THE EGG ISLANDS
It was now growing close to that time so dear to children’s
hearts,--and grown people’s, too, for that matter,--namely, Christmas.
The Hadleys had always made much of it, and, hampered as she was,
Marian determined to celebrate in some manner. She had had to let
Thanksgiving go by unnoticed, for the especial rite of that day is a
loaded dinner-table, and she had bowed to the inevitable, but, though
good dinners are in order of a Christmas Day, they are not the entire
programme, and Marian’s fertile brain grew busy.
In her workbag was the roll of fine lawn of which she had been making
handkerchiefs. One was partly made, and with careful planning there was
enough material to make three more, leaving a few little scraps. In
off moments, when the children were engaged in making love to the baby
burro or busy at play on the beach, she hemmed the handkerchiefs, and
then with her colored silks outlined Mother Goose pictures on them and
wrote the children’s names in the corners. So far, so good.
Then she constructed three little dolls, each doll being made of one
straight bone with a knob at one end that would do for the head, with a
wishbone tied below to make the arms. One doll had wishbone legs too,
but that exhausted the supply of wishbones, and the other two had to
be content with legs that were not so nicely matched. Faces and hair
she made with the lead-pencil, and little suits of underwear from the
scraps of lawn, and she cut a piece out of the ruffle of her colored
petticoat for the dresses and three cunning little sunbonnets. For
Delbert she whittled out a little boat about three inches long and
rigged it out with silken ropes and a lawn sail.
On Christmas Eve she gathered them about her in front of their fire up
by the Cave, and told them Christmas stories till they were sleepy,
and, to their glee, had them hang up their stockings before they
crawled into the Cave and cuddled into bed.
Somewhat to her surprise, they insisted that she hang up her stocking
too, which she did, wondering much what they had planned to surprise
her with, for she knew now, by their dancing eyes and loving voices,
that they had planned something, though she had not noticed anything
mysterious in their behavior before.
In the morning she was careful to go down to the well for a pail
of water the first thing, so as to give them a chance to fill her
stocking, and, sure enough, upon her return she found it full to
overflowing.
It seemed that for several weeks back Delbert and the little girls had
been saving every pretty shell and feather they found for this purpose
and they had accumulated a large assortment.
Shells, feathers, crabs’ claws and seaweed,--how sharp their bright
eyes had been to spy out every pretty thing they passed! How
industriously the little hands had gathered!
Marian’s heart swelled. How she praised that collection! And
straightway after breakfast she hunted up a nice, safe, dry little
cleft in the rock, a sort of a baby cave, where she arranged them all,
sorting the feathers and tying them in bunches, and when all was in
order fitted one of the little boards they had found in the cove in
front for a door, so nothing should disturb the treasures.
That morning, out on one of the salt reefs, they found a log in among
the mango bushes, where it had hitherto lain unseen. Marian judged that
it had been tossed there by the storm the night of their arrival, for
it did not appear to have lain there so very long.
Of course, they worked and tugged till they had it in the water, and it
was so much of an improvement over the old canoe that they straightway
discarded that,--Marian later working it into the corral,--and every
day they went out on the log.
It floated in shallower water than the canoe and was easily poled or
paddled wherever they wished to go, but it had two drawbacks; first,
it had nothing to which the rope could be tied to moor it,--but that
really did not matter much for they could roll it up on the beach out
of reach of the water; but for the second, it was so round and smooth
that it was forever rolling over and spilling some one off into the
water, and this drawback simply had to be put up with.
One morning, down in the cove, Delbert found a small watermelon.
Probably it had been lost overboard from some steamer passing by out
in the Gulf, for it was many a long league to where such things were
grown, yet in any case it seemed a wonderful thing that, with all that
waste of tossing water, that little melon, scarce as large as Marian’s
head, should have drifted into San Moros and then into their cove. It
was ripe and they ate it, gnawing down the rind to the very outside.
Ordinarily Marian would not have allowed that, but so small a melon
divided into five pieces did not give a very large piece to each one,
and they were hungry for something besides animal food, and had not
found a really _good_ bunch of bananas yet.
They saved the seeds of the melon and decided to plant a patch with
them, though they hoped to be rescued long before they could eat of the
fruits of their labor. To plant the patch would give them something new
to do, and perhaps some one else would be benefited by the crop even if
they were not.
