THE BUILDING OF THE WICKIUP
Delbert came laughing to his breakfast one morning. “I’ve found the
ideal spot for a house,” he said.
“Good for you!” said Marian, as she carefully raked out from the embers
the red snapper which had been stuffed with green peppers, wrapped in
green banana leaves, and buried in the hot coals and ashes overnight.
“All right, tell us about it as we eat.”
“It can’t be told. It will have to be seen to be appreciated,” he said.
“In that case we will go and see right after breakfast.”
Which they did, and he led them to the highest, rockiest point of that
end of the Island, facing the long, sandy point where the watermelons
were and where one could see both the bay and the harbor.
“Now,” said he, seating himself on a big boulder, “you observe the
lovely view we have. Nowhere on the whole Island can you get a better
one. With a little clearing there is a fair chance of a path down to
the pier. We are not so very far from the Cave either. And then, too,
you see, this nice high cliff would save our making more than three
sides to the house, and those big rocks there would be handy to brace
against.”
“Where would be our floor?” asked Jennie. “It’s all rocks here.”
But Marian was looking. The cliff, as Delbert called it, would save
making one side of the house, and several of the big rocks Jennie was
so scornful of were in a direct line for working into the walls, while
the others could be moved by means of crude levers that they could
work. The floor could then be leveled by building up with rocks from
the lower side. It would be impossible to dig holes to set posts in,
but, if one were not too particular about having the house symmetrical,
there were several fissures in the rocks where posts could be put, and
braced solid with other stones packed in about them. The face of the
big rock, or cliff, back of them was very irregular, and there were
several good places to set roof-timbers in.
The ground sloped rather steeply down to the sandy point and was
covered with brush, but a path, as Delbert said, could be cleared down
to the pier, and it would be a better one really than the one they were
using, too. Also a little tossing of the rocks to one side would clear
the way back to the Cave, where they could use the old path to the
beach. The heavy task would be bringing all the material up the hill,
but that would have to be done in any case; only, of course, if they
built at the Cave, for instance, they would not have to carry things so
far.
“Delbert,” she said, “what we are going to need, and need badly, is
lime.”
“Lime? What for?”
“To mix with sand and fresh water to make mortar to pack around the
roof-timbers, where we set them into the cliff there, and around the
posts, where we put them into this crevice below. Good mortar would set
and keep them solid.”
“They dig lime out of the ground, don’t they?”
“No; they dig a certain kind of rock out and burn it, and it turns into
lime; and they burn shells, and that makes lime too.”
“Shells? Well, we can get plenty of shells.”
“Yes, but I don’t know how to burn lime,--how long it takes or how it
ought to look when it is right,--and I don’t know exactly how to work
it afterwards either.”
“Can’t we experiment and find out? Burn just a few at first and see how
they work?”
“I guess we’d better, for I don’t want this house falling down on us in
a storm, and if I can get the frame of it absolutely solid, I’ll risk
but what we can manage the rest of it all right.”
“What will you make the roof of?” asked Jennie.
“Thatch,” promptly responded Marian. “Don’t you remember all that tall
thatch grass out beyond the lagoon? The Mexicans at the Port sometimes
make their whole houses of it. And, Delbert, there is another big job
ahead of us. We are going to need every pole that is in the corral
fence; we must build a good brush fence to hold in the burros, so that
we can have every stick and pole there, every piece of driftwood. I
guess we’d better clear that patch of brush beyond the garden. It will
be nicer cleared away, and we can pile it all on to the fence.”
They gathered a lot of shells that day, and, after a few experiments
in their cooking-fire, made a little pile of alternate shells and wood
and started it burning. Marian thought the shells ought probably to
burn slowly; her idea was to rake out a few every now and then and see
how things were going. Her only safe way was to mix a little mortar and
see if it set hard.
Between times they worked on the brush fence. They had not progressed
very far before they wished they had got at it at least two years
sooner, for in the midst of the tangled growth of bushes, choked and
stunted but still struggling to keep alive, they found a goodly number
of cotton plants.
