Crusoe Island
When the days grew a little finer, and it was possible to venture out of
doors without being almost drowned, Miss Chadwick began to put the
"Principles of Agriculture" into practical application. All through the
winter she and her assistants--Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod--had worked in
all weathers looking after the poultry, the pony, and the new
greenhouse, but it was only at rare intervals that it had been possible
for the school to turn out and do digging in the garden. The "Land
Classes" had, however, been studying the scientific side of the matter.
They had analysed soils, estimated the rainfall, and examined the
germination of seeds; they understood such mysterious terms as bacteria,
protozoa, cotyledons, trenching and ridging, cross-fertilization and
spermatozoids, and had some elementary acquaintance with the theory of
the rotation of crops. They felt like full-fledged farmers when Miss
Chadwick wrote on the black-board such questions as:--
"How far apart should different kinds of orchard trees be planted to
ensure enough sunlight?"
"Explain a method of testing seeds."
"What effect has transplanting on a seedling?"
"Describe the difference in structure between a corn-stem and a
rose-stem. Make a cross-section drawing of each."
They tried experiments, such as planting in a box six beans with the
scarred ends down, and six with the scarred ends up, and noted the
results from day to day; they placed blotting-paper between two panes of
glass, with seeds next to the glass, put the apparatus in water, and
demonstrated the growth of roots; they started one plant in the dark,
and another in a light place, grew identical peas in moist cotton or
saw-dust, broke the seed leaves from specimen beans to observe what
happened, and compared the results of distilled water and tap water as
nourishment.
Everybody agreed, however, that it was much more interesting to put on
their land costumes and work out-of-doors. Miss Chadwick, whose methods
were on the newest lines, taught rhythmic digging, which is far less
fatiguing than anyhow exertions, and was very particular about the
position of the body and the action of the spade. Miss Todd, looking on
with huge satisfaction, felt that she was cultivating girls as well as
vegetables, and that her educational experiment promised elements of
success. Certain special pupils were allowed to help to attend to the
poultry--a coveted honour as soon as the fluffy chickens and ducklings
began to be hatched; others were being trained to understand
bee-keeping; it was rumoured in the school that Miss Todd's ambition
even soared so high as buying a cow.
"Where would she keep it, though?" asked Tattie, who was practical.
"I don't know, unless on the lawn," ventured Jess.
"Whew! It would spoil the tennis-courts."
"Well, I suppose she could hire a field. It would be ripping fun to
learn to milk."
"Don't flatter yourself you'd have the chance. The seniors get all that
kind of fun, and we poor intermediates only get the spade work. I've
never been allowed to feed the chickens once, no--not _once_--and I
think it's jolly hard luck!"
"Well, after the way you stuck your fingers into the bee-hive, I should
think Miss Ormrod would hardly trust you to feed a sparrow!"
"What nonsense! I was only investigating!"
"Oh, I dare say! It sounds very grand when you put it that way. Miss
Ormrod called you 'Meddlesome Matty', and said you deserved to be
stung!"
One great advantage of the farming operations, in the eyes of the
younger girls, was that so many materials were left lying about, and it
was quite possible to obtain a considerable amount of enjoyment from
them. A plank placed over a tree-trunk made quite a good see-saw; the
new back gate was a delightful one to swing upon; and, when Miss
Ormrod's back was turned, it was a favourite amusement to place a ladder
against the potting-shed wall, climb to the ridge of the roof, and then
slide down and give a flying jump to the ground. There was an old bucket
inside the potting-shed upon which Diana had her eye; she had schemes
that centred round that bucket. It had holes drilled in its sides, and
had been used during building operations to light a fire in. She was
determined it should be used for that purpose again.
