THE JAGUAR’S TRACK
One day, while poking her inquisitive little nose into Marian’s
workbag, Esther fished up five or six knobby, roundish little lumps,
demanding, “What are these, Marian?”
“Nasturtium seeds,” replied Marian carelessly.
“’Sturtium seeds?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Marian,” reproachfully; “why haven’t you been planting ’em? Don’t
you know ’sturtium seeds are good to eat?”
Marian gazed steadily for a moment at the seeds in the little girl’s
outstretched hand, then she slowly took them into her own.
“Pocahontas,” she said solemnly, “I never thought of that. Of course
they are good to eat,--the seeds, leaves, flowers, stems, and all.
We’ll plant them before the sun goes down to-night.”
“You’re a great squaw chief, you are,” said Esther scornfully.
“Jennie! Dellie! Looky, here’s ’sturtium seeds been in Marian’s bag all
this time, an’ she never thought of planting ’em.”
Jennie and Delbert came up excitedly. Jennie, too, was rather inclined
to scorn at such evidence of Marian’s lack of thought, but Delbert
threw his arms around her and planted vehement kisses on her cheeks.
“You shan’t scold her,” he declared. “She’s the best squaw chief ever
was. Nobody could do better, _nobody_ could, and I love her!”
“So do I! So do I!” shrieked the girls, rushing in to contribute
their share of affectionate demonstration, and Davie, dropping the
dig-spoon, ran up, crying, “Do I! Do I!” in parrot-like refrain; and
Marian, laughing, had much ado to keep from being knocked down with the
onslaught.
But the seeds were straightway planted, and in time became a profusion
of red and gold and green which delighted the eyes, and incidentally
the palates, of Marian’s nestful of hungry little hawks, as she called
them.
In time also came warm weather and rains, and in some respects this
bettered their condition and in some respects it made it worse.
With warm weather they needed less bedding and less clothing at all
times. Moreover, the rains made things grow. In the pasture there were
several things that they knew to be good for greens, and they gathered
a mess of some kind every day, boiling them with salt, and wondering
how it had been that they had once upon a time thought that greens must
have butter and vinegar to be really good.
But the rains brought gnats and mosquitoes to some extent, and
sometimes these were so bad among the mango bushes that they could
take no comfort in fishing. Sometimes, too, they troubled them so that
they could scarcely sleep of nights, though their Cave was so high up
on the hill that there was usually a light breeze that drove away the
insect invaders. When the pests were very bad, the tribe would draw the
tablecloth over their faces or would throw grass and green leaves on
the fire, making a “smudge” that would subdue their tormentors.
Marian thought the bananas had begun to respond a little to the
cultivation she had given them in the way of thinning out their
numbers. At any rate, they were bearing a slightly better class of
fruit. As soon as a bunch ripened a little, the birds would promptly
start in to take their share, and she would cut down the stalk and take
the bunch up to the cave, where she could keep it safely covered up
till it was ripe enough to be good eating.
With these and the greens and the watermelons she felt always sure of
a sufficient commissary supply. Still, they were as keen as ever to
detect new food. One day Delbert came in with several bulbs, or roots,
that he had dug up in the pasture. He said they looked good enough to
eat and he wanted to try them.
Marian was very doubtful, but finally put them to roast in the coals
while they went down for their morning swim, intending to offer one to
the baby burro when they got back. They had taught the burro to eat
everything that they did, and Delbert had suggested that they try the
new food on him first.
He was willing to be cautious, but he was not willing to let a
perfectly good food lie in the ground unused because they were not
courageous enough to find out about it. If the burro had no trouble
with it, Marian herself would sample a little, but very cautiously.
She would hold a little of it in her mouth awhile first and see if
anything came of it, and if it seemed all right they would all eat a
little.
