THE DISCOVERER RETURNS
In about an hour and a half the two boys from up the river returned
with provisions.
"Any news from the discoverer?" they asked.
"I think he's being held as a hostage by the cook," said Townsend.
"Shall we land and lay waste to his home?"
"Oh, I think we can safely leave everything to him," said Billy. "What
do you think of the discoverer, anyway?"
"I'm for the discoverer first, last and always," said Townsend. "He
has only to lead and I'll follow. Now that we've met him I feel that
life without the discoverer would not be worth living. I'm glad that
next week is Easter vacation, because we couldn't think of school and
the discoverer at the same time. He's more than a scout, he's an
institution.
"Do you know, Charlie, I think we're moving? We were almost opposite
that old railroad car a few minutes ago. Either Bridgeboro is going
down or we're going up. Do you feel the climate changing? You don't
suppose this island is going to go up the river again and join old
Trimmer's orchard, do you?"
"Maybe it's homesick," said a boy they called Brownie.
"I hope the discoverer will discover it," said Billy.
"We'd better scatter something in our trail," said Townsend soberly,
"so that he can follow. I think that's the regulation thing for scouts
to do, isn't it?"
He had been whittling a stick and now with a sober look he began
throwing the chips into the water as if to indicate the path of the
departing island. "That's what you call blazing a trail," he said; "if
he's a scout he can follow."
The little island was now moving slowly upstream by the incoming tide.
It caught on the flats, performed a slow pirouette like some drowsy
toe-dancer or exhausted merry-go-round, then extricated itself and
floated majestically in the channel till the little apple tree became
involved with the foliage along shore.
"Do you know this seems like a very funny kind of an island to me?"
Townsend Ripley drawled. "I wonder what makes it hold together? It
ought to disintegrate."
"Dis what?" asked Billy.
"Disintegrate--that's Latin for falling to pieces."
"Maybe the roots hold it together," said Roland.
"It ought to dissolve," said Townsend. "This land doesn't seem to be
soluble in water. The coast all around ought to wash away. There is
something mysterious here. This island is as solid as a pancake; I
don't understand it. By all the rules of the game there shouldn't be
anything left here but the tree by this evening. There doesn't seem to
be any process of erosion."
"What will we do if the island washes away from under us?" asked the
boy they called Brownie. "The tree'll fall over sideways, won't it? I
don't want to camp on an island that keeps getting smaller all the
time. It's bad enough to have a tent shrink after a rain, but _an
island_!"
"I think this island is warranted not to shrink," said Townsend.
"Warranted nothing," said Billy; "look how muddy the water is all
around it. It'll be about as big as a fifty cent piece by midnight.
The river is eating it all away."
"Speaking of eating," said Townsend, "here comes the discoverer."
The discoverer and his companion were indeed approaching and apparently
they had sacked the town of Bridgeboro. Their gallant barque labored
under a veritable mountain of miscellaneous paraphernalia and out of
the pile projected a long bar with a device on the end of it which
glinted red and green in the sunshine.
"It looks like a weather-vane," said Billy.
"There's something printed on it," said Roly.
"It says _STOP_," said the boy they called Nuts.
"It says _GO_," said the boy they called Brownie.
"I think," said Townsend, scrutinizing the approaching transport in his
funny way, "I think, I _think_, it's a traffic sign. You don't see any
automobiles in the canoe, do you?"
"There's something sticking out on the left side," said Billy; "I think
it's a Ford. I hope the island isn't going to be overrun by motorists."
"It's not a Ford, it's a dishpan," said Brownie.
"They're the same thing," said Townsend. "What is that on the duffel
bag--a license plate?"
Suddenly the voice of the discoverer floated across the expanse of
sun-flickered water. "We're going to have hunter's stew for supper and
I'm going to make it and my mother says I can stay all through Easter
vacation and I got a lot of things out of our attic. Do you like
bananas? I've got a whole bunch and I've got a lot of new ideas--dandy
ones! I know how to fry them! I know how to slice them and fry them!"
"I'd like to try some fried ideas," said Townsend. "I don't think I
ever ate them sliced before."