Marian had never been much of a gardener, but she thought the long,
low, sandy point would be a good place to plant, for by digging down a
little there they would reach soil that was always damp with the fresh
water underneath; so the garden would not need irrigation, and she had
heard some one say that sandy soil was good for melons.
Delbert remembered reading in his history that the North American
Indians used to put a fish in each hill of corn for fertilizer, and he
wanted to try it. But fish were not so easily secured as to warrant
that; they were growing scarce in High-Tide Pool, and in other places
they were not very hungry somehow, and it was rare, indeed, when
Delbert could manage to spear one with his one-pronged spear.
However, the traps were gathering in rabbits pretty frequently, and
the discarded portions of these could be used instead. So they planted
their melon-patch, digging holes down to the damp soil and planting the
seeds in the bottoms with a little fertilizer near. Marian saved half
the seeds in case the planting should not prosper and should have to be
done over again.
When they had finished that labor and were proudly viewing their neat
rows of melon holes, Delbert suddenly exclaimed, “Say, Marian! I bet I
know where we could get some more vegetable seeds.”
“For pity’s sake, where?”
“In my coat pocket. Don’t you remember when Bobbie’s father sent off
for seeds, and they were so long in coming, and the rats had got to ’em
somewhere on the road and chewed holes in the papers, and the seeds
were all spilling out? Well, I helped Bobbie carry them home from the
office, and we put them in our coat pockets, some of them, and I’ll bet
there are some of those seeds in my pockets yet.”
Straight they went to the Cave and turned every pocket wrong side out
over a white cloth and with miserly care saved every tiny seed that
fell. There was in all nearly a teaspoonful. Marian separated them,
putting each kind in a clamshell by itself.
There were seven kinds. One was peas; there were just three of them.
They were not sure of the others, though Jennie rather thought one kind
was eggplant, and Marian was pretty sure another was onions.
Down in a corner by the bananas was the place chosen for this second
planting. They built a fence around it, a rather frail affair, but
specially designed to keep out rabbits, and they sprinkled the beds
twice a day. All three of the peas sprouted, but something ate them
up. What Marian had thought was onions never came up at all, but the
remaining five kinds all sprouted and grew well, and though their ranks
were diminished by various bugs and birds,--for Marian could not be on
guard every minute of the time,--there were a few plants of each kind
that survived all accidents.
Jennie’s eggplant turned out to be big sweet peppers; the other plants
proved to be turnip, carrots, lettuce, and--poppies. Delbert could
never understand about that last, for he was very sure Bobbie’s father
had sent only for vegetable seeds, but Marian thought Bobbie’s mother
had probably had something to do with the list of seeds ordered.
The melons did best of all. There were so few of the others that Marian
vetoed all eating till the seeds could be gathered, but the melon-patch
produced abundantly, so that they did not have to worry about seeds,
but began eating as soon as the centers were pinkish, and only saved
seeds from the best ones that came later.
But long before the melons were ripe, their scanty larder had been
replenished from a totally different direction.
“Marian,” Delbert had said, “those little white-looking islands away
down the bay are duck islands. Clarence told me so, and I can see the
ducks going to them every day. Wish we could go there; duck eggs are
good, I tell you.”
Away down San Moros they could see them, two little islands, mere
trifles compared with Smugglers’, and so far away that ordinarily
Marian would not have wasted a moment on thoughts of a journey there,
but eggs, perhaps young ducks, and here were her hungry little crew
gazing wistfully. “Ducks” the children called them, and it was not till
long afterward that they learned that the birds were really cormorants.
If they had known this at the time, they might not have been so hungry
for the eggs, but cormorants’ eggs, like the eggs of other seabirds,
are not uneatable when one is hungry enough, and they are often eaten
by fishermen.
The young girl thought and studied and made ropes and looked toward the
“duck islands.” Every morning long lines of birds went out from them to
the sea; every evening long lines came back.
On those two islands thousands of these “ducks” were nesting.
All of her charges could swim now; even Davie could help himself a
little in the water. If only the log did not turn over in the water so
easily and often! If that could be remedied, Marian thought they might
risk the voyage. She and Delbert could easily steer the craft now. They
had picked and chosen among the few poles at their disposal, till they
had three that seemed pretty good,--one longish one for poling, two
others that served in a fashion as paddles. Jennie and Esther could use
them a little.
Then a full week was spent in cutting down banana plants and fixing
them in the corral fence so as to release the poles that were in it,
and this was the time too when the old canoe was put into the fence.