These must have been, along with the palms and the bananas, a part of
the smugglers’ garden. There were three straggling rows, and most of
the bushes had a few sickly-looking cotton bolls on them. They are
never very large on that particular variety of plant, but none of these
were larger than a small hen’s egg; indeed, most of them more closely
resembled marbles. But they contained actual cotton, and with care and
some cultivation the plants would produce more and larger bolls. They
gathered them--what few there were--and put them with the cotton-tree
pods.
“As soon as the house is done, I shall have to see about a
spinning-wheel and loom,” said Marian, “and oh! if we had only found
them before!”
They cut out the brush systematically, clearing out, as thoroughly as
they could, each bush as they came to it. Delbert and the little girls
would take sticks and bend back the bushes, so that Marian could get at
them to chop them off near the ground with the hatchet; then with ropes
they would drag them to the corral and pile them on the fence. They
were trying to make it very solid and compact, also a little larger
than before.
In this way they managed to release every pole that had been in the
fence, and they piled them at one side to await the time when they
should be ready for them at the new house.
They were not so very successful with the lime. They burned a good many
shells before they produced what was at all satisfactory.
They found that there were not enough shells near by, but off across
the bay, at the mouth of one of the _esteros_, was a bank that had
seemed to be composed almost entirely of shells; so they took the
Muggywah and made several trips there, coming back loaded down with all
the shells they could carry. These shells were very old and broken,
but Marian thought they would probably make as good lime as fresh ones
would. There were other places, too, where shells were more plentiful
than near home, and they made trips after them.
While they were gathering the shells they cut a good many _pitalla_
poles, peeled the green bark off them, and left them to dry before
taking them home. Delbert used his stone hatchet for that work; he had
made a handle for it, as Marian said probably the first owner had, by
splitting a stick down and tying it above and below where the hatchet
was inserted, and while he could not, of course, chop wood with it, the
soft green _pitalla_ bark yielded to it very well. To be sure, it was
no better, even for this purpose, than the other hatchet, but think how
much more romantic it is to work with an ancient stone hatchet than
with an ordinary little modern steel one!
Delbert thought so much of that hatchet that Marian said he had better
give it a name, and told him about King Arthur’s sword Excalibur; but
when Delbert asked her if she thought that would be a good name for the
hatchet, she said she thought they had better modify it a little and
call it the “Exscalper” instead, because, though it might once have
been used to scalp with, it was not in that business now.
These _pitalla_ poles are hollow, but durable and comparatively
straight, and are much used in building the humbler homes of western
Mexico.
[Illustration: EXSCALPER]
The poor little overworked hatchet had to be sharpened many, many
times. There was no need now to put the whetstone beyond Davie’s reach.
He was too sensible to want to hide it, realizing as well as any of
them that what the whole community needs should not be selfishly
regarded as private property.
Delbert’s jack-knife had been worked and overworked till it was about
used up. One blade was broken, and the other leaned backward in a
most heartrending fashion. He did not use it much, but always had the
butcher-knife tucked into his belt beside the Exscalper.
The two case-knives had been sharpened, and the two little girls
carried them. Davie never felt at home without the dig-spoon. With much
use its edge had become as sharp as a knife, and he used it for that
right along. And he, like all the others, except Marian, always had his
bow and arrows slung at his back.
They did not take much time off the work till the season for “duck”
eggs came again; then they dropped everything and sailed for the
little white islands. It took only a part of a day to make the trip,
and they could get eggs enough for several days. They almost lived on
them through the season, and when it was over dropped back to their
vegetarian diet, varied only by an occasional meal of fish from a
night’s spearing.
When, after much time and labor expended, and many, many experiments,
Marian decided that there was enough lime to make the mortar to set
the posts and roof-timbers, they began the task of getting their
timbers up the hill.
They had thought that they could utilize Jackie for that, but he soon
undeceived them. He was not averse to carrying small loads of wood, but
when it came to pulling anything really heavy, Jackie called a halt,
and, moreover, remained halted till the load was removed.
They found no means of coaxing or persuasion that availed in the
least. It made not an iota of difference to Jackie whether those poles
remained at the top or the bottom of the hill, and if the children
wanted them at the top, why, let them take them there, that was all. In
the end they had to drag them up themselves. They tied ropes to them
and used main force. It was not a very long job when they once got over
trying to make Jackie do it for them. As for him, he skipped along
beside them, gay and carefree.