They had a fine swim. There were nice little breakers on the open side
of the Island that morning. The children would run out a little way,
wait till the right moment, then turn dextrously and let the foamy wave
sweep them up on the beach. Marian kept hold of Davie, for the water
was far too rough to trust his safety to his own little legs, sturdy
though they were. But, with her to hold his hand, he had no fear, and
laughed as loudly as the rest when the water slapped him off his feet
and swept him up with the seaweed and the crabs. After a while he said
he was tired and wanted to go and dig; so his sister let go of him, and
he trotted off to where he had left the dig-spoon under a rock, and a
moment later was excavating most industriously, while Marian turned her
attention to the others.
They all joined hands and waded out a little farther than she had cared
to go with Davie. It was splendid fun, but pretty soon Jennie called
out, “Look, Marian! Davie is going up to the Cave!”
They all looked; sure enough the little fellow was almost up the hill.
Delbert became excited immediately.
“I’ll just bet he will go to monkeying with those potatoes!” he cried,
and started forthwith for the beach. The same thought had crossed
Marian’s mind at the same instant, and, ordering the little girls to
come too, she followed close at Delbert’s heels.
They made all speed for the Cave, but they got there too late. Davie
was just gulping down the last mouthful as they reached him.
He did his best to look sweetly innocent as he told them it was
“goo-ood!” Delbert’s face was a study. He was provoked enough to shake
his little brother thoroughly, yet he was frightened enough to cry.
Marian’s face turned pale. Perhaps the things were perfectly harmless,
perhaps even highly nutritious, but again perhaps they were deadly
poison. She dared not risk it, and tried everything she could think of
to force the small gourmand to disgorge his stolen--or shall we say
misappropriated?--tidbit.
It was no use. Davie would not drink a lot of warm salt water, and he
would not let Marian run her fingers down his throat either.
She tried coaxing first, to no avail, and then she used force, but
though they managed, by holding his nose, to get a few spoonfuls
of the emergency emetic down his throat, and though Marian got her
fingers well bitten, at the end of an hour or so the potatoes had not
reappeared, and Marian, regarding the thoroughly enraged and squawling
youngster, reflected that if any harm had been going to result from
his impromptu lunch it would probably have begun to take effect before
then, and so gave up the struggle.
Still she was not easy. She watched him closely all day. After he got
over his fit of temper he went about his play just as usual.
Several times in the night the elder sister awoke with a start, and,
leaning over him, held her breath till she heard the regular rising and
falling of his. All the next day she watched, but everything seemed to
be perfectly normal, and in the afternoon Delbert brought in another
batch of the potatoes, which they did try on the burro. Davie watched
with great interest. He said again that they were “goo-ood,” but he
did not offer to eat any himself. Marian thought that if her fight the
day before had not accomplished the end she worked for, it had probably
taught Davie to attend more strictly to his own business, which might
be of great advantage some time in the future.
The burro also said the bulbs, or potatoes as Delbert called them, were
good, and ate all Delbert would give him; so afterwards they tried them
themselves. They found them somewhat like rather poor sweet potatoes,
but they were a welcome change for their bill of fare, nevertheless.
But they could not find them very often.
The baby burro was a great comfort to the children. Sometimes, when
they were quite sure his mother was not near, they would let him out
of the corral, and he would follow them about like a dog. They even
made him drag home little bundles of wood for them sometimes. The other
burros were quite tame, but not enough so to be handled at will.
Often the children had glimpses of the deer and sometimes of the pigs.
Marian had been afraid at first that these latter might be the wild
peccaries and more or less dangerous, but, after seeing them quite
close one time, she concluded that they were not, for they certainly
looked like the domesticated pig except that they were not at all fat.
Always they kept watch of the sea, never forgetting that each day might
bring rescue, but, though many and many a sail passed by in the distant
Gulf, never a one turned into San Moros. Sometimes, indeed, Indian
canoes had been seen inside the narrow sandbars that divided San Moros
from the Gulf, hunting turtles maybe, but they did not come within
signaling distance of Smugglers’.
Marian’s white skirt was flapping itself to tatters. Sometimes a heavy
wind and rain tore it down altogether, and they would find it beaten
into the sand, but it was always rescued, washed, dried, and sent aloft
again.