Those big poles, though not nearly so large as the log, were now laid
parallel to it and tightly lashed on, making an extension on each side
that would prevent the log rolling over, so that, while they could
not ride on it and keep dry, they could at least ride it in safety.
They could not now roll the craft up the beach, but it could easily be
moored by tying a rope to one of the poles. Good ropes were scarce,
though; it had taken the best ones to lash the queer raft together.
Marian’s mind was now fully made up for the venture. They started
early. The old barrel was tied on, also the broken demijohn. Fire
to cook their dinner with was a question. Marian did not want to
risk taking the matches for fear they would get wet by some unlucky
accident, so she put a quantity of ashes in the barrel and buried some
good half-burned brands in them. And because they did not know for sure
whether they would find wood on the “duck islands” or not, they took
along a little bundle of sticks too. They had learned that the trunks
of the banana plants contain a tough, strong fiber, and they were using
this for tying, where short strings were wanted.
Their breakfast consisted of cold boiled cottontail left over from
supper and a few small and very inferior bananas. These they ate on
the raft after they had started, and they drank from the bottles of
water which had also been put into the old barrel. It was not a very
ample meal, and they turned longing eyes on the distant islands. It was
devoutly to be hoped that food was plenty there.
The sea was very smooth; Marian would not have started if it had not
been. The raft was easily paddled along, and she soon lost the few
nervous misgivings with which she began the trip, but she also soon
decided that she would never make it again till she had studied up some
way of putting up a sail. She was quite sure that Clarence would have
done it, and it did seem as if it would take forever to get across that
stretch of water.
However, they reached their destination before noon, and, drawing
their odd craft up on a bit of beach, they took everything ashore and
hunted a good place for a fire. Having found one, they carefully drew
the embers from their bed of ashes and, with much coaxing and blowing
and pulling of handfuls of dried grass, finally got a little blaze
started, and then they hung the kettle over it with water to heat for
the eggs which they then went to hunt.
[Illustration: THE GROUND WAS COVERED WITH THE ROUGH NESTS]
They had to climb a little to reach the eggs, but there were certainly
plenty of them when they got there. The ground was covered with the
rough nests,--just a few sticks with no art in the construction,--but
there were hundreds upon hundreds of them, far beyond the children’s
power to count. There were eggs in all stages of incubation from
fresh-laid to fully hatched, and awkward squabs tumbled about, while
the air was rent by the discordant cries of the older ones.
The unpleasant odor arising was so strong that Jennie sickened
and quickly retreated to the beach below, where the fresh air was
untainted, but Esther and Davie were undaunted by the noise or the
smell and remained to be taught the difference between fresh eggs and
stale ones. The eggs were smaller than the ordinary hen’s egg, being
more slender and pointed, with a pale-blue chalkiness, which was not so
apparent in eggs that had been for some time sat upon.
Neither Delbert nor Marian had seen these islands before or any others
like them, but Clarence had, and they remembered his teaching and soon
had all the fresh eggs they could carry away. Delbert also picked out a
couple of half-grown squabs, whose necks he wrung as soon as he reached
the beach; and soon they had their kettle full of eggs simmering, while
the squabs roasted before the fire.
[Illustration: DELBERT PICKED OUT A COUPLE OF HALF-GROWN SQUABS]
Cormorants’ eggs have a slight fishy flavor, but the Hadley appetite
did not stick at that, nor at the fact that the white does not
coagulate solid, but remains a quivering jelly of a pale-green color,
through which the yellow yolk can be plainly seen. The flavor of the
squabs, too, might not have been appreciated at Delmonico’s, but
Marian’s company was not so fastidious as some people are. That which
could be eaten they ate without ado.
And after they had eaten all they wanted, they examined the island.
There was nothing of importance upon it but the birds and the eggs.
There was some driftwood, to be sure, which they threw up on the high
banks out of reach of the tides, in case they might want it some time;
and down on the narrow little beaches the children found great numbers
of little clamshells, from the size of Davie’s little fingernail up
to as large as a quarter, and of various assorted colors, which they
gathered with great enjoyment.
Their fire at home having been carefully covered as usual, they did not
need to take any embers back with them, and so used the ashes to pack
eggs in, putting into the barrel and the old demijohn all they thought
they could use up before they would spoil. It took several trips up
to the nests to get enough, and they took a dozen half-grown squabs
as well. These, with their legs tied together, were also put into the
barrel, where in spite of all precautions they managed to break quite a
number of eggs before they were landed at Smugglers’.