Then they debated long and earnestly as to just which crotched timber
should be placed in this place and which pole in that. They tried each
one in all the places to see where it would fit best, and everybody
expressed his opinion. They planned where to put the doors and the
window, and where was the best place for the fireplace.
When they had these momentous questions settled, Marian mixed her
mortar. Each upright was made solid by being packed tightly with big
rocks and all set in mortar; each roof-pole was set in the same way
where it rested on the cliff. At the same time Marian tried not to be
too prodigal with her mortar, for she wanted to have enough left to
lay up the chimney, at least where it would come above the roof and be
exposed to the wind and weather. And her supply of lime was not at all
large, for it took so long to gather up the shells, and often they had
not got them well burned after they were gathered.
After her timbers and poles were well set, she began on the fireplace.
For this they brought up the bricks and the blackened stones from the
smugglers’ old house; for some kinds of stones will crack and split
with heat, or even go so far as to pop into little pieces which fly
in all directions, and Marian wanted that fireplace built of tested
stones that would be up to no mischief. The stones she had cooked over
at the Cave were brought, and two nice, smooth, large ones from the
cooking-place at the beach. She used clay from the pasture as mortar
for the fireplace and the lower part of the chimney.
Once, on a trip up an _estero_ that wound past a little hill, they
had noticed a big flat rock that Delbert thought would make a fine
hearthstone. They could find other flat rocks, of course, but this
one had especially appealed to the boy, because it was much larger
and smoother than any other they had seen, and he thought it would be
nice to have the hearth of one big stone. Marian thought so, too, but
was afraid it was too big for them to manage. However, she finally
consented to try it. If they could get it on board the Muggywah at all,
they could find some way of getting it off again and up the hill and
into place.
After all, thought Marian, if her flock learned to achieve things, to
overcome difficulties, to persist in spite of obstacles, was that not
of itself a fair education? And to bring that great rock home would
certainly be a lesson in achievement.
So they went after it. They took plenty of ropes along and several
round pieces of driftwood to serve as rollers under the stone. They
found it readily. One side was so flat and smooth that it seemed as if
it must some time have been worked upon by human hands; the other was
rough and irregular, being much thicker at one end than at the other.
It was all Marian and Delbert could do to lift it alone, and even with
Jennie’s and Esther’s help it was none too easy. Fortunately it was not
far from the water’s edge. They got it on their two largest rollers,
and, by smoothing the way and prying the rollers along, they got it
down to the Muggywah.
Then it developed that it would be more easily got aboard at low than
at high tide. At low tide the Muggywah could be placed under a bank and
the big stone swung off on to her; at high tide it would have to be
lifted up to get it aboard.
So they made their preparations. They tied the Muggywah fore and aft,
and rigged up a tripod to assist in swinging the hearthstone over on to
her just where they wanted it. They pushed and pried the rollers, and
tugged and twisted till they had the big stone in position on the edge
of the bank, and then retired to the shade of a scrubby mesquite to
eat their lunch of turnips and carrots and drink Island water from the
bottles, while they waited for the tide to go out.
And when the lunch was finished, they sallied forth and hunted for
_panales_, clams, oysters, and, incidentally, arrowheads and more
hatchets.
When the Muggywah dropped below the bank, they rallied again to the
task in hand. The tripod was a big help; they had the hair rope for
that. Carefully they worked. It was not merely the getting of the big
stone that Marian had in mind; she wanted to be quite sure no one was
going to get hurt in the process.
“Delbert, don’t lift on that till you really strain yourself,” she
said. “Davie, you stand by that pole and see that it doesn’t lift up;
I don’t want your little fingers mashed under this. Esther, poke that
stick under there where Jennie’s fingers are. There, that’s right;
that holds it instead. Now, Jennie, you stand there where Delbert is.
Delbert, you and I will have to swing round below here now. Davie, hold
that pole down tight.”
Davie held valiantly with all his might. There was no danger of that
particular pole budging, but Marian wanted him out of the way, and knew
that the only way to be sure he would not slip in at the wrong minute,
and maybe get a finger jammed before she could help him, was to keep
him busy elsewhere.
