LIFE ON THE UNKNOWN SHORE
Seldom has there been a surrender so complete and unconditional. There
were no banners to celebrate the triumph (for which Pee-wee took all
the credit) but as old Trimmer started up the river Pee-wee turned the
sign so that the word GO faced the departing voyager like a commanding
finger to order the vanquished from his victorious presence.
"Do you think he had some treasure in the scow?" Pee-wee asked. "Maybe
if we dig we'll find some gold nuggets."
"Let's try some of those cocoanut nuggets," said Townsend.
"Didn't I know how to handle him?" said Pee-wee. "Now the island is
ours, isn't it?"
"I think before we have supper," said Townsend, "we'll write a line to
the dredging people. What do you say?"
"We'll write it on bark from the tree on account of our being wild and
uncivilized," said Pee-wee. "I can make ink out of prune juice and we
can write with a stick like hunters do when they get lost."
"Do they carry prune juice with them?" Billy asked.
"Sometimes they use blood," said Pee-wee. "I can make ink from onions
too--invisible ink. Shall I make some?"
"I thought you were going to make a hunter's stew," said Brownie.
"Go ahead," said Roly Poly, "you make the hunter's stew--it won't be
invisible, will it?"
"It will when we get through with it," said Billy.
"And while you're making the stew, Rip will write the letter and the
first one of us that goes ashore will mail it."
The letter which Townsend Ripley wrote to the dredging company asking
permission to use the old scow surmounted by a luxurious desert island
was very funny, but it was not nearly as funny as the hunter's stew
which Pee-wee made.
Their minds now free as to their rights (at least, for the time being)
they sprawled about under the little tree as the afternoon sunlight
waned and partook of the weird concoction which Pee-wee cooked in the
dishpan over the rough fireplace which they had constructed. And if
Pee-wee was not the equal of his friend Roy Blakeley in the matter of
cooking, he was at least vastly superior to him in the matter of
eating, and as he himself observed, "Gee whiz, eating is more important
than cooking anyway."
It was pleasant sitting about on this new and original desert island
which combined all the attractions of wild life with substantial
safety. Only its overlapping edges could wash away and as these melted
and disappeared the island gradually assumed a square and orderly
conformation; its bleak and lonely coast formed a tidy square and
looked like some truant back yard off on a holiday. What it lost in
rugged grandeur it made up in modern neatness and seemed indeed a
desert island with all improvements.
Nestling within its stalwart and water-tight timbers it presented a
scene of varied beauty. Grasshoppers disported gayly upon its rugged
surface, occasionally leaping inadvertently into the surrounding surf
and kicking their ungainly legs in the sparkling water.
A pair of adventurous robins that had refused to desert the fugitive
peninsula were chirping in the little blossom-laden tree and one of
them came down and perched upon the traffic sign to prune his feathers
before retiring. Savage beetles roamed wild over the isle, and wild
angleworms, disturbed by the late upheaval, squirmed about in quest of
new homes.
The vegetation on the island appeared in gay profusion, reminding one
of the Utopian scenes of fragrant beauty which delighted the eyes of
the bold explorers who first landed on the shores of Florida.
Yellow dandelions dotted the greensward, purple violets peeped up
through the overgrown grass, and a rusty tin can, memento of some
prehistoric fisherman perhaps, lay near the shore. Not even the
geometrical perfection of the island detracted from its primitive and
rugged beauty.
True, it had no bays or wooded coves where pirates might have lurked,
and it was fickle to any one spot. But wheresoever its wanton fancy
took it the dying sunlight flickered down through the little tree and
glazed the spotless blossoms so full of promise that clustered above
the little band of hardy adventurers.
Before they had finished their repast--a repast as strange and
surprising as the island itself--they had drifted half a mile upstream
with the incoming tide. Here the sturdy underpinning of the desert
isle caught upon a tiny reef and the island swung slowly around like a
sleepy carrousel and rested from its travels.