As it chanced, they had a tide in their favor on the way home, and
they arrived in good time. They carried their eggs up to the Cave and
they picketed the squabs out, tying each one where it could not get
entangled with its neighbors.
Their supper consisted of eggs and some quail that had got into the
traps during their absence, and as they sat about their cozy fire up at
the Cave, Marian felt that the day had been well spent.
It took considerable planning to contrive a sail for the raft. To begin
with, there was nothing at all suitable for a mast, and, secondly,
there was nothing suitable for a sail. The hatchet, too, was by this
time very dull and needed a great deal of sharpening. Delbert said he
had seen Indian canoes with an oar for a mast and a blanket for a sail,
and they could use a blanket also and perhaps could make shift with a
pole of some description in lieu of an oar; but even then it needed
ropes, and they had used all theirs in lashing the raft together, and
there were no more palm-leaves till more should grow. It was then they
resorted to banana fiber entirely. It took considerable time to work it
out nice and clean, but they finally got serviceable ropes of it. With
a great deal of bracing and tying of crooked poles, they succeeded at
last in rigging up a sail that very materially assisted them in making
several other trips to the bird islands before the nesting-season was
over.
But to carry live coals with them when they went away from the home
island was a nuisance, and Marian did not want to use the matches
except in case of absolute necessity. Besides, there was danger of
getting them wet if they were taken on the raft, for nothing on that
craft was sure of not receiving a bath sooner or later on every trip,
and often everything and everybody got ducked several times; even what
was in the barrel was not always secure.
The children wanted Marian to try building a fire with the crystal of
her watch, but she did not want to take that off for fear of getting
dirt in the works.
“But there are other ways,” she told them. “Our grandparents used to
make fire with a flint and steel. Let’s watch for flints.”
“Why, I’ve got a flint now in my pocket,” said Jennie. “Carmelita gave
it to me. She said her father lit his cigarettes with it, but he had
bought him another one.” She produced a bit of stone as big as the end
of her thumb.
Marian examined it.
“This is too small,” she said. “It has been used till it is nearly all
chipped away; there is hardly enough of it left to hang on to.”
“Why won’t any stone do?” asked Jennie, as she pocketed her treasure.
“I guess because flint is harder than other stone. It has to be hard
enough to shave off a little shaving of steel you know. That is what
the spark is, a tiny shaving of steel that is afire.”
“Where’d we get steel?” asked Esther.
“Oh, the knives are all steel.”
“And the dig-spoon?”
“No, that is only iron. It isn’t just the same thing, Pocahontas, and
I’m sure if we keep our eyes open we can find little pieces of flint
that will do.”
That, indeed, was not difficult. They soon had a collection of bits of
flint, some of which, indeed, were actual arrowheads dropped in some
age long gone by.
Then Marian tried over and over to strike sparks from the bits of flint
and the backs of the knives; sometimes a weak little spark would fly
out only to disappear immediately, and no kindling she could get would
ignite. They had seen Mexicans light their cigarettes by this method
time and again, but the Mexican has a prepared wick which catches the
spark and burns on till it is put out.
Marian tried to make a wick from strips of rag torn from the towel, but
it was of no avail. She was not very successful in striking a spark in
the first place, and she never could retain one for a second after it
was struck.
“I believe we’ve got to be more primitive still,” she said to Delbert.
“The real wild Indian makes his fire by rubbing two sticks together.”
Something distracted her attention then, and she thought no more about
it till Delbert came to her a half-hour later, flushed and tired and
disgusted.
“Marian,” he said, “I don’t believe any Indian _ever_ made two sticks
light by rubbing them together!”
“Have you been trying it?” she asked.
“Yes, and I’ve rubbed and rubbed and _rubbed_, and they don’t light at
all.” He showed the sticks that he had been rubbing broadside against
broadside till they were quite nicely polished.
Marian had to laugh.
“Dear boy, they don’t do it that way,” she said. “I don’t know that I
can do it, but I saw it done once. I truly did. Do you remember that
man--I don’t suppose you do, though, you were so little, but he was
uncle to the lady that lived in the white house just across the stream
there where we lived before Ronald died.”
“I remember the white house,” said Delbert, “and the lady,--Mrs.