“There, now, you see, part of the weight comes on the tripod. Carefully
now, Esther. Jennie can do that alone now; you jump down and be ready
to help here.”
In the midst of it all she began to laugh. “Delbert, if it takes all
this fuss to get it aboard, how in the world are we ever going to get
it off again? We may have to dump it into the harbor yet.”
“Not much we don’t,” muttered Delbert between his teeth.
“Well, all steady now! Gently there, Jennie! That’s right! Now jump
down and help Esther. There, there she is, neat as a whistle. Look how
it pushes the Muggywah down, but it’s all right. Knock up that tripod
pole there, Delbert. We’ll have the rope off. Where did you put your
oysters, Jennie? Oh, I see. Well, drop ’em in here; we must be starting
back. It will take us all day to-morrow to get this hearthstone off the
deck, and two more to get it up the hill, as like as not.”
As a matter of fact, it took a great deal longer than that, but they
did not work at it all the time. They rigged up another tripod to
help them swing it off the Muggywah, and by aid of rollers got it to
the foot of the hill safely. There they tied it to something to make
sure it would not slip and roll down on them, and little by little, as
they felt inclined, they pushed it up the hill. Sometimes a day or two
would go by without its being touched, and then, some morning when they
felt vigorous, they would get at it with levers and rollers and work it
up the hill a little farther. Davie got quite expert in slipping the
stones in back of it to block it up while they rested.
In the course of time it was taken into the frame of the new house and
settled into place, being blocked with stones till it did not wiggle in
the least; and as they stood back surveying it, they all felt that it
was worth all the trouble it had been to get it. The fireplace itself
was built up waist-high when the hearthstone was put in place.
Marian was planning a good handy place to cook over, and several of
the scraps of iron were used with that idea. The old twisted, rusty
oarlock, for instance, was converted into a hook to hang the kettle
on at one side, and there were various little places made, to put
things on to keep hot or to go on slowly cooking. At the proper height
a mantel-shelf was put in, too, a smooth piece of driftwood. It had
once been a board about a foot wide by three or three and a half long,
but it had been tossed and beaten till the edges were thin and ragged.
Marian fitted it across and surveyed it with pride.
It seemed as if the longest and most tiresome part of the work was the
building of the chimney. Massive was the word for it. It was continued
up pretty high. Marian climbed up on the roof-timbers and had the
children hand her the stones and mortar.
They got well tired of the job before it was finished. At the last,
Marian herself would help gather a pile of stones, and then, after
mixing the mortar, would climb up on the roof and work away, and
Delbert would hand up the rocks one by one and the mortar in the little
wooden pail. She used the dig-spoon and the little spade for trowels,
assisted by a piece of old board she had whittled into shape.
Yet, after all, considering how tiresome it must have been, the
children were pretty good about it. Delbert never complained of the
monotony, and though the little girls were quite sure Marian was
building that chimney higher and thicker than was at all necessary,
they did their work cheerfully.
They stopped when their good lime gave out, but Marian was sure that
she had it high enough to draw well at all times, and so big and
solid that it would not blow over in a storm, even if it had not been
protected to some extent by the high rock, or cliff, back of it.
She would have been glad of more lime, but it was such a task to gather
and burn the shells that she decided to finish the house without it.
They gathered up their _pitalla_ poles now, clean, creamy-white poles,
which they fastened in place by tightly lashing with small ropes. Where
they needed them in the walls they packed the end that rested on the
ground with rocks and mud and tied the upper ends. The house began to
take shape rapidly. The _pitalla_ poles were easily split when smaller,
finer pieces were needed.
Finally they were ready for the thatch. It would take a great many
trips to get that. They knew of but one place where it grew, and that
was away up by the lagoon. They would go and cut grass, or rather dig
it out by the roots, till they had enough for a bundle for each one.
These bundles were graduated in size, of course, but Marian allowed
no shirking. Nobody really tried to shirk but Davie. He didn’t like
to carry thatch-grass down to the _estero_, and he tried all kinds of
excuses to get out of it, but Marian was firm.
“Every little helps,” she said. “It is work that you can do, and you
must.”
