FRANK’S EXCUSES--CURING VENISON--MAROONING COOKERY--ROBERT’S VEGETABLE
GARDEN--PLANS FOR RETURN---PREPARATION FOR THE SABBATH
When Mary and Frank arose next morning, they saw the small boughs of the
oak hung with divided portions of venison. The boys had so placed them,
after finishing, late at night, for the double purpose of allowing them
to cool and of keeping them out of reach of the dogs. "Come, Frank,"
said Mary, "let us make up the fire, and get things ready for
breakfast." The wood was close at hand, ready cut, and nothing more was
needed for a fire than putting the pieces together, with several sticks
of light wood underneath; a bright cracking blaze soon rose cheerfully
before them.
"Buddy," she said, "can you not go down to the spring, and bring me some
water, while I am preparing these other things?"
But Frank was lazy that morning, and out of humour, and the fire was so
comfortable (for the air was cool) that he stood before it, warming his
hands, and puffing at the smoke that blew in his face. He replied, "No,
sister, I am afraid"--then he paused, trying hard to think of some
excuse. "I am afraid that if I go the crabs will bite me."
"Crabs!" Mary exclaimed. "Why how can they bite you, when they are all
cooked?"
"I do not mean the crabs in the dish," said he, "but the crabs in the
river."
"Well, if they are in the river," argued Mary, "how can they hurt you,
if you keep on the land?"
Frank found that his excuse was about to fail. But he was not disposed
to surrender so easily. He therefore devised another. "I am afraid to
go, for if the crabs do not bite me maybe the snakes will. Don’t you
remember what cousin Harold told us the other day about snakes."
Frank said this very seriously, and had not Mary been somewhat provoked
at his unbrotherly refusal, she would have laughed at the ridiculous
contrast between his looks and his language. She said, reproachfully,
"I thought, Frank, you loved me better than to treat me so. I want the
water to make coffee for you, and the rest of us, and yet you will not
help me."
"I do not wish any of the coffee," he answered. "All that I want for
breakfast is some of that nice fat deer, and some of these fish and
crabs."
"Very well," she added, in a hurt but independent tone, "I can help
myself."
She took the bucket, and went to the spring. Frank looked ashamed, but
continued silent. He drew up a billet of wood and sat upon it, pushing
his feet towards the fire, and spreading out his hands, for the want of
something else to do. By the time Mary returned from the spring, Robert
and Harold came from the tent. They had retired late and weary the
night before, and as a natural consequence had overslept their usual
time for rising. "What is that we heard you and Frank talking about?"
Robert asked of Mary.
"Inquire of Frank," she replied; "I prefer that he should tell you."
"Well, Frank, what was it?"
"Nothing," he answered, doggedly, "except that sister wanted me to go to
the spring, and I told her I was afraid that the crabs and snakes would
bite me."
"What did sister Mary want with the water?"
"To make coffee, I suppose."
"And do you not love coffee?"
"Sometimes; but I do not wish any this morning, for sister never puts in
sugar enough for me."
"Well, well, we shall see who wants coffee at breakfast. Sister Mary, is
there anything I can do to help you?"
"Cousin," said Harold, uniting quickly in the effort to shame Frank out
of his strange caprice, "I wish you would let me too help you in some
way. You are always so ready to do everything you can for us, that we
are glad whenever we can do anything for you."
Mary needed nothing, except to have the kettle lifted to its place upon
the fire. Frank was all this time warming his hands and feet, as if he
was desperately cold. In reading the Scriptures, and repeating the
Lord’s Prayer, his voice could scarcely be heard; he knew that he had
done wrong, and was beginning to repent. At breakfast, Mary asked him
in a kind, forgiving tone, if he would not have some coffee; but true to
his resolution he declined.
The first business of the day was to take care of their venison. Yet
what should they do with it? They had no cool place in which to keep it
fresh, nor salting tub nor barrel in which to corn or pickle what they
could not consume in its green state. Harold’s proposal was that they
should cut the hams into thin slices, and jerk them in the smoke, as he
had seen Torgah do; or else to dry them in the sun, which in the middle
of the day was quite hot. Robert said he had heard or read of meat
being saved fresh for several days by burying it under cool running
water, and offered to try it at their spring. Mary said she liked both
plans, but having had such good experience of Harold’s baked turkey, she
hoped he would now give them a specimen of baked venison.