Walton, wasn’t it? She had the funny cats with long hair and she always
had pink ribbons on their necks.”
“Angora cats. Yes, I remember she had a couple. Well, her uncle came
to visit her once, and he had been agent or something out on an Indian
reservation, and he knew all kinds of Indian things that the Walton
boys wanted to know, and so he used to tell them about these things,
and I took it all in whenever I was there. He knew how to scalp a dead
enemy, and how to tie a live one to a horse so he couldn’t get away. I
remember those two things distinctly, and he explained about smoking a
peace pipe, and how to tell which way you were going when you got lost,
and also--how to make a fire with two sticks.”
“Well, I just want you to show me; that’s all!”
“All right, we’ll try it. That man told just what kind of wood to use,
but I’ve forgotten that, and probably we couldn’t get the same kind
anyway. I guess this piece will do to begin with, and if it doesn’t
work we’ll try some other kind. Now, it wants a nice smooth, round
stick. Give me your knife; I can whittle better with it than I can with
the other one. Let me see, it needs a--where is that broken bottle that
Davie was playing with that just had the rounded bottom left on it?
That’s it. You see, now, we have this stick about a foot long, and we
smooth one end off nicely, and we make the other one pointed, then we
make a little notch in this other stick and down like that. Where is
your bow? I believe that is too big. Give me Jennie’s and tighten the
string on it. Now I put this big stick with the notches down where I
can hold it firm with my foot, so, and take a turn of the bowstring
around the little round stick, so, and--give me that piece of bottle--I
put it over the top end of the round stick so it can revolve smoothly,
which it could not do in the palm of my hand,--at least, not without
wearing my hand out,--and I fit the pointed end into the top notch I
made in the other stick, so. Now, you will see how quick we’ll have a
fire here.”
She started drawing the bow back and forth, thereby twirling the stick
first one way and then the other, and she whirled and whirled and
whirled it till her arm fairly ached; but nothing came of it. She took
a rest and tried again. This time she produced smoke and charred the
sticks a little, but still no fire.
“Perhaps it isn’t the right kind of wood,” said Delbert.
That was the beginning of their effort to make fire without matches.
It was fascinating. With some sticks the smoke would curl up thick and
white till Marian’s eyes fairly smarted with it, but no fire appeared.
Delbert tried it, the little girls tried it, and Davie, with great
gravity and earnestness, tried it too.
They whittled sticks constantly in the endeavor to get one just right.
Then the craze died out for a few days; but it was taken up again.
Marian was sure that she was doing it just as the Walton’s boys’ uncle
had done it, and he had produced fire in a very short time,--not more
than a minute, she was sure. She studied over the problem. It seemed as
if with so much smoke and charring it simply must ignite, but it did
not. She would rub and rub, till there would be a teaspoonful of brown
powdered wood at the foot of her downward notch, but never a spark.
She would drop the implements in disgust and go at something else, but
always next day, or the next, she returned to them and tried again.
She had seen it done and she herself could produce a little wreath of
smoke, while her implements grew hot and actually charred. She tried
with every kind of driftwood that seemed different from what she had
used before, and while up in the pasture she would cut sticks from the
different growing shrubs and dry them in the hot sun to experiment
with. Then, one day, as she watched the little pile of black powder
fall from her twirling stick, she saw a bit of it turn to a red glow
and knew that she had succeeded.
How they scurried for kindlings and coaxed that tiny bit of brightness!
It glowed and glowed till all the black powder was burned, and then it
went out. Well, having once done it, of course she could do it again,
and next time she would be prepared and have fine stuff ready to kindle
with.
So she tried again and again and again, till her arm ached and her
breath came in gasps. And the children would squat in a circle, their
bright eyes glued to the tiny pile of powdered charred wood, and
Esther, with unvarying monotony, would ask, “Why doesn’t it light,
Marian? Did before”; and presently, “Why doesn’t it light, Marian? Did
before.”
It was fully a week after the first success before she achieved the
second one, and then also, in spite of her best and most earnest
endeavor, she could not kindle it any farther, and when the charred
powder was exhausted it went out.
Of course, she could not spend all her time upon it, but every day
there would be a trial of it sandwiched in between other labors.
She took particular notice of the wood she was using when success
crowned her efforts. The little round stick was from a piece of
driftwood. She did not know what it was, but it was a soft wood that
whittled easily, and the base piece was from a kind of tree cactus
called _echo_.[4]
[4] Pronounced _ayʹ tcho_.