So, in spite of his grumblings and groanings, Davie carried his little
bundle as well as the rest. They would make several trips, stacking
the grass in a pile at the pier; then they would stop and carry it all
to the top of the hill to the new house, and Marian and Delbert would
put it on the roof. Jackie helped them there. He did not mind carrying
quite a bundle of grass up the hill, for it was light and did not tax
his strength. It was pulling that Jackie objected to.
They put the grass on very thick, tying each little bunch very firm and
tight to the split _pitalla_ prepared for it. Here again the little
girls felt very sure that Marian was doing a much better job than was
at all necessary. They were quite sure that much less grass would do
just as well. But Marian, remembering the fury of that first storm on
the Island, was not going to run any risks, and Delbert backed her
up in her determination. So for weeks they worked at it, digging and
tugging at the grass up by the lagoon, often cutting their fingers on
the sharp edges, toiling down through the hot sun to the _estero_ with
their bundles, tying them on the Muggywah, and then paddling back home.
Then, when Marian and Delbert climbed up on the roof, the little girls
handed up bunch after bunch of the rank, heavy grass to the two above,
who tied them with the stout little cords that they sometimes took a
day off to make. And finally the whole roof was covered with a thick
mat of the rustling grass, the long loose ends of each row hanging well
down over the root ends of the row below. Several poles were fastened
across to hold it down better and make it all the surer that the wind
would not get in underneath and undo any of their labor.
Then there were the sides to come next. Marian had thought that they
would maybe thatch them too, but the children were tired of going after
grass. Indeed, they had gathered all the best of it; what was left was
so much shorter and thinner that it would take much more time to get
it. So she cast about for other material nearer home.
There were several big rocks in a line with the walls, two of which
were immovable, but there were several others that they succeeded
in prying up and swinging round into place. In between them Marian
built up a wall even with their tops, using for her mortar the shells
that had not been well burned, mixing them with clay brought from the
pasture. It was very tiresome bringing it, but it did nicely after they
got it there, for it dried hard and smooth and would stay so as long as
it was kept dry at least.
One thing Marian was particular about was to use only the fresh water
for her mortar. It was more trouble than it would have been to use
salt, but she had heard some of the men at the Port once talking about
some one who had made a failure of a kiln of bricks because he had
used salt water in the making. She did not remember what they had said
was the reason why the salt was bad in that particular place, nor just
what effect it had had, but she intended to run no risks; so her mortar
was all mixed with water from the well on the pier side of the Island.
But she could not build up the entire wall that way, and by the time
she had it up as high as the big rocks there were no more loose stones
near them and she had used up every bit of her burnt shells. All hands
were very tired, too, of lugging earth from the pasture, and they could
find no clay nearer home.
She turned to the banana-patch then, and they tore the big stalks
into strips of uniform size and used these to weave in basket-fashion
between the uprights and the split _pitallas_. It did very well except
that, as with everything else, Marian insisted upon its being done so
well that it seemed to take forever to do it. They also used the dried
leaves, weaving them in and out and pounding them down so as to have a
good thick wall. Some kinds of brush they used, too, fine branches that
had no thorns, or at least no large ones, but the fibrous strips of
the banana stalks were the main material used.
This part of the task was something they could all work at. Even Davie
learned quickly how to weave in brush and banana stalk and work and
pound them down. Up under the eaves they were not quite so particular
to have it thick and firm.
Finally it was all done. There remained now but the floor, the doors,
and the windows.
The floor must be leveled and made as smooth as possible. It was so
rocky and rough that it seemed the only way would be to build up from
the lower side with stones. There were plenty of stones, but they had
to be brought from some little distance now, as everything loose in the
neighborhood had been pretty well cleaned up. Marian packed stones in
as well as she could, and when it was comparatively level, filled in
the chinks with pebbles and wads of banana leaves, and then they lugged
up pailful after pailful of sand from the beach.
Jackie helped here too. They made a pair of sacks by folding a blanket
over once and sewing up the ends. This could be thrown over Jackie’s
back. They put in as much sand as they thought he would stand, and
then, when the rest of them had their loads ready, they would all go
up the hill together. Some one had to watch pretty closely to see that
the load did not slip off over Jackie’s tail on the steep parts of
the path, but he carried so much more than any of them cared to that
it paid to use him. Of course, if they had really put much of a load
on him, he would probably have balked as was his habit, but they were
careful not to do that. Marian thought that he would gradually get used
to carrying loads and be a great help to them some time in the future.
