COMMISSARY MATTERS
But for Marian in the midst of her hungry, grimy little flock the
incident was far from closed. Indeed, it was only begun.
When their food was all gone but the can of tomatoes and a part of
the crackers, she made up her mind that nothing but accidental help
could be looked for. No one, not even her parents, knew anything
about Smugglers’ Island, and probably they were thought to have
perished in the storm. Perhaps Mr. Pearson had been swamped and
drowned. In the course of time some one would come into San Moros for
something,--Indians hunting turtles maybe,--but it might be long months
before they saw a human being besides themselves. There was no one to
rely upon but themselves; whatever was done they must do themselves.
Looking at the cluster of tousled heads, Marian set her teeth together
and clenched her hands tightly. The fierce protective spirit of
motherhood swept over her. They were hers, these little ones; come
what would, they should not perish, they should be fed, sheltered,
cared for. They should have their child’s rights of tender love and
happiness. Esther, running up just then, was caught in a close embrace
and kissed fervently.
The Cave afforded the best shelter for night that they could find. As
soon as things were dried up a little from the storm, Marian set about
improving it somewhat. For tools she had only the hatchet, Esther’s
spade, the dig-spoon, and Delbert’s knife and lariat.
With the hatchet she cut sticks and brush and with the lariat dragged
them up to the Cave, where she and Delbert made them as best they could
into a sort of roof for the space between the Cave and the big rock
in front. It was crude work, of course, but it gave shade and to some
extent served as a wind-break, at least. It was just high enough to
stand up under.
A place to cook over was soon made of a few rocks, and then Marian
turned her attention to the securing of food other than crabs and
clams. First there was the banana-patch. Not finding any good way of
reaching up to the bunch they found there, they cut the stalk it was
on, first looking carefully to see that there was no other bunch on the
same stalk. Later on they learned that each stalk bears but a single
bunch anyway.
Unquestionably those were the worst bananas that Marian had ever seen
in her life. Not only was the fruit small and dwarfed, but about half
of each banana was a dry, brown pith, while what remained was very far
from being good. But they were food, and Marian conveyed that bunch of
bananas to the Cave with the greatest of care.
Then with the hatchet and knife they cut down a great many other
stalks and dragged them out of the way, so that they could get about
in the patch and see what was there. It was not the pleasantest work
in the world, for they had to keep a sharp lookout for ugly, crawling
things. They found, however, several other sickly-looking bunches and
quite a number of birds’ nests. These last Marian was careful to leave
undisturbed.
Delbert was anxious to fly a signal flag, and as Marian was wearing an
extra petticoat, she decided to dedicate it to that purpose.
But it was a question where was the best place to fly it. There were no
very tall trees, and no place where it did not seem to her that a flag
would blend with the background. She had really very little hope of its
doing any good, but she did not suggest that to the children.
At last they picked out a tree and, after considerable discussion as to
ways and means and several ineffectual attempts, finally succeeded in
attaching the white skirt to one of the higher branches, where Delbert
was sure it would be seen if any one chanced into San Moros.
Delbert was continually mourning that they had no fishhooks and lines.
He and Bobbie had been famous fishers,--in their own estimations, at
least,--and he was quite sure that if he only had a hook and line he
would be able to haul out innumerable fish from the quiet water about
the little rock pier. Marian searched through their belongings and not
a hook could she find, and all her thread was rather fine. But though
crabs and clams were good, it took a great many of them to satisfy five
people three times a day, and it took more time to prepare them than
Marian wanted to spend. She declared that she would not open the can of
tomatoes till they were actually starving and could not get anything
else, and she put them on an allowance of one cracker apiece each meal.
Davie often howled for more, but Marian resolutely put them where he
could not get them for himself, and his lusty wails availed him nothing.
A few quail occasionally wandered into Delbert’s traps and from
there into Marian’s kettle, but Marian was not content, and one day
she braided her hair in two braids down her back and tried her hand
at making fishhooks out of her wire hairpins. She had not brought
her shears with her, but in her bag was a pair of little buttonhole
scissors that could be made to serve as plyers, perhaps, and her pretty
pearl-handled penknife had a nail-file on one blade. She could not put
barbs on her hooks, but she could sharpen them with the file. As one
hairpin by itself was not strong enough, she straightened out three and
bound them tightly together with embroidery silk.