After a while she became so accomplished that she could produce fire
about every tenth time she tried, and in course of time she became much
more expert than that. She always used _echo_ for her base piece, and
for the other she found that a certain bush up in the pasture was best.
She could cut sticks from it and dry them, and they were straight and
round and smooth without any whittling.
Also she learned that a handful of grass so old and dry that it had all
turned gray, if it were broken and rubbed till it was very fine, made
good kindling. With a handful of that over her precious coal of fire,
she could, with careful coaxing, get a blaze, and then it was easy to
build on with other material.
Having once learned how, she felt easier. She laid up pieces of the
selected wood in several places on the Island, where they would keep
dry,--carried some away back into the bat cave for one place,--besides
having a good supply tucked away in the home Cave.
When they went away from the Island, they would take a couple of the
fire-sticks with them along with Delbert’s arrows. They used to tie
them high up on the mast to keep them out of the way of spray and
splashings, and Marian would slip the bottle-bottom into her pocket.
The glass was somewhat clumsy, however, and there was danger of
cutting her fingers on it, and afterwards they found some shells--big
barnacles, I think they were--which served the purpose just as well and
were neater and safer to handle.
Dried grass they could always find; so they could have a fire whenever
they wanted it without using the matches, which were dropped into the
workbag to await some possible emergency. On the Island, however, they
found it more convenient to bury the brands from one fire over to
another, as they had done before.
Their trips to the egg islands, however, did not wait on all of this.
As before mentioned, there were two of these islands. On the farther
and smaller of the two they found several things that proved of value.
It was the one the nearer to the mainland, and some time or other there
had been a house or camp of some description on it. They found the
blackened stones where the food had been cooked over the fire and some
broken fragments of pottery such as the natives use, and, not far away,
some scraps of iron so broken and rusty that they could not make up
their minds what they had been, but Marian saved them.
Growing near were shrubs and bushes like those in their own pasture,
but Delbert found one bush that had two shoots longer and straighter
than any he had yet seen, and when cut and trimmed they made better
spear-handles than the one he had been using. And at low tide they
found there the largest oysters they had yet discovered anywhere.
When back at their own camp, Marian and Delbert resolutely attacked
the job of making a better spear or harpoon than the one they had.
It seemed to the girl that if one only understood a little of
blacksmithing, one of the pieces of iron could be altered a little and
made into a very respectable spear-head, and perhaps, if one did not
understand, one could learn a little.
She could easily poke the iron into the fire till it grew red-hot. To
handle it afterwards was the question. She and Delbert were both afraid
of getting burned, and wasted much time because of that fear.
They rigged up a rude pair of tongs with some green sticks and a little
rope, and, using the hatchet for a hammer and a flat stone for an
anvil, they began work. It was intensely interesting.
The experiment in “duck”-raising proved unsuccessful, for the cormorant
squabs which they brought home alive would eat nothing but fish, and
as each one of them demanded more than his own weight in food every
day, the children soon found that the task of keeping them fed was a
hopeless one. They killed them all off at once, therefore, and had such
a feast of “duck” that they were content to do without that particular
kind of meat for some time to come.
They had plenty of eggs and clams, however, and an occasional quail
or rabbit; so they did not need to waste any time searching for food.
Davie and the little girls wandered off to play with the little bone
dolls or the baby burro. Marian glanced toward them or stopped to
listen sometimes, but the sight of their little forms near by or the
sound of their sweet, childish voices reassured her, and she continued
with the task in hand.
A man who understood such things would have done much better even with
those rude tools. Time and again it seemed to the girl that she could
do no better, go no further in the task; then some idea would come to
one or the other of them, and they would work awhile longer. A full
week went by before the new tool was finished, a two-pronged affair,
one prong a little longer than the other and of a different shape, but
both sharp and barbed. It fastened quite snugly to the straightest of
the new handles.
After that she and Delbert went spearing at night in the little harbor,
when the tide was just right and the children were asleep. They would
go out on the raft where there were mango bushes, but for this they
had to have a torchlight at one end of the raft.
They had often seen the Indians at the Port start out at night with
great piles of _pitalla_ in their canoes to burn in a huge wire and
iron basket, which would cast a bright circle of light for quite a
space around, in which the fish could be plainly seen. Marian thought
that the light attracted them.