They poured the sand on the floor, where it ran down into the cracks
and little holes, till after two or three days of pretty steady work
the cracks seemed to be all filled up and their floor was level and
smooth.
Then they went to Bonanza Cove, where in the storms the seaweed had
been pounded and churned and tossed far up on the beach; there it had
dried and bleached in the suns of later days till now it could be
peeled up in great white layers. They took this dried seaweed in as big
flakes as they could carry without breaking it, and carpeted every
bit of the floor, clear up to the hearthstone. But Marian was a little
afraid this was too near the fire for safety; so they hunted till they
found enough big flat stones to lay a row all around the hearth. Then,
by wetting the seaweed, they could pack this row down to a level with
the hearthstone, and finally, after filling with sand all the little
corners where the stones did not just match, they felt pretty certain
that no sparks would fly out far enough to set their carpet on fire.
Then they moved in. It was not so tremendous a task. There was no
packing or unpacking to do, no bickering with drivers of moving-vans.
They simply gathered up their bedding and bags of feathers and dumped
them down in one corner on the floor, and then brought over the few
utensils from the Cave. A very few more trips brought over all the odds
and ends that had accumulated,--pretty shells and other small treasures
such as children always collect.
The new home was very irregular in shape, for their material had been
far from regular or uniform and they had had to place their posts and
poles where the unyielding rocks would receive them best, but the room
averaged about eight feet by fifteen, the eaves being about six feet
lower than the side built against the cliff.
There were two narrow doors and one window, and for the doors Marian
made a light frame of split _pitalla_ tied together at the corners
and then wove a sort of mat of palm-leaf across them. This was too
light and thin to be trusted in a storm; so of stouter material, split
_pitalla_, but heavier pieces, she made a pair of large, heavy frames
and covered these with thatch-grass, for which they made another trip
to the lagoon. Even then it was not quite enough, and she finished with
palm-leaves, the old dried ones that were not strong enough for ropes,
but could be used whole. Some of these, too, she tied on the outside
of the house where the wattling seemed to be a little thin; they would
help a little when the rains came.
The light doors she fastened on permanently with fiber ropes, but the
heavy storm doors were left outside, where they were out of the way
ordinarily, but could be quickly put into place and tied over the
others when a storm came up. She did not bother to make a mat frame
for the window, but contented herself with the one heavy thatch one,
which was fastened across the top so that it could be swung out and up
and be propped with a stick, thus making a shade over the opening like
an awning; it could also be swung down and tied tight whenever desired.
Inside there were several shelves put up by swinging them from the
roof, and their largest piece of driftwood, laid across two rocks, made
a very good table. These and the mantel-shelf were enough to hold all
their dishes and other valuables. The bedding, folded up neatly in a
corner, did not take up much room. The fireplace did not smoke, and it
was very convenient indeed for the cooking.
At night the children lay down where they chose on the clean, springy
seaweed floor, and pulled a part of a blanket or a rabbit-skin robe or
the big cape over them and slept the sleep of the healthy till morning.
They had no lamp or lantern, but the bark of the _pitalla_ burned with
a white light that made the inside of the little house very cheery and
cozy of an evening, and was a good enough light for anything they might
want to do.
They had begun the house at the end of one rainy season; they had
it finished just as the next one was upon them. They went with the
Muggywah and gathered up all the _pitalla_ bark, now nicely dry, which
had been stripped from their poles and which they had not already
brought in, and stored it in the Cave to keep it dry, and when they had
that full they piled another heap in another cave, where it would be
partially protected from the wet.
They gathered, too, a big pile of driftwood near the house,--light
stuff such as the waves were always tossing up, and as much heavy stuff
as they could get for back-logs to bury at night, so as to have good
embers in the mornings when it was cold, for a bed of hot embers was a
comfort indeed to start in with.
The children had begun calling the new home a wigwam, but Marian said
she was quite sure that a wigwam was always made of skins stretched
over poles, but she believed--she was not quite _sure_, but she
believed--that a wickiup was made of wattles with a thatch or dirt
roof; so, of course, theirs was a wickiup.
