"An' we can camp out there an' have lots of fun."
"Oh, Mun Bun, catch me! I'm sinking down in a hole!"
"All right, I'll get you!" cried the little boy, and he grasped hold of
his sister's arm. She had stepped into a little sandy hole, and the
water came up half way to her knees. Of course that was not very deep,
and when Margy saw she was not going to sink down very far she was no
longer frightened.
"But I was scared till you grabbed hold of me," she said to Mun Bun. "Is
it very deep any more?"
"No, it isn't deep at all," the little boy answered. "I can see down to
the bottom all the way to the little island, and it isn't hardly over
your toenails."
The tide was very low that day, and in some parts of the inlet there was
no water at all, the sandy bottom showing quite dry in the sun.
As Cousin Tom had said, toward the fall of the year the tides are both
extra high and extra low. Of course not at the same time, you
understand, but twice a day. Sometimes the waters of the ocean came up
into the inlet until they nearly flowed over the small pier. Then, some
hours later, they would be very low. This was one of the low times for
the tide, and it had made several small islands of sand in the middle of
Clam River.
It was toward one of these islands that Margy and Mun Bun were wading.
They had seen it from the shore and it looked to be a good place to
play. There was a big, almost round, spot of white sand, and all about
it was shallow water, sparkling in the sun. The deepest water between
the shore and the island was half way up to Margy's knees, and that, as
I think you will admit, was not deep at all.
"We'll have some fun there," said Mun Bun.
"Maybe we can dig clams," went on the little girl.
Clam River was so called because so many soft and hard clams were dug
there by the fishermen, who sold them to people who liked to make
chowder of them.
There are two kinds of clams that are good to eat, the hard and the
soft. One has a very hard shell, and this is the kind of clam you most
often see in the stores.
But there is another sort of clam, with a thin shell, and out of one end
of it the clam sticks a long thing, like a rubber tube. And when the
clam digs a hole for himself down in the sand or the mud he thrusts this
tube up to the top, and through it he sucks down things to eat.
The six little Bunkers had often seen the fishermen on Clam River dig
down after these soft-shelled fellows. The men used a short-handled hoe,
and when they had dug away the sand there they found the clams in
something that looked like little pockets, or burrows.
"Maybe we can dig clams," said Margy.
"We hasn't got any shovel or hoe," returned Mun Bun.
"Maybe we can dig with some big clam shells, if we can find some," his
sister said.
By this time they had reached the little island. Just like the islands
in your geography, it was "entirely surrounded by water," and it made a
nice place to play, except that it was rather sunny. But Mun Bun and
Margy did not mind the sun very much.
They were used to playing out in it, and they were now as brown as
berries, or Indians, or nuts, whichever you like best. They were well
tanned, and did not get sunburned as many little boys and girls do when
they go to the seashore for the first time.
"We can take the clams to Cousin Ruth and she can make chowder and
she'll give us some cookies, maybe," said Mun Bun.
"I like clams better than cookies," remarked Margy. "I mean I like to
eat cookies, but I like to dig clams."
"You can't dig cookies," said Mun Bun.
"You could dig one if you dropped yours in the sand," returned his
sister.
"Yes, you could do that," agreed the little boy. "But it would be all
sand, and it wouldn't be good to eat."
"I don't guess it would. We'll just dig clams. Anyhow, we hasn't any
cookies to dig or to eat."
This was very true. And now the two little children began to hunt for
clam shells to use for shovels in digging. They wanted the large shells
of the hard clam, and soon each had one. Then they began to dig, as they
had seen their father and Cousin Tom do. For Daddy Bunker had once taken
Margy and Mun Bun with him and the other Mr. Bunker, when they went to
dig soft clams.
Whether Margy and Mun Bun did not know how to dig, or whether there were
no clams in the sand of the island I do not know. But I do know that the
two little Bunkers did not find any, though they dug holes until their
backs ached.
Then Margy said:
"Let's don't play this any more."
"What shall we play?" asked Mun Bun.
"Oh, let's see if we can find some wood and make little boats."
So they walked about the island looking for bits of wood. But none was
to be found. For wood floats; that is, unless it is so soaked with water
as to be too heavy, and all the pieces of wood that had ever been on the
island had floated away.
"I don't guess we can build any boats," said Margy. "Let's go back to
shore and get some wood, and then we can come back and sail boats."
"That'll be fun," said Mun Bun. "We'll go."
But when he and his sister started to wade back, they had not gone very
far before Margy cried:
"Oh, the water's terrible deep! Look how deep down my foot goes!"
Mun Bun looked. Indeed the water was almost up to Margy's knees now, and
she had gone only a few steps away from the shore of the island.
"Let me try it," said her brother. "I'm bigger than you."
He wasn't, though he liked to think so, for Margy was a year older. But
I guess Mun Bun was like most boys; he liked to think himself larger
than he was.
However, when he stepped out from the island, ahead of Margy, he, too,
found that the water was deeper than it had been when they started to
wade from the shore near Cousin Tom's pier.
"What makes it?" asked Margy.
"I--I don't know," answered Mun Bun. "I guess somebody must have poured
more water in the river."
"Lessen maybe it rained," suggested Margy. "Don't you know how Rainbow
River gets bigger when it rains?"
"It didn't rain," said Mun Bun, "or we'd be wet on our backs."
"No, I guess it didn't rain," agreed Margy. Then she cried: "Oh, look,
Mun Bun! Our island's getting awful little! It only sticks out of the
water hardly any now! Look!"
Mun Bun turned and looked behind him. As his sister had said, the island
was very much smaller.
"What--what makes it?" asked Margy.
"I--I don't know," answered Mun Bun. "But it is getting littler, just
like when you keep on sucking a lollypop."
And that is just what the island was doing. What Margy and Mun Bun did
not know was that the tide had turned, that it was rising, and that it
would soon not only make their island much smaller, but would cover it
from sight, leaving no island at all!
"Oh, the water's getting deeper," said Margy, as she took another step
and found it coming over her little knees. "What are we going to do, Mun
Bun?"
"I--I guess we must go back to the middle of the island and stay there,"
said her brother.
"Oh, shall we ever get off?" Margy asked, and her voice sounded as
though she might cry before long. "I can't ever wade to shore when the
water is so deep. What are we going to do?"
"We'll call for Daddy!" said Mun Bun.