After working faithfully all her spare time, one day she finished a
hook that she and Delbert were both sure would work. Then came the
question of a line.
“Delbert,” she said, “quite a while ago wasn’t Bobbie’s Uncle Jim
teaching you boys how to braid round whiplashes? Yes? Well, do you
remember now how he did it?”
“I guess I do,” said the boy slowly; “but you haven’t got near enough
thread to make a line strong enough to amount to shucks. That colored
silk would be all right, but you’ve got only a teenty bit of that.”
Marian smiled. “Why is your rope better than a common one?” she asked
him.
“’Cause it’s hair and it won’t rot and wear out like the fiber ones.”
Marian was unbraiding one of the long braids that hung over her
shoulder and with the scissors she snipped out here and there, where it
would not show, quite a number of tresses.
“Here,” she said, “you get busy now and let’s see if you know how to
braid a nice, smooth, round line, and then you can show me how, too.”
“O Marian, your pretty, pretty hair!”
“Yes, I know; it has been my pretty hair all my life, and it’s high
time it was useful as well as ornamental.”
But it took a long time to braid the line, and food had to be secured
meantime. Food!--that was the main topic of conversation,--to find
clams, to get big crabs, to make traps and set and watch them
afterwards. Never a fish was sighted but they wondered if it was good
to eat; never a bird flew over but they discussed whether or not it
would cook up tender. Delbert used to go twice a day, at least, to
look over his traps. Simple things they were, made of sticks fastened
together with strips of rag torn from the towel that had been wrapped
around the bread, and afterwards of the fibrous stems of the banana
leaves. Every day he saw rabbits, and one day he threw a stone that hit
one on the head and stunned it, and he despatched it with his knife. He
did not seem to mind killing the things that got into his traps, and
Marian was glad he did not, since it had to be done.
It was after the rabbit incident that the little boy came in one day
from making the round of the traps, holding by the tail a good-sized
rattlesnake.
“Mercy!” cried Marian, “how did you kill that?”
“With sticks and stones,” he answered. “He was right there in the path
by my last trap, and I settled his hash in a jiffy. Say, Marian, he
looks nice and fat. Bobbie’s Uncle Jim says they are as good eating as
eel.”
Marian gasped, “Snakes!” But the clams were getting scarce in the
immediate vicinity, and she had even begun to imagine that the crabs
were not quite so plentiful on the little sand-beaches.
“The history says,” continued Delbert, “that when the Spaniards were
conquering this country and South America, sometimes when parties were
sent out to go to places and got lost and wandered around, they had to
eat roots and snakes and toads.”
Marian was thinking she had certainly heard of people eating
rattlesnakes and--well--“All right,” she said, turning away to the
construction of the fishline, “you skin it, Delbert, and I’ll cook it.”
The filtered water in the demijohn did not last very long, of course,
and when it was gone Marian marshaled all hands to clean out the
spring. She usually marshaled all hands when there was anything to be
done, because somehow she could not bear to have any of the children
out of her sight for any length of time. When they were with her she
knew they were safe. True, there seemed to be little danger of any
kind, save that they were surrounded with plenty of water to drown in,
and there was no knowing how many more rattlesnakes the Island might
possibly contain.
She had hoped that when she got the stones cleared away the spring
would reveal itself as something extra good in the way of water-supply,
but it did not. Indeed, she was reluctantly forced to the conclusion
that it was no spring at all, only a shallow little well.
In the rainy season the water falling on these islands sinks into the
sand and stays there. One could find fresh water any time by digging at
a little distance back from the beach, where the sand lay in hills and
hollows, and Marian concluded that the only reason why the water came
to the surface in that particular spot was because it was situated in a
decided depression of the ground.
So she dug and scooped till she had a hole with about a foot of water
in it, and then she smoothed the sides and laid rocks so the sandy
soil should not cave in. From the tracks abounding in the vicinity she
concluded that the deer and burros both were accustomed to drink there,
and while she was willing that they should continue to do so, she did
not want them poking their noses into the very pool that she must dip
from for her little flock; so she made a cover with some sticks and
pieces of driftwood and some stones to keep them in place, and then,
to be still surer, she hollowed out another place for her four-footed
neighbors. The old dig-spoon and the little spade were her chief tools
in these labors.