Rainy days had no terrors for them now, and no dreariness. They would
do what was needful to make the little burros comfortable, gather into
the wickiup what food and fuel was needed for the next day and night,
close the storm door, on the side the wind and rain were coming from
and open the other to let in plenty of light.
A very small fire would keep the room comfortable, and they could sit
warm and dry, and do whatever amused them best,--weave baskets, or
make little ropes, or sharpen knives or the hatchet. Rainy days were
good times to crochet fiber into bags or clothing and to bore holes in
wampum. Delbert made himself a beautiful wampum belt. It was woven of
fiber about two inches wide, and he covered it with little shells sewed
on through two little holes bored in each one. It was a great deal of
work, but he was very much interested in it, and showed such ability in
boring holes without breaking the shells, and in sewing them on so that
they made a pretty pattern, that Marian was as proud of him for doing
it as he was proud of the belt when it was done.
It was that summer that Marian took up the long-neglected task of
the children’s education. She was handicapped certainly; her sole
schoolroom equipments were half a lead-pencil, a piece of blue chalk
half as big as her thumb, which chanced to be in her workbag, and a
part of a newspaper that had lain in the bottom of their lunch-basket
and had a dozen times only narrowly escaped being used up for something
else. This paper consisted mainly of advertisements of real estate for
sale, male and female help wanted, and a page of sporting news and
market reports, with half a column of mineral discoveries. It was not
an ideal primer, but it would do to teach Davie his letters from.
There was a place on the rock wall that was comparatively smooth, and
Marian made it more so by rubbing it with flat stones small enough to
be handled easily and as much like a grindstone in composition as she
could find. She would rub and rub, throw on a little water, and rub
again, and she kept that up till she had a space that would serve very
well as a blackboard. Of course the blue chalk did not last long, but
then they used bits of charcoal, and if bones were burnt just right
they made a very good substitute for chalk. A bunch of mescal or
banana fiber made a very good eraser.
There were several pieces of driftwood smooth enough to do for slates,
and one or two bits of flat stones also. Clamshells were useful. They
had quite a number of these, as big as saucers, that they had used as
dishes. Marian took them now and made school readers of them. With
the lead-pencil she wrote lessons on them, Mother Goose verses, bits
of poetry that did not have too many big words in them, remembered
proverbs, and little stories. When the three older children could read
and spell all the words in them, she washed them out and wrote another
lesson.
Arithmetic was taught by means of the blackboard and little shells,
stones, and seeds. Delbert always did his figuring on the hearthstone.
He would stretch out on his stomach and elbows, his chin in his hands,
and his feet kicking at all angles.
The other children had to give him a wide berth or they got all kinds
of cracks. Jennie complained that she could not think lying down,
so she always used the blackboard. Esther used it too, not because
her brain would not work horizontally, but because when Delbert had
the hearth there was no room for any one else there, and he made his
figures as big as all out-of-doors anyway. After all, mental arithmetic
was more satisfactory, and Marian drilled them pretty well in that.
The paper-tree proved a treasure to them. It is, I think, in some
respects a distant cousin of the birch. At any rate, its bark can be
peeled off in the same way, only it is much thinner--of paperlike
thickness, or thinness rather--and partially transparent. When she
could get good pieces of this, Marian never failed to acquire them, and
she made books of it, clumsy, of course, but serving a little better
than the clamshells.
She was constantly experimenting for ink, testing every juice she came
across that seemed at all likely. Pens she could make, as her ancestors
had before her, of big quills. Her little penknife had never been much
used except to whittle out toys for Christmas, and it was just the
thing to make quill pens with.
Fortunately, Delbert and the girls were eager to learn. They did not
want to be behind their mates when they got back to them, and as they
were all three pretty bright, Marian’s task was much easier than it
would otherwise have been.
But Davie was not over anxious to spend time on what seemed to him so
useless. He was more backward than either of the others, too, and with
him Marian had need of the most loving patience, also of ingenuity in
thinking up ways to get him interested. Fortunately, she was patient,
and, moreover, loved the little fellow so fervently that she would have
developed patience even had she been naturally devoid of it.