Down by the brink of the lake was a boat-house that belonged to the
school. It was kept carefully locked, and Miss Todd had the key. Since
she had taken over the school she had allowed no one to use the boat--a
grievance at which the girls sometimes grumbled. There was a small
landing-stage at the edge of the water, and only six feet away from this
was a sort of island formed of some willow-stumps and a little soil. It
was a tiny place, hardly worthy to be called an island, and yet for
Diana it held an immense attraction. She wanted to get on to it. She
went down one day with Wendy, Peggy, and Vi, and they took the plank
which had been used for a see-saw, fixed it as a bridge from the
landing-stage to a willow-stump, and then walked across and took
possession. Their new property was only about as large as a good-sized
dining-table, but they were immensely pleased with it.
"We'll bring down the Stars and Stripes and hang them up!" exulted
Diana.
"The Union Jack, you mean!" corrected Wendy. "Can't run up even an
Allied flag on British soil without first claiming it for the King! I'd
like to have a picnic here!"
"That's exactly what's in my mind," agreed Diana, waiving the question
of the colours. "And I've got a brain-wave. We'll carry the bucket over,
light a fire, and cook something. Wouldn't it be rather ripping?"
"A1!" beamed Peggy and Vi.
"Crusoe Island", as the girls named their willow-clump, might certainly
claim the doubtful distinction of being the smallest British possession
in the world, but it was an important one in the eyes of its owners.
They duly brought down the Union Jack and the American flag, and--as a
concession to Diana--planted them side by side on its scanty soil. They
decided not to tell seniors or juniors anything at all about it. Of
course, in a vague way, the whole school knew of its existence, but
nobody had troubled before to land on its few yards of surface. It was
well hidden by the boat-house, so that any operations there were not
visible from the garden or orchard. The rest of the intermediates,
admitted with many cautions of silence into the secret, approved
whole-heartedly; the form squatted in a circle on their territory,
linked little fingers, and pledged themselves into a sort of Crusoe
Society. Everybody felt that the first thing to be done was to hold an
inauguration feast. They borrowed the bucket, filled it with coal and
coke from the greenhouse, and carried it successfully over the plank to
the island.
"So far so good!" purred Diana. "We've got our fire!"
"But not our feast!" qualified Wendy.
"We shall have to be jolly careful to dodge those juniors," advised
Jess. "If they see us carrying out cups they'll be on the scent
directly."
"We mustn't risk it. Besides, Barker would be sure to catch us in the
pantry, and make a clamour if we took cups; we must manage without
things from the house."
"There's a large biscuit-tin lid in the hen-yard," suggested Sadie. "If
we washed it very well, it would do as a frying pan."
"Good biz!"
"What could we fry?"
The commissariat question was indeed the problem of problems. The
village was unfortunately out of bounds, so that, except on stated
occasions, when they were escorted by a mistress, the girls were unable
to do shopping "on their own". There are ways, however, of crawling
through even the most barbed-wire fence of rules.
"Toddlekins never told us we weren't to ask anybody else to do shopping
for us," said Wendy demurely. "When you've not been told not to do
anything, you're not disobedient if you don't do it--oh! I'm getting
rather in a muddle, but you know what I mean."
They did, and they grinned approval.
"There's a little boy working on the next farm," continued Wendy. "I've
smiled and waved to him over the hedge sometimes. I believe he'd do
_anything_ for me. If you can stump up some cash, I'll get him to run an
errand for us. He's picking stones out of the field at this present
moment--at least, to be absolutely truthful, he was, ten minutes ago,
and I don't suppose he's stopped. If I go to the orchard fence I can
call to him."
The circle looked at Wendy with admiration. They had not before realized
the riches of her resourcefulness. Each promised to contribute sixpence,
and told her where to find their purses, so that they need not arouse
suspicion by visiting their dormitories in a body.
"We'll be lighting the fire while you get the prog," they assured her.
So Wendy departed on her foraging expedition, collected the necessary
funds after much hunting in various drawers and coat pockets, hurried to
the orchard, and climbed the fence. Freddie Entwistle was still steadily
engaged in the rural occupation of ridding his father's field of
superfluous stones, but he kept an eye on the horizon, and at the sight
of Wendy's beckoning finger he flung duty to the winds.
"D'you want me?" he grinned, as he came panting across the newly
ploughed earth.