“Dear me! Delbert,” she said playfully, “why didn’t we have sense
enough to bring a hoe and shovel with us?”
“Huh!” he retorted gloomily, “if we had had any sense we’d have stayed
at home.”
“There may be something in that too,” she answered.
“I know what I could do if you had brought your shears,” spoke up
Jennie.
“What, dear?”
“I’d cut a thing from this,” holding up the piece of tin cut from the
end of one of the cans of corn, “that Delbert could spear fish with.”
Delbert stared at her a minute, and then with one of his nervously
quick movements possessed himself of the ragged bit of tin.
Marian had opened the can with his knife. He looked at it a moment and
spoke excitedly. “We could! It wouldn’t be like a regular spear-head,
but we could catch ’em. I know just how the Indians throw them. Bobbie
has one, but he’s never caught anything yet.”
The idea was certainly worth trying. Marian would not ruin her precious
buttonhole scissors cutting tin with them, but she scratched the
pattern in the bit of tin and then went over it with the tip of the
butcher-knife, denting it; and the dents, made deeper and deeper,
finally became holes, and then soon there was her spear-head, such as
it was, needing only to be smoothed up a little and filed and bound on
the end of a smooth, slender stick that Delbert had been preparing.
Marian split the end of the stick a little and slipped in the bit of
tin and bound the stick with thread that she had doubled and twisted
till it was strong enough to suit her, then tied the lariat rope to the
other end of the stick.
Delbert spent the next day in exercising the new tool. His patience was
certainly marvelous. Hour after hour went by with no success, but he
was sure he would be successful some other time.
“I’ll get on to it after a while,” he said, as they ate their supper of
hot clam soup. “Those Indians at the Port catch them right along.”
“The thread will soon rot out,” said Marian. “I ought to have wire to
wrap the end with; copper wire would be best. There are two hairpins
left, but they are so short I can’t fix them, I’m afraid.”
It was fully a week afterwards before it dawned upon her that she had
in the edge of her hat-brim a nice piece of copper wire that just
filled the bill, and though its removal left the brim rather droopy,
that was a small matter.
Their supper they always ate at the Cave, as the light of their fire
could be seen far out from there; but breakfasts and dinners were
usually eaten down on the beach to save the trouble of carrying food
and water up the hill. Marian had built a second place for cooking down
in the shadow of the big rocks where they had eaten their first dinner
on the Island, and the children had dug a well in a hollow of the sand
not far off, which they used, although the water did not seem to be so
good as that on the other side of the Island, having more of a salty
flavor.
As Marian was carefully dipping water from the beach well one morning,
Jennie and Esther came running to her in great excitement.
“O Marian, come quick! The High-Tide Pool is full of fish, and Delbert
is going to spear them all!”
This was interesting, certainly. The High-Tide Pool was down quite a
way from where they had the well and the cooking-place. It was beyond
the sandy beach, where the rocks ran down into the water. When the tide
was high it had considerable depth, and ran back into a little cave
among the rocks, but at low tide the water was only two or three feet
deep in its deepest part, which was in the cave.
Sometimes they had seen a few little fish in it before, but that
morning the little girls had gone down and found it well stocked.
Probably just as the tide was going out, a great number had taken
refuge there. Perhaps some enemy was lurking outside and they dared not
leave the safe retreat, and now they could not leave it till high tide
came again.
Delbert was spearing industriously when Marian got there. He had
actually caught one, and it flapped feebly on the rocks beside him.
As his sister came up, he triumphantly called her attention to it.
“See that? Told you I could spear fish! But they all want to hide back
there in the cave. I tell you, Marian, I’ll go in there and drive them
out, and you can stand here and spear them. We’ll just keep spearing
and spearing till the tide comes in and the rest get away. I bet we can
get enough for several days. We can dry ’em as the Mexicans do.”
He handed her the spear and began hastily to disrobe. Delbert’s
movements were always hasty.