This _pitalla_ is a kind of tree cactus the bark of which is very
resinous and when dry burns with a very hot, bright flame. They could
gather it in the pasture, but they had no wire basket and nothing to
make one of. The best, it seemed, that they could do was to make a mat
of green banana leaves and mud on the poles and build the fire on that.
It was very unsatisfactory, for the water was forever washing over it
and putting it out. Necessity is the mother of invention, however, and
after a while Marian hunted in the pasture till she found four little
crotches of the same size, which she cut and trimmed and then fastened
on the extreme end of the log by tying them above and below it and to
one another. Then, by laying little sticks across them, she made a
platform which rose about three feet above the surface of the water.
She made it quite tight by weaving in stout twigs and banana leaves
and stems, and when it was finished, she plastered it over with the
slimiest mud she could find, and on that laid thin flat rocks, fitting
them with care so that their edges projected past the edge of the
platform and filling in the little chinks with mud and pebbles. On that
when it was finished, she could build her fire with safety, for it was
up out of reach of the water. It was not so good as the iron basket
of the Indians, for it was clumsier, it cast a shadow on the water,
and there was likelihood of its needing frequent repairs; but it would
serve. The supply of fuel could be kept dry by putting it into the
barrel, which was tied on so that its open side and end were upward.
When they were first left on the Island, Marian would not have dared
take those night trips. She would not have dared leave the children
alone at the Cave for one thing, but in all the time that they had been
there they had seen nothing which could have harmed them save the one
rattlesnake which Delbert had killed.
From the Cave they had cleared three paths,--one to the beach, one to
the garden and the little pier, and one toward the pasture. This last
had needed no clearing beyond the cutting-out of two or three bushes.
The path to the pier had been mostly a matter of clearing away loose
stones, and it was easy to follow even in the dark.
However, it was only when Davie was sleepy that the children were left
at the Cave. When he gave promise of being able to keep awake, they all
went together. Marian would place him on the log between the little
girls and give them strict instructions that they were not to let go
of him. Then she and Delbert would take turns with the spear and the
steering of the craft.
And when she had her little flock all with her, Marian would venture
out beyond the little harbor, where the water was shallow and the mango
bushes were thicker, and as long as their fuel lasted they would stay
out.
It was a weird scene,--the star-dotted sky above, the black, whispering
water below, the clumsy raft in the light of the hot fire swept back
by the breeze, the slender, eager-eyed, half-naked boy watching keenly,
as mass after mass of the mango bushes came into the circle of their
light. Marian generally guided the raft, for she was better at that
than Delbert, who seemed about as successful as she with the spear.
Not that either of them had any startling success. Indeed, for a
long time it always seemed accidental, more the fish’s fault than
theirs, when one became impaled upon the iron prongs. But the sport
was exciting, and there was always the need that lay back of it to
keep their interest spurred up, and after a while they both learned to
strike quickly and with force, so that, with constant practice, the
time came when a night’s spearing meant enough fish for one meal at
least, and, if luck was with them, for more.
They had better luck with the spear at night than with the line in the
daytime, for the hairpin hook was very inadequate and big fish were
forever straightening it out. When a fish was speared, they put it
into the barrel with the fuel, where one of the girls held a piece of
drift-wood over it till the wildest of its flopping was past.
[Illustration: THEY HAD BETTER LUCK WITH THE SPEAR AT NIGHT THAN WITH
THE LINE IN THE DAYTIME]
Davie generally fell asleep, and then it took the whole attention
of Jennie to hold him safe. Indeed, Marian would not risk him with
just that, and used to take a rope along to tie him when he finally
dozed off. He objected strenuously to being tied as long as he was
awake enough to know it, but, once he was asleep, she could moor him
securely, and Jennie could devote herself to keeping him cuddled and
covered, with no fear that he would roll out of her hands when the raft
careened with some of the spearman’s wild lunges.
When they had as many fish as they wanted, or, more often, when their
fuel was exhausted, they would paddle back to the little pier, moor the
raft, wash the fishiness off their hands and climb back up to the Cave,
where they would cuddle down in bed and quickly go to sleep.
Then in the quiet, as she thought of her mother, Marian’s eyes would
fill with tears and her outstretched hand would pass lovingly over
each little form. “Safe as yet,” she would whisper, “and, O mother, I
promise to keep them safe till I can give them back to you again.”