"Yes," said his siren sweetly. "I want you badly. Will you go to the
village and buy something for me?"
"I don't mind. What shall I get?"
"Half a pound of biscuits and something to fry."
"Bacon?" suggested her swain laconically.
"N-n-no. We had bacon for breakfast."
"Kippers or ham?"
"I don't think kippers; but really it must be anything you can get.
Here's the money. If there's any change, take it out in sweets."
"Right you are! I'll be as sharp as I can."
"It's something to have a knight-errant who's prepared to relieve a
maiden in distress," reflected Wendy, seating herself on the fence to
await the return of her chivalrous squire.
He came back in course of time with his pockets bulging with parcels,
evidently very proud of himself for having executed his lady's commands.
Her thanks and a commission of sweets left him radiant. He returned to
his stone-picking, living in a dream.
The party on the island received Wendy with enthusiasm. The fire was
burning beautifully in the bucket, the tin had been scoured with sand
and well washed, large ivy leaves had been picked to serve as plates,
and the company had their penknives ready.
"It's sausages!" exclaimed Wendy, opening one of the parcels; "and he's
actually bought some lard to fry them in. What a brain--and only twelve!
That boy'll be a general some day, if he doesn't die of over-cleverness.
Biscuits to eat with them, my children, and some chocs. for dessert. I
beg to propose that we accord a hearty vote of thanks to Freddie
Entwistle."
"For he's a jolly good fellow!
For he's a jolly good fellow!"
began Jess; but Diana promptly squashed her.
"Stop that noise! D'you want to give the whole show away, and have
Lennie, and Nora, and Betty, and all the rest of the kids swarming down
upon us? Anybody who can't keep quiet will be made to walk the plank.
Yes, and splash into the river at the other end of it! We wouldn't pick
you out either; we'd let you drown!"
"Then I'd sing 'For he's a jolly good fellow' as my 'dying swan song',"
protested Jess. "The kids are far enough away. No one can hear us."
She took the hint, all the same, and did not allow her enjoyment to
bubble over into music. Instead, she helped Wendy to prick the sausages
with a penknife and place them on the temporary frying-pan. The
biscuit-tin lid just fitted nicely over the bucket. In a few minutes
there was a grand sound of fizzling, and a most delicious scent began to
waft itself over the waters of the lake. The best of a bucket-fire is
that everybody can sit round it in a circle and superintend the cooking
operations. Eight penknives prodded the sausages so often that it was a
wonder they were not all chopped to pieces before they were done. At
last the connoisseurs declared they were brown enough, and they were
carefully and mathematically halved and served on biscuits.
"Delicious!" decreed Tattie, critically.
"Couldn't have been better if Toddlekins had reared the piglets on our
own farm," chimed in Peggy.
"Diana, you haven't taken a bite yet," commented Wendy.
"I'm not sure that I want any. I think I'll only have a biscuit, after
all."
"Not want any? Not want the lovely sausages that I risked so much to
get? Diana Hewlitt, what's the matter with you?"
"Oh, nothing--only----"
"Only nothing, I should say! Eat up that piece of sausage double quick,
if you value my friendship."
"Suppose you eat it for me? That would be sentiment."
"No, it wouldn't; you must eat it yourself. There'll be a shindy if you
don't. Our first feast! It's a sort of ceremonial!"
"Not 'the cup of brotherhood' but 'the sausage of sisterhood'!" hinnied
Jess.
Diana looked doubtfully at the two inches of brown, porky substance on
her ivy-leaf plate, and sighed.
"I feel like the elephant at the Zoo when they offered him his hundredth
bun: It may kill me, but it's a beautiful death," she demurred. "Well,
if you're all nuts on my having some, I guess there's nothing else for
it. Here goes! What a life!"
"The Sisterhood of the Sausage," murmured Jess fatuously.
"Don't make such a fuss; you know you're enjoying it, old sport," said
Wendy. "It isn't every day in your life you can come and have a blow-out
on Crusoe Island."