Marian began casting the spear unsuccessfully, but when Delbert got
into the pool he created such a commotion that several of the fish in
their wild endeavor to escape, flopped clear out on the bare rocks and
were easily captured. By that time a better idea had come to Marian.
[Illustration: MARIAN HAD BEEN CASTING THE SPEAR UNSUCCESSFULLY WHEN
DELBERT GOT INTO THE POOL]
“O Delbert,” she cried, “come out now, wipe up on my apron and get back
into your clothes. We have enough for breakfast and dinner, too.”
“Oh, but we want all we can get,” he called back. “We can dry ’em, I
tell you, and as soon as the tide is high again they will all get away.”
“That’s all right, but listen! I have a scheme for keeping them all.
This is too good a thing to let the tide take away from us. Why, there
must be fish enough in there to last us a week at least, maybe two.
See, Delbert, we must build some kind of a fence across, so they can’t
get away when high tide does come. Then we can come every day and get
what we want till they are all gone.”
Delbert splashed right out without more remarks.
“We can do it with rocks and sticks and brush,” she continued. “It
won’t be possible to drive stakes in the ground here, because it isn’t
ground,--it is all rock,--but we can make them stand firm by piling
rocks around them.”
She went to work systematically. She set the children to bringing
rocks, while she and Delbert cut the stakes and brush up on the
hillside and dragged them down with the rope. Then, selecting the place
where she could accomplish her purpose with the least labor, she set a
row of stakes a little way apart, piling rocks about each one till it
was quite firm and solid, and then began weaving in brush.
It was a long task. Trip after trip she made up the hillside with the
rope and hatchet, and her face and hands were scratched with the thorny
brush. The children grew tired of helping, and Davie was crying because
he was hungry, for Marian would not stop to prepare food. She dared
not. In that little pool was food, food. If she could shut the way
across before the tide came in, then she and her little ones were safe
without question for some time to come; if not--“Why, Delbert,” she
said, “we might live here for years before we should have such a chance
again.”
Finally she sent him up to start a fire and clean the fish they had got
before they began the fence, and when he had them in the kettle over
the flames he returned to help her. Thereafter she would occasionally
send up the little girls to put on more wood or to pour a little more
water into the kettle, but she herself kept at the task.
Marian did thorough work; she dared not slight it in a single place;
it must be strong enough to resist the force of the waves, and it must
be so solid that no fish of any considerable size could get through,
and she dared not stop, she dared not stop. The tide began creeping
back over the rocks, and she sent the children back for more brush
and sticks, and more still, and went herself again, and still again,
and now the water was running over into the pool again, and still she
worked. She knew how high up on the rocks it would be when the tide
was at its full height, and she must get above that. She had done the
work well so far, yet it would all be in vain if she did not get above
high-water mark.
Finally she finished it with the water waist-deep around her, and as
she dragged herself out, it seemed as if she had never been so tired
in all her life before, but she was sure that her work was done well.
Tired and hungry and smarting from scratches and the thorns she had
not had time to remove, she was yet happy. For the first time since
Pearson’s treachery had left them stranded there, she felt a firm
foundation under her feet.
In spite of the little girls’ care the fire had gone out under the
kettle and the fish were not done. They were not very trustworthy as
cooks yet, but Marian started things going again and sent Jennie up
to the Cave for a blanket and some safety-pins and a needle from her
workbag.
When she came back, Marian removed her wet clothing and donned the
blanket in its stead, pinning it in place with the safety-pins, and
then proceeded to extract thorns with the needle. Delbert also required
some of the same surgical attention. Then, as soon as the fish were
done, they broke their fast, and afterwards she took Davie and lay down
in the shadow of a rock to sleep, secure in the knowledge that there
were fish enough in the kettle for one more meal and that there were
plenty more where they came from.
The fencing-in of High-Tide Pool certainly marked a new period in
the life on the Island. It was the first work of any size, and its
completion gave assurance of food for many days to come without
spending all their time in the securing of it.