It may be said that Pee-wee's ideas, whether fried or baked or boiled
or roasted, were usually underdone and required to be put back into the
oven.
Be that as it may, he soon proceeded to unload these, as well as the
interesting junk which he had gathered, the most surprising object of
which was the dilapidated revolving traffic sign lately discarded by
the Bridgeboro police department in favor of a lighthouse or silent
cop, so called.
This acquisition was the pride of Pee-wee's life; its heavy metal stand
had long since gone the way of all junk and it could not stand
unsupported. As Pee-wee plunged it heroically in the earth and stood
holding it with one hand he looked not unlike Columbus planting the
flaunting emblem of Ferdinand and Isabella on the shore of San
Salvador, except that this tableau of the well known historical episode
was somewhat marred by the fact of his holding a half eaten banana in
his other hand. But his new friends stared with all the amazement
shown by the natives upon the landing of that other great discoverer.
Only a specific inventory can do justice to the provisions and
furniture which Pee-wee brought.
One revolving police traffic sign
One large phonograph horn
One dishpan full of crullers (taken in a masterly
assault upon the Harris pantry)
One tent
One duffel bag with cooking set
Part of a vacuum cleaner
One scout belt axe
One Thanksgiving horn
One automobile siren horn.
One lantern
Two long clothesline supporters
A towel-rack that opened like a fan
A skein of clothesline
A small kitchen-range shovel
Two boxes filled with canned goods
One box filled with loose edibles
One ice cream freezer
"Didn't you bring a cow?" Townsend asked. "We can never make ice cream
without cream."
"We're in reach of the mainland, aren't we?" Pee-wee retorted
thunderously. "It isn't as if we were going out of sight of land; gee
whiz, then I'd have brought quite a lot of stuff."
"Oh, I see," said Townsend.
"I just picked up a few odds and ends," Pee-wee explained. "I'm going
to make a couple of more trips to-morrow."
"If you happen to think of it bring a lawnmower," said Townsend; "they
come in handy. And a few life preservers if you happen to have any, in
case the island goes to pieces."
"How can it go to pieces?" Pee-wee demanded. "Islands don't go to
pieces, do they? Australia is an island, isn't it? It's just where it
always was, isn't it? You're crazy! All we need is one more scout and
I know one by the name of Keekie Joe, and I'm going to try to get him
and then we'll be a full patrol and I decided to name it the
Alligators, because they belong on land and water both and we're sea
scouts on the land kind of, so maybe I'll decide to name it the
Turtles, maybe."
"Discoverer," said Townsend, "we're with you whatever you do, but there
is a mystery about this island which I would like to fathom before we
organize----"
"I fathomed lots of mysteries," shouted Pee-wee.
"I don't know whether you know what erosion means----"
"Sure I know what it means," said Pee-wee; "it means getting rusty,
kind of."
"It means land being washed away by water. If you put a piece of land
in the water, the water will dissolve it and it won't take long either.
It isn't like an island that has always been where it is--a kind of
hill sticking up out of the water. This is just a piece of land and
the roots of this little tree won't hold it together long.
"The question is, should we go hunting for new members under those
conditions? Pretty soon we'll have a full patrol and no island under
us; we'll be in the water. That's perfectly agreeable to me and all
the rest of us. But does Keekie Joe know how to swim? We really have
no _grounds_ for forming a patrol. See?"
"Do you call that an argument?" Pee-wee thundered. "It shows how much
you know about geography because look at an ice cream soda! Does that
corrode? Let's hear you answer that? Or erode or whatever you call
it. A chunk of ice cream floats in the soda, doesn't it? Maybe after
a while it melts, but this land isn't ice cream, is it?
"That shows how much you know about logic. This island has been here
ever since early this morning, hasn't it? And it's just as big as it
was, isn't it? An island is an island and the water won't melt it
unless it's hot--like a lump of sugar in a cup of coffee. You've got
to stir it up to melt it. Is North America corroding? Or Coney
Island? Is this island any smaller than it was?"
"No, it isn't, and that's the funny part," said Townsend. "We've
explored the coast but we haven't explored the depths. Let's have that
little shovel a minute, will you?"