The rainy days were the dreariest. Then there was nothing to do but
curl up at the Cave. The brush shade they had built in front did not
avail to keep out the rain. Before the rainy season was over they got
so sick and tired of huddling in the Cave every time it rained that
they would reduce their clothing to a minimum and go on with their
occupations as if nothing were happening. If you really don’t mind
getting wet, there is a fascination in becoming a part of the gray,
drizzling landscape. But they preferred the sunshine.
One day, as Jennie tossed down an armload of wood beside the fire down
by the beach, something about her suddenly arrested Marian’s attention.
She looked startled.
“Jennie,” she said, “come here.”
Jennie came wondering, while Marian, dish-towel in hand, stood
motionless, gazing at her.
“What is it?” asked the sweet-faced little girl.
Her sister did not speak for a moment longer, then, “Lift up your
skirt,” she said. Jennie obeyed, revealing her little bare legs.
Esther, drawing near, lifted her skirt also. Marian put down her dish
and towel and knelt in front of the two for a closer inspection.
“Jennie,” she said finally, “Jennie, you are actually getting fat.”
“Is she?” questioned Esther. “She isn’t as fat as I.”
Marian took off Jennie’s jacket and inspected her arms. Delbert drew
near, and Davie came up to pass his expert opinion on the subject. “You
are getting fat,” repeated Marian.
And it was so. The little face was rosy, the cheeks were not hollow
now, and the chin was not so pointed as it used to be. The little legs,
though not so plump as those of Esther’s showing, were really and truly
rounded out.
“Well,” said Delbert, “she hasn’t been sick, you know, not since we
have been here, and we have been here ’most a year.”
“No,” said Marian, “she has not been sick. She has not even complained
of feeling badly, as far as I can remember. Do you ever feel bad any
more, Jennie?”
Jennie soberly examined her sensations for a moment.
“I feel hungry,” she said.
Marian laughed,--a long ringing peal; but there were tears in her eyes
too as she went back to her task. It was stewed “duck” that morning,
one that Delbert had shot with his bow and arrow and then swam out and
got. It was stewed duck and watermelon,--all they could eat of the
latter,--and after breakfast they armed themselves with the longest
poles they could get and went up into the pasture after the fruit of
the _pitalla_ cactus.
This was the cactus whose dried bark they burned on their spearing
expeditions. The fruit grows high up and must be poked off with a long
stick and then have its many spines carefully removed before it can be
eaten. Fortunately, when it is ripe the spines come off easily and the
center is cool, sweet, and nutritious. They were very plentiful, and
sometimes they stewed them down in the little granite kettle, stirring
them constantly. This made a thick, syrupy jam that the children were
very fond of indeed.
Marian filled her two-quart glass jar and set it away till times when
there should be none of the fresh fruit to be had.
Conning their prospects over and over, Marian often pondered on the
chance held out by the mainland. With the aid of the log they could
easily reach it. It was not nearly so far across the harbor as it was
down to the egg islands. They could manage the raft so well now, and
they could all swim so well, that she was not afraid of going anywhere
when the water was smooth.
And the mainland was just across the quiet little harbor. Suppose they
crossed over, what was the chance of making their way to some ranch or
settlement? Delbert could not remember just what it was that Clarence
had said about it, but it was something about there not being a house
for fifty miles, or was it a hundred?--he was not sure.
A wild tangle of thorny woods, no road or path, no compass to guide
them! Perhaps a lagoon of water, perhaps not; perhaps plenty of
_pitallas_, perhaps not! Marian always shook her head at the end. Here
on the Island she was sure of food, here was safety and shelter, but
out there--How long would it be before Davie would tire out and she
would have to carry him? And then their path to be cut through how
many miles of thorny brush? And no certainty then that they were not
traveling in the wrong direction.
No! And still it drew her, that mainland.
Perhaps if they could climb to the top of those hills they could look
out over the land beyond, and perhaps some sign of a ranch might be
seen in the far distance.
Many a time she had felt humbly grateful to Clarence for the things
he had taught them, odds and ends of stray knowledge that had come in
their need to be like precious jewels,--how to get oysters and clams,
how to sail a boat, how to paddle, and many other things. Now she felt
a little provoked that he had not taught them more.