* * * * *
On Thursday morning Diana, who had been restless and fidgety in the
night, awoke with a rash all over her face and chest. Loveday, much
alarmed, would not allow her to get up till the authorities had seen
her, and fetched Miss Todd. The Principal, dismayed at the prospect of
infection in the school, mentally ran over the gamut of possible
diseases from scarlatina to chicken-pox, ordered Diana to stop in bed,
and sent at once to Glenbury for the doctor.
Now it happened that Dr. Hunter was himself in bed, suffering from a
severe attack of influenza, and, as it was extremely difficult for him,
at a few hours' notice, to secure the services of a really competent
medical man as locum tenens, he had been obliged to put up with a Hindoo
doctor who was sent by the London agent in answer to his urgent
telegram. It was a case of "any port in a storm", and though Dr.
Jinaradasa's qualifications might be such as only just to satisfy the
board of the Royal College of Surgeons, it was better to send him to
look after the patients than to leave them utterly unattended.
Therefore, when the neat little two-seater car drew up at Pendlemere
Abbey it was not the bluff, rosy-cheeked Dr. Hunter who stepped out of
it, but a foreign-looking gentleman with a very dark complexion. He
explained his presence to Miss Todd, who gasped for a second, but
recovered herself, received him gratefully, and conducted him upstairs
to view his patient. Diana, I regret to say, behaved like the spoilt
child she really was. She buried her head under the bedclothes, and at
first utterly refused to submit to any examination. Miss Todd coaxed,
wheedled, stormed, and finally pulled the clothes away by force and
displayed the rash to the dark, lustreless eyes of Dr. Jinaradasa. He
asked a few questions--which Diana answered sulkily--took her
temperature, felt her pulse, and retired downstairs to talk over the
case with Miss Todd, leaving a very cross and indignant patient behind
him. Ten minutes afterwards the door of the ivy room swung gently open,
and Wendy's interested and sympathetic face made its appearance.
"Di!" she whispered impressively; "I'm coming to see you, even if it's
smallpox you've got. I'm supposed to be practising, but I just did a
bolt. Well, old sport, you do look an object, I must say!"
Diana hitched herself higher in bed.
"You needn't be afraid. I'm not infectious," she remarked.
"They say you've got measles," ventured Wendy.
"Measles!" snorted Diana scornfully. "That's all they know about it.
I've told them till I'm tired that it's nettle-rash. I've had it before.
I always _do_ get the wretched thing when I eat sausages. They sort of
poison me. It'll go away all right if they only let me alone. What did
Miss Todd want bringing that black doctor up to see me? I had nearly
forty fits when he came marching into my room."
"Well, he says you've got measles at any rate, and Toddlekins is in no
end of a state. Thinks it's going to spread all through the school.
D'you know she's making arrangements to send you to the Fever Hospital?
They're to come and fetch you away in the ambulance."
"_What!_ The idiots! I tell you I _haven't_ got measles. I won't go! Do
you think I'm going to let myself be bundled off to the Fever Hospital
just because an ignoramus of a Hindoo doctor doesn't know his business
sufficiently to tell nettle-rash when he sees it? Rather not! I'd show
fight first!"
"They'll roll you in blankets and carry you downstairs!" thrilled Wendy.
"They'll do nothing of the sort--I'll take good care of that. I wouldn't
be easy to carry if I kicked, even inside blankets. I never heard of
such an outrageous thing in all my life. I've some bounce left in me
yet, and I'll use it--see if I don't! Measles, indeed! I wonder he
didn't say it was hydrophobia."
"Well, whatever it is, you're to be taken to the Fever Hospital; they've
ordered the ambulance. I'm awfully sorry, old sport! It's hard luck on
you. I must scoot now, and go back to my practising, or I shall have
Bunty on my track. Bye-bye!"
Wendy vanished, leaving Diana alone and most upset. She considered that
she was being treated abominably. She longed to telegraph to her
parents, but she knew that was impossible.