Afterwards Marian bent her energies on the fishline to the exclusion
of everything else till it was finished. It took the two extra hairpins
to fasten the hook and line together satisfactorily, but Marian did
not grudge hairpins nor time nor labor when she saw how eager the
fish of High-Tide Pool seemed to be to attach themselves to that
amateurish-looking implement. She thought the fence she had built
probably served, to some extent, to screen out the smaller fish that
would otherwise have provided breakfasts and luncheons for those she
had imprisoned. At any rate, their appetites seemed to be excellent,
anything was acceptable as bait, and Delbert was now and then
successful in spearing one.
They worked another day on the banana-patch, thinning it out and
letting in the sunlight, and another in dragging more brush up to the
Cave to shade and shelter it, and in carrying up more dried banana
leaves for their bed.
Then Marian said she was ready to go on an exploring expedition.
So far they had gone no great way from the end of the Island where they
had landed, but now she decided the time had come to learn more of
their locality. Some of the bananas were ripe; that is, they were soft
and could be eaten. They could take them along for lunch.
Delbert was a little afraid some one might come while they were gone,
but Marian had a lead-pencil in her workbag and with it she wrote
on a smooth piece of driftwood a brief account of their predicament
which she left in a prominent position near the tree their signal flag
flapped on. To make assurance doubly sure, they put another signal flag
by the side of the notice.
Not being sure they could find water on all parts of the Island,
Marian thought it would be safest to carry some with them, but the
only thing she had to carry it in was the two-quart Mason jar that had
held Davie’s milk. They would take Mr. Cunningham’s pail, too, and
the spear and lariat and hatchet. It seemed to Marian that that was
all they would need, but Davie was very sure the dig-spoon would be
indispensable, so he carried that also.
They went along on top of the hill where Delbert had set his traps. It
was very rocky at first, but became more even and level, with fewer
rocks, and more open and grassy. There was an abundance of thorny
brush, but no trees of any size worth mentioning. This portion of the
Island they used afterwards to refer to as the pasture. Beyond it the
thorny tangle became thicker again, and here were more rocks. Indeed,
the farther end of the Island fell quite precipitously to the water
without any sandy beaches, but they could make their way down well
enough, and most of the way could follow the shoreline without wading.
The Island was fairly uniform in shape, and it looked to Marian as
if it had been broken as a whole from the mainland ages back, the
sides there being very steep and precipitous, as was the shore of the
mainland opposite. The little harbor did not seem to extend very far,
and no vessel of any size could have picked her way through behind the
Island.
The seaward side contained various little bays and coves, very
fascinating to explore, but only one of these was of any size. This
lay in such a relation to the tides and currents that it gathered more
of the flotsam and jetsam of the sea than any or all of the others,
and when its treasure possibilities were realized it was named Bonanza
Cove.
These details were not all learned in one day’s exploration, but little
by little as day after day they searched and learned.
Always supreme above all other motives was the search for food.
Every plant or root or berry that they knew to be edible they eagerly
seized upon, and Marian was constantly warning them lest they grow
careless in their selection and suffer thereby.
One day they found the burros all down by the water-hole on the
landlocked side of the Island. They had seen them before, about a dozen
in number, but had not paid much attention to them. They were grazing
peacefully on the outskirts of the banana-patch, and the children were
quick to notice that the herd had been increased by one in the last day
or two, a silky-looking little fellow with that peculiarly fascinating
quality that only a baby burro has.
In glee they ran toward them, but though the burros seemed to be not
at all wild, they plainly did not mean to permit any actual handling
and skillfully evaded all attempts in that direction. After several
ineffective attempts to round up the woolly baby, the children stopped
to rest and regain their breath, and the four-legged infant sidled up
to his mother and proceeded to lunch.
Suddenly Marian turned to her brother. “Delbert,” she said, “can you
lasso that old burro as she stands there?”
“Reckon I could if I tried. What do you want of her?”
“See that baby there fairly guzzling down the milk, and look at our
baby here without a spoonful all these days. Don’t you suppose that
old mother burro has more than that little fellow really needs in his
business? Anyway, if he had to go a little short he could make it up on
grass.”
“O--oh!” ejaculated the boy, “burro’s milk? Why, Marian, it wouldn’t be
good.”
“Indeed, my dear child, burro’s milk is a regular article of commerce
in some places, just as cow’s and goat’s milk is in others.”