Why in the wide world couldn’t he have told Delbert where the nearest
habitation was, and what it was?--for it was quite likely that he knew.
How had he got his information? she wondered.
When she suggested to Delbert that they cross over the harbor and climb
that highest mountain and see what they could see, he was very willing;
he had thought of it himself.
So they started out one morning, taking water with them, but depending
on the _pitallas_ they would find for food. They crossed over easily
enough and did not have much trouble in reaching the foot of the
mountain. But the ascent was not an easy matter. There was cactus of
every description, all interwoven with thorny brush,--such a thick,
matted underbrush that the children were scratched and pricked all
over.
Davie was crying lustily before long, and Jennie fell and, in her
efforts to catch herself, rolled a stone on Esther’s foot that showed
black and blue for many a day afterwards. Sometimes there would be
a space comparatively clear where they could pick their way without
encountering thorns at every step, and it was in one of these that
Marian saw that which turned her back and kept her feet from the
mainland for a year to come.
They had just come up a particularly steep part of the mountain, where
an outcropping ledge added to the difficulties for little climbing
feet. Above it was space to breathe before one had to cope with the
next ledge above, which rose in an abrupt cliff. There was a _pitalla_
tree there with a dozen fruit on it, all opened out red and inviting,
and Delbert started with the long pole to bring them down.
Marian paused to get a thorn out of Esther’s thumb and two from her
next-to-the-littlest toe, and when that was finished the little girl
ran on to help the others gather the fruit, and the older one, rising,
put the needle carefully into a little case she had and slipped it into
her pocket. Her supply of needles was limited and she must not lose a
single one.
[Illustration: THERE WAS A CAT-TRACK]
Then, as she turned to join the others, her eye fell to the ground at
her feet, and there, plain and distinct, was a cat-track so large that
she could not have covered it with one of her hands, and her hands
were not so very small either. Fascinated, she stared at it. There
was no doubt as to what it was. She glanced around, but could see no
others. The ground chanced to be a little soft in that particular
spot. But surely that one was enough; there was no need of more. What
a monster it must have been to have made that track! Marian drew in
a quick breath and then threw up her head and called casually, “O
children, come back now. We won’t go any farther.”
Delbert, his eyes wide with surprise, came quickly with some protesting
words, but Marian frowned warningly at him and with a tilt of her chin
indicated the track. His gaze found it instantly. Indeed, it seemed to
Marian to be the most conspicuous feature of the landscape.
He bent his head toward it a moment; then his eyes met hers again. For
a second they looked at each other; there was no need of words. He
turned back to the _pitalla_ to hurry the others back, and Marian saw
him casting surreptitious glances at the cliff above them.
The little girls and Davie were so glad to turn back that they asked
no questions, taking it for granted that the plan was changed because
there were too many thorns.
The two older ones were rather silent on the way back. They went as
quickly as they could, but it was not a thing that could be done so
very quickly, and Marian grew more and more nervous. Supposing the
creature saw them, supposing--she jerked herself up and mentally gave
herself a good scolding, but never was she so glad as when they left
the mountain behind and pushed through to where the raft was tied,
waiting for them.
As they pushed out and paddled back, calmness came to her. There were
hard things in her pathway, dreary things to face, but, compared with
what might be, her life seemed full of rosebuds and sunshine.
Four pair of bright, loving eyes looked at her; four healthy, warm,
breathing little bodies would lie within reach of her touch that night.
Suppose one were ever missing through her fault or carelessness, what
pleasure would life hold then?
Looking back at the face of the mountain, she judged that they had
climbed about a third of the way up.
It was well into the afternoon when they got home, and a hungry lot
they were, too.
That night Delbert waited till he was sure the little ones were asleep
and then he cautiously spoke Marian’s name.
She was awake. “What is it?”
He turned over and raised himself on his elbow.
“Do you--do you suppose--it could swim over?”
“I don’t think so,” said she; “it is probably strong enough, but it
seems to me I have read that they never go into the water unless they
are compelled to. No, I am quite sure it would never do that.”