It was finally resolved to give each plan a fair trial. One ham should
be sliced and jerked; another should be baked for the next day’s dinner,
as the turkey had been; one shoulder should be cooked for that day’s
consumption, and the other put under the drip of the spring to prove
whether it would keep until Monday.
"There is one advantage at least that we shall gain from these
experiments," said Harold; "a knowledge how to economize our meat."
For a minute or two Mary had been evidently pondering upon some
difficult problem; and Robert, observing her abstraction, asked in a
jesting tone if she was studying anatomy.
"Not exactly," she replied; "I was thinking of two things; how to cook
this shoulder, when we have nothing in which to bake or roast it--"
"O, as for that," Harold interjected, "I will provide you in ten
minutes’ time with a roaster wide enough for an ox, or small enough for
a sparrow. Do you just hang it by a string from the pole I will set for
you above the fire; it will roast fast enough, only you will lose all
your gravy."
"The gipsies’ roasting-pole!" said she; "I wonder I did not think of it.
The other thing is, that after you have sliced the steak-pieces from the
bone, the remainder would make an excellent soup, if we had any
vegetables to put with it."
"And what do you want?" Robert inquired.
"In beef soup," she replied, "cooks usually put in turnips, onions,
cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and the like."
"Carrots and potatoes I fear we must do without at this time," said he,
"but the rest I think I can furnish, or something very like them."
"What! have you a vegetable garden already growing on the island?" asked
Harold.
"Yes," he answered, "a very large and fine one; an endless supply of the
most beautiful white cabbage, and most delicate asparagus, besides
quantities of spinach, okra, and other vegetables. The palmetto gives
the first, the tender shoots of the bamboo-brier the second; the leaves
of the poke, when young, furnish the third, and those of the wild violet
the last, or rather a substitute in its mucilaginous leaf, for the okra.
Beside these plants (all of which, except the last, need to be boiled in
several waters to free them from their bitter taste), there are
multitudes more growing around us that are perfectly wholesome as
articles of food--the purslain, the thistle, the dandelion, the
lambsquarter, the cresses and pepper-grasses, to say nothing of the
pink-gilled mushrooms, and the fungus that grows from logs of hickory."
"I will ask no more questions about your garden," said Harold. "I will
confess at once that it is one of the largest and finest in the world;
but will say too that it requires a person of your knowledge to use it
aright."
"And no great knowledge after all," responded Robert. "I could teach
you in half an hour every one."
"I will await them here," said Harold, "wishing you all success in
visiting the garden, and cousin Mary all success in preparing the
vegetables for use."
That afternoon they engaged in another discussion about attempting a
speedy return home. Robert and Mary had become impatient of their stay,
and were despairing of any one’s coming soon to their relief. The three
and a half days of separation from their father seemed to them a month.
"Why not make the effort to return at once?" they contended. "This
place is very good indeed; on some accounts we could not desire a
better; yet it is not home."
Harold shook his head, and replied, "I am not sure, notwithstanding all
your arguments, that any of us know where home is. One thing I do know,
that this island seems to be a very safe and comfortable place for
people in our condition. Moreover, I am confident that your father will
use every means for finding us; and we can scarcely be in a better place
than this for being found. My opinion still is that we had better
continue here for a fortnight or three weeks in safety, than to risk
what we should, by starting in an open boat, to go upon the broad sea,
we know not where."
Harold, however, was overruled. Mary and Frank united with Robert in
resolving to attempt their return homewards by coasting; and Harold
yielded with a sigh, remarking that his heart was with them, but his
judgment against them. The moment the question was decided, Frank began
to show the greatest glee. To his hopeful spirit, to try was to
succeed; and he was even then in fancy revelling once more in the scenes
of happy Bellevue.
But when should they begin their voyage? Not that day, for they were
not ready. Not the next, for that was the Sabbath, which they had been
taught to reverence. Not Monday morning, because there were preparations
to be made, which they could not complete without working on the
Sabbath, They resolved to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," by
rest from labour, and by appropriate exercises, and then to start as
soon after as possible; which, probably, could not be before Monday
evening or Tuesday morning.
They prepared another oven, heated and protected as before, into which
the ham of venison was introduced. They collected and cut a supply of
wood to be used in case of cool weather the following day, and brought
from the bank another basket full of oysters. After spending a pleasant
evening in conversation, they retired to rest, happy in the thought that
they had been trying to live as they should, and that they had resolved,
of their own free will, to reverence the Sabbath, at the sacrifice of
another day from home.