“Anyway,” reflected Delbert, “if we didn’t tell him, Davie wouldn’t
know but what it was all right. Milk is milk to him; he wouldn’t care.”
“Of course not,” said Marian briskly; “you older children might object
to it, but it won’t make any difference to him whether he shares with
a baby burro or a baby calf. You just get a good loop over her head,
and we’ll try this thing out.”
[Illustration: GETTING A LOOP OVER THE MOTHER’S HEAD WAS THE EASIEST
PART OF THE BUSINESS]
As a matter of fact, getting a loop over the mother’s head was the
easiest part of the business. Delbert soon accomplished that, but Madam
Burro had no intention whatever of standing still and being milked.
Indeed, she developed quite surprising activity, and it was only after
at least an hour of patient labor that Marian was able to secure a few
spoonfuls of milk in the tin cup which the little girls brought down
from the Cave.
“Now, then,” said Marian, “the thing we have got to do is to secure the
baby. If we keep him tied here, his mother will stay around, and we
can try her again in the morning. But if he is turned loose with her,
we may not be able to get near them again.”
“But we have only one rope, and if I take it off her she will take him
right away now,” said Delbert. “Let’s keep her tied up, I should say.”
“Well, tie her up till morning. Then we can think of some other way to
do. It will not do to keep her tied all the time, for then we should
have to feed her.”
As they ate supper they discussed ways and means. They could make
palm-leaf ropes that would do very well to tie the little one with,
but that did not seem to be as convenient as Marian wanted. Finally
they decided to make a little corral to keep the baby in. Then he
could nibble at weeds and grass and could not reach his mother except
when Marian chose, and she could thus have a better chance to secure a
ration for Davie. The corral would have to be pretty solid and secure,
she thought, or the old burro might tear it down; still, it would
not have to be quite as compact as the fence that had been built at
High-Tide Pool.
[Illustration: JACKIE]
They went to work at it the next morning. A little of the old stone
wall was still solid enough to serve, but most of it was badly tumbled
down, and they could not seem to do much at building it up again. The
banana-patch could be used as one side,--it was so thick nothing would
try to go through it,--and a couple of palms could be utilized as
fence-posts. There were several nondescript bushes that could be worked
in too. The banana stalks they had already cut down could be used as
building-material, and more could be cut. They were soft and thornless,
which was an advantage; also every stalk they cut out improved the
patch by giving those remaining a better chance to grow and mature
fruit. The hatchet was getting pretty dull, but Marian managed to hack
off a number of slender stakes, which she set in the ground in pairs
just far enough apart to lay a banana stalk in between; and these
stalks all averaged about the same size and were piled one above the
other to the top of the stakes, which were then tied together with
banana-leaf stems.
The old pile of poles was overhauled. Part of them were so worm-eaten
that they fell apart in Marian’s hands, but some were of a different
kind of wood and were still solid. These were built into the fence as
children build corncob houses, and Marian was only sorry there were so
few of them. For part of it they used brush, but that was not so easily
handled as the bananas or poles because of the thorns. The corral was
not finished in one day nor in two, and when it was finished it showed
half a dozen styles of fence-pattern and had no particular shape, but
was, nevertheless, very satisfactory, as it would hold the little one
in and keep the old one out.
The little burro was easily driven into it, and then the old one was
turned loose. She grazed about during the day, and when milking-time
came Delbert could easily lasso her. Then, with much labor and great
tying of legs and an abundance of help from the children in holding of
the same, Marian would get Davie’s little portion of milk. Then the
four-legged baby was allowed to have what remained, after which he was
engineered back into the corral.
In the morning the same performance was gone through. During the day
the mother and baby could rub noses through that part of the corral
that had been made of poles, and in the course of time they both became
so tame that the little one was a pet and a playmate for the children
and the old one offered but little objection to sharing with Davie, who
used to sit on the top rail of the fence and watch the milking with
wide eyes that let no detail of the performance escape him.
He was very generous, too, considering the small amount of milk he
received, and would offer to share with the others; they would all
take a sip, even Marian, to encourage his unselfish impulses, and, as
Delbert said, for politeness’ sake.