Delbert drew a long breath of relief.
“I know the house kitty never wanted to get her toes wet,” he said.
“No, we are quite safe from it here.”
“I guess we’d better stay here,” he said.
They did stay there. When the weather turned cold again, they were
in better condition than they had been the year before. They had two
rabbit-skin blankets, or robes, that kept out the chill winds at
night, and they had the brush shelter in front of the Cave so thick and
matted and interwoven with banana leaves and strips of stalk that the
wind did not penetrate that either; so with the bright fire they could
be comfortable through the evenings and cold nights. In the daytime
they were always so active that the cold did not much trouble them.
Besides, it soon warmed up after the sun rose.
One day, while up in the pasture, hunting food and fuel, they noticed
an unusually large mescal or century-plant. These were very common on
the island, and Marian had never thought of any use they could put
them to, but that day it suddenly dawned upon her that very similar
plants were cultivated in some places for the rope fiber in the great
sharp-pointed leaves. Perhaps it would be stronger and better than
banana fiber. So they dug this one up by the roots and dragged it home.
They chopped off the thick leaves and tossed the stump to one side.
Then, with some stones, the hatchet, and the knives, they thumped and
pounded and smashed the leaves and worked and scraped away till they
got the fiber out, and when they finally did get it, it seemed to
Marian that it really was better than banana fiber. That evening they
would see what kind of a rope could be made out of the new material. So
after supper they got at it, sitting before their fire at the Cave.
They did not braid their ropes any more; they had learned better than
that; but they both felt that their method of rope-making could be
vastly improved upon, for it was a very slow process at best, and the
rope finally produced was a very uneven thing.
But ropes they had to have. The raft must always be well lashed
together, and ropes so used soon wore out. Their fences were tied with
ropes in many places. They never went on any excursion without taking
some ropes along, for they were constantly wanting them, chiefly,
perhaps, to tie about their bundles of wood. A very large bundle of
heavy sticks could be quite easily dragged home with a rope.
In the first place they had had only Delbert’s hair rope and had used
it for everything, but now they were trying to be as saving of it as
possible, never using it when another one would suffice, but Delbert
always carried it with him, coiled up and tied at his waist.
When they finished working out the fiber it was clean, straight, and
pretty as it lay in a neat pile.
“Now, how is the best way to do this?” asked Marian in a businesslike
tone.
“I have been thinking,” said Delbert. “Remember that time I went with
Clarence and his father after a load of corn? Well, at one place where
we stopped there was an old Indian making ropes. I’ve been trying for a
long time to remember how he did it. Dear me!” he exclaimed in disgust,
“why didn’t I pay ’tention? Clarence explained it all to me, but I just
let it go into one ear and out the other. I wasn’t interested in making
ropes then.”
“Can’t you remember anything about it at all?” asked his sister
sympathetically. “If you could just remember a point or two, we could
work it out from that, maybe. Davie, don’t you want to put a stick of
wood on the fire? Not that one, dear; that one won’t burn,” for Davie
had picked up the stump of the mescal plant and heaved it into the
center of the flames.
“Yes, will burn,” asserted he complacently, and returned to his play of
fitting little clamshells together and laying them in a row.
Jennie poked the stump to one side and raked the coals and hot ashes
over it. “We’ll dry it out, and then maybe it’ll burn, Davie dear,” she
said.
“Here,” said Esther, gingerly handing over a piece of particularly
thorny _pitalla_; “this will make a light.”
“Why, you see,” said Delbert, “they had the fiber--_este_ they call
it--all in a pile, but tangled as if they must have tangled it
themselves. They had that part of it all done when we got there, but I
remember Clarence said they laid it on something--a board, I guess--and
hooked one end over a nail to hold it, and scraped it with an old
machete blade fixed in a crooked stick,--scraped it and scraped it till
there wasn’t anything left of the leaf but the fiber; then, I s’pose,
they tangled it all up next; anyway, the man had a thing he whirled
and he backed off across the yard, a-whirling it and whirling it and
spinning a strand of rope out from that pile of _este_.”