"Whatever happens, I'm not going to that wretched Fever Hospital," she
said to herself. "I'm sure Cousin Cora wouldn't like me to be taken
there. Why shouldn't I go to Petteridge? They're all well again from the
'flu'. What a brain-wave! I declare I will, and tell Cousin Cora all
about it!"
Diana was nothing if not impetuous. She jumped up immediately, and began
a hasty toilet. She was just three-quarters through with it when she
heard footsteps on the stairs. She immediately whisked her nightdress on
over her clothes, and popped into bed just three seconds before Miss
Todd entered the room. The excitement of such a rush made her face more
flushed than ever. Miss Todd came and looked at her critically.
"Yes, the rash is coming out very nicely," she observed.
"It's nettle-rash, not measles!" affirmed Diana defiantly.
"That's for the doctor to decide, not you. I'm afraid you must have
caught it the day you went in the omnibus to Glenbury. It takes nearly
a fortnight to incubate."
Diana shivered with anxiety lest Miss Todd should wish to inspect the
progress of the rash on her chest as well as on her face, and thus
discover that she was half clothed beneath her nightdress, but
fortunately the head mistress did not descend so far in her
investigations. Instead, she turned to Diana's drawers, and began
filling a hand-bag with various necessaries. She did not mention the
Fever Hospital, probably judging it better not to prepare the patient
beforehand, but to wait until the ambulance arrived. Diana, of course,
knew why she was collecting the garments, but feigned to ignore the
matter, and made no comment. She wished Miss Todd would be quick and go.
She was so terribly afraid that the ambulance might drive up before she
had the chance to make her escape. Flight seemed certainly preferable to
a struggle.
The mistress at last found a sufficiency of nightdresses and other
garments, and, telling Diana to keep herself covered up and warm, took
her departure.
The moment she was safely out of the way the invalid sprang up and
resumed her interrupted toilet. Diana had suffered from nettle-rash
several times before, and the treatment had not included stopping in bed
or even staying indoors. Her complaint was really more in the nature of
dyspepsia. She felt as if fresh air would do her good. She did not dare
to walk downstairs in case she might meet anybody, so she decided to
adopt the method she had found effective last autumn, and climb out
through the window and down the ivy. Lessons were in progress, so nobody
would be in the garden to watch her, except Miss Carr and Miss Ormrod,
who would probably be engaged with the horse or the hens. She swung
herself out, therefore, and let herself down by the thick stems. Then
she dodged round the house to the bicycle-shed. She did not yet possess
a machine of her own, but Wendy's stood handy, and she knew her chum
well enough to borrow it. She wheeled it through the back gate,
fortunately without meeting Miss Carr, and then set off at top-speed for
Petteridge Court.
Mrs. Burritt was naturally much surprised to see her young cousin turn
up in so unexpected a fashion, and with a rash on her face, but she did
the most sensible thing in the circumstances: she put Diana to bed, and
sent to Dunswick for a doctor. He arrived during the course of the
afternoon, and, after a careful examination of his patient, pronounced
her complaint to be nettle-rash.
"There's not a doubt about it!" he declared. "You need not be in the
least afraid that it's measles."
Armed with a medical certificate to that effect, Mrs. Burritt motored
over to Pendlemere Abbey to patch up peace with Miss Todd. Partly for
reasons of health, and partly to let the storm blow over, she kept
Diana at Petteridge until the rash had entirely disappeared and the girl
seemed in her absolutely normal condition. Mrs. Burritt took her back on
the understanding that bygones should be bygones, and a fresh start
should be made without any reference to former delinquencies.
Miss Todd received Diana quite amiably, but insisted upon her having a
carbolic bath, and herself washed her hair with strong disinfectant
soap. The clothes she had worn disappeared mysteriously for some days,
and were then returned from the stoving department of the Glenbury
Sanitation Office. Diana made no comments at head-quarters, but laughed
to herself.
"I'm sure Toddlekins believes I've had measles," she confided to Wendy.
"Of course she does. She said she hadn't the least doubt about it, and
that you hadn't eaten anything which could have caused you to have
nettle-rash."
"What would she say if she knew about the sausages?" queried Diana.