“Was it a wheel he whirled?”
“No, it wasn’t. It was just a little stick thing he held in one
hand,--two sticks, one of them whirled on the other.”
“Give me your knife,” said Marian, “and, Jennie, hand me that piece of
driftwood there by you; no, the other one. Was the stick he had as long
as that, Delbert?”
“Just about, but it was nice and smooth.”
“This will be nice and smooth when I get through with it. You just
tangle some of that fiber the way the old Indian had his.”
Delbert began picking it apart and dropping it careless and crisscross.
“You can just bet,” he burst out, “you can just bet your _boots_, if I
ever have a chance to see anybody else doing anything again, I’ll _see_
what they are doing; don’t care what it is.”
“That is the best way,” admitted Marian. “There are a whole lot of
things, simple things, that would help us a great deal if we only knew
how to do them. Can’t you remember anything more Clarence said about
this?”
Delbert wrinkled his brows. “There was something about a
balance-wheel. What is a balance-wheel?”
“I don’t know that I can explain it, though I know what it is myself.
Maybe I can show you pretty soon. Hand me that little smooth stick
about a foot and a half long, that one with the knob on the end. Yes, I
think that will do nicely.”
She had shaved and whittled the piece of driftwood till it was about a
foot long, an inch thick, and two and one half inches wide at one end
and tapering to a point at the other, which point she whittled into a
button-like knob. Just back of the knob she made a hole big enough to
slip the second stick into. It slipped down, but was prevented from
slipping clear off by the knob on the end of it. Then, grasping this
second stick, she began to whirl it so that the driftwood stick whirled
round and round on it.
“There!” she cried; “does that look anything like it, Delbert?”
“It does! it does! That’s it exactly! How did you guess?”
“I didn’t guess. I have seen one myself somewhere, but didn’t know what
it was for. I think I saw a couple of them down at Doña Luisa’s one
morning when I went down for milk. But the proof of the pudding is in
the eating. Let’s see how this complicated machine will work.”
She twisted a little of the tangled fiber round the knob on the
driftwood stick and began to twirl. Of course it promptly twisted the
fiber into a little strand.
“Here, Delbert,” she said, “you whirl this while I spin out the strand,
or else it will all twist up in bunches.” Sitting down by the little
pile of fibers, she grasped the twisting strand in one hand so that it
should spin out of an even size. “Now, whirl away,” she said, “and back
off as fast as it spins out.”
“This is just the way they did it,” said Delbert. “I remember now,
there were two of them; one whirled the stick, and the other sat down
and pulled the strand out of the pile of fiber just as you are doing
it.” And he backed off, whirling vigorously, until the little pile of
tangled fibers was all used up.
“There,” she said, “that is a lot better than twisting it just with our
fingers, as we have been doing with the banana fiber, and it certainly
beats braiding all hollow. We can twist and twist and twist, and then
we can put as many strands as we want to into the rope.”
They worked that night till they had used up all their fiber, and then
went to bed, agreeing to go next day and gather more mescal plants.
In the morning, when Marian raked open her fire, she raked out the
stump of the mescal plant. It was brown and juicy. She began to examine
it.
“Looks good. Doesn’t it?” she said to the children, who were rolling
out of the Cave.
Esther came suddenly forward and bent over it. “It is good, too,” she
declared. “That is the stuff they had down at Julianita’s one day. They
were eating it, and said for Jennie and me to eat some too, but Jennie
wouldn’t touch it ’cause she was ’fraid it would make us drunk.”
“You didn’t eat any either,” remonstrated Jennie.
“I didn’t ’cause you didn’t.”
Marian was cutting the stump in pieces. They all tried it. It was
sweet and good, though there was a great deal of string and fiber to
be discarded after the sweetness and goodness had been chewed out and
swallowed.
“But it _is_ what they make mescal of; isn’t it?” asked Delbert.
“I presume it is; in fact, it must be, only this wild plant doesn’t
grow just the same as the tame ones, maybe; but it must be that they
cook the centers something like this and mash them and let them ferment
and distill it some way. It seems to me I have heard how it was done,
but I was like you about the ropes; I didn’t pay enough attention to
remember. It certainly never occurred to me that there was anything
about it that was any good to _us_. I think we owe Davie a vote of
thanks.”
“Clarence ought to have told us,” said Esther reproachfully.
So another food was added to their list, and after a little practice
they could turn out mescal fiber ropes that were so smooth and well
twisted that they could be used to lasso with.
The two little girls had learned to lasso burros, but Marian’s aim
was not much better than Davie’s. She did not practice the art as her
little sisters did. She whittled out a big crochet-hook, though, and
then twisted a very fine strand of fiber and crocheted a bag of it that
was very useful to put things into on their travels. Whenever there was
a storm, they would always go to Bonanza Cove afterwards to collect the
riches found there.
These consisted mostly of driftwood, and the small pieces could go
into the bag, while the big ones were tied together and carried or
dragged home. But sometimes other things came, bottles empty but
corked,--so many of them that Marian concluded all sailors must be sad
drinkers,--bits of board, an old leaky bucket, and, best of all, this
second year, a broken oar.
“I hope it didn’t incommode any one much when it broke,” Marian said,
“but we certainly can make good use of it.” It was just barely long
enough to use as a paddle.
When it came nesting-time again, they were right on hand at the bird
islands. They would put the eggs into the bag and the demijohn and a
few young squabs into the barrel, and they were so much better equipped
for the cruise than they were the first time they made the trip that
it did not seem such a big undertaking, and they could go oftener.
Once, while out on one of the sandbars, hunting clams, they saw
something farther out still, something dark on the water. Delbert
thought it was probably only a mass of seaweed, but he wanted to go
and see. So, as the water was very smooth that morning, they paddled
the raft out, though they had never been so near the Gulf before since
their arrival.
They found the dark spot to be another log, much smaller and somewhat
shorter than the one in their raft, but they took it in tow just the
same.
They found some turtle-eggs on those sunny sandbars that second summer.
Sometimes they saw the turtles themselves, but they were never able to
catch one, though Delbert was very enthusiastic in the pursuit.
That summer they had vegetables; and how good they were! The turnips
and carrots grew splendidly, and the children devoured them both
cooked and raw. The green peppers, for some reason, did not flourish
so well till the next year, but they were eaten with a relish also.
The lettuce, when transplanted and cared for, set in solid heads that
reminded them of cabbage, and the children ate it like so many hungry
little calves eating clover, and Marian often boiled a head of it with
a fowl, and they voted it fine.
The bananas bore good fruit now, large, well-filled-out bunches. Marian
dried some. Among the edible fruits of the Island was the wild tomato.
They found very few of these, and the fruit was very small, scarcely
larger than the tip of Marian’s little finger, but when the seeds were
planted in their garden they came up and did well, plenty of water
increasing the size and quality of the fruit somewhat. The plants bore
abundantly, and the flavor was good. They put them in soups or stewed
them by themselves sometimes, sweetening them with the juice boiled
from the _pitallas_, or, at rare intervals, with wild honey. But the
greater portion of them were eaten raw.
There was certainly no lack of food now. Delbert did not set traps any
more. He could shoot so well with his bow and arrow that he did not
need traps to secure a rabbit when one was wanted, and the little
girls could sometimes hit a hopping mark as well as he.
They lost the hook one day, some big fish making off with it, and they
caught their fish entirely with the spear after that.
They were milking two burros. Jacky, being thoroughly weaned, was
turned out of the corral and went where he pleased, and he generally
pleased to go with the children whenever they were going where he could
follow. Jennie was really plump now, strong and healthy, but not so
strong or so healthy as Esther, who, solid little urchin, could follow
Delbert very closely in all his exploits. She could run as far without
getting tired, she could shoot an arrow with almost as accurate an aim,
and she did not always miss the fish she aimed her spear at.
She was a splendid little swimmer, better even than Marian, and it used
to seem to Marian that she was the prettiest little mermaid any one
ever set eyes on.