DISASTER AND A NEW TASK
The storm was fully as severe as the one that had welcomed the children
to the Island, though they did not realize what they were in for till
midnight. When it began to blow so strong that they were really sure a
storm was coming, Delbert took their best ropes and securely moored the
logs of the Muggywah to the tree, thinking it barely possible that the
waves might reach up to them if the wind kept on increasing. And such a
terrible wind as it threatened to be!
They turned the little burros loose with their mothers,--there were
four of them that year,--and the one little pig that they happened to
have in the pen was also turned out to seek its shelter where it chose.
The little girls tried to get it into the wickiup, but it was wild and
escaped them, and Marian told them to let it go, that it would take
care of itself.
They gathered in the best of the melons, for there was no knowing if
there would be one left by morning, the sandy point was so low; and
they piled up a great stack of wood and _pitalla_ by the fireplace; and
then it was too dark to do any more.
The wind howled and the waves broke on the beach like mighty thunders.
The thatch of their roof struggled to be gone, and the water poured
down the wall in a steady sheet. Fortunately, it could soak through
the sand and rocks of the floor and run off down the hill as fast as
it came in; otherwise they would have been flooded. The window and the
storm doors were tied as tightly as possible, and Marian watched them
closely and thanked her stars that she had insisted on taking such
endless pains to have everything about the house solid and sure.
Of course, they were protected somewhat by the cliff, and the girl
shuddered to think what would have happened had they not been. She
imagined how it would seem to go crawling through the fury of the
storm, holding to one another’s hands, beaten to the ground and half
drowned, and finally reaching the old Cave, the only possible other
shelter, and crawling in, soaked and chilled, to lie, packed like
sardines in a box, till morning.
It was not a pleasant picture; she was glad to come back to the
reality,--the interior of the wickiup, somewhat disorderly with so
much wood and everything piled away from the rock wall, but warm and
dry and safe; Delbert stretched out by the fireplace, a great strong
boy, his eyes, steady and straightforward, regarding the flames as they
spluttered in protest against the water that found its way down the
chimney; Davie sprawling at her feet, sleeping in utter carelessness of
the storm, well knowing that whatever happened he would be taken care
of; the two girls on a blanket beyond him, awake, and Jennie a little
nervous but Esther calmly confident that everything would turn out all
right,--that they were, and would continue to be, safe.
Marian’s throat swelled a little as she watched them. How dear they
were, every one, and so big and strong now, even Davie! Surely now,
when this storm was over and the Muggywah repaired, they might start
back to the Port. The first few miles outside the shelter of the bay
would be the worst. The waves were always very big and high out there,
but after that,--well, they might not make very good time, but what
mattered it if they were a week on the way, so they got there at last?
They could take food and water with them, though for that matter they
could go hungry and thirsty if need be; what mattered it so they got
home?
All that night the wind tore at them; all the next day it screamed
about their ears, and the breakers on the beach were like great guns
of a battle. The next night it calmed down, and the next morning they
sallied forth to take account of the damage done.
They found a considerable amount of damage,--the felling of many banana
plants, half the patch in fact, the complete disappearance of every
melon vine on the point, every plant in the garden beaten into the
ground, the little pig gone, and their carefully gathered woodpile
scattered to the four winds. But all this sank into insignificance
beside the fact that not one log of the Muggywah was left to them. The
tree had been uprooted and washed away bodily, and all search up and
down the beaches revealed no trace of it. The great storm had cast many
treasures at their feet, but they were so dispirited over their losses
that they could not be very joyful over the gains.
Mechanically they lugged the wood up out of reach of the waves, which
were still pounding angrily, gathered in a number of new bottles, and
took note of the great masses of seaweed that would make fresh carpet
when it was dry. But with all the wood there was no log like those of
the lost Muggywah, and with all their gazing to sea they could not see
anything that might of a bare possibility be an uprooted tree.
They fashioned a poor sort of a raft out of the best pieces of the
driftwood, and with its aid explored the outer reefs and _esteros_
and even as far as the egg islands. The raft was clumsy and slow and
generally unmanageable, and Delbert said that it made him sick just
to look at it, but they wanted to go longer distances than they could
swim, and the float was made to serve.
At the end of about two weeks, however, Delbert said: “It’s no use,
Marian. We are only wasting time. The Muggywah simply did not lodge
anywhere near us. Maybe it didn’t lodge at all; it may be going yet, in
three different directions, and our best ropes with it.”
“Yes, more’s the pity, Delbert. I hate losing your hair rope about as
bad as losing the Muggywah herself.”
“Well,”--and the boy’s jaw set solid and square,--“there’s not a bit
more use crying over a lost boat than there is in crying over spilt
milk. We can’t find it, and we haven’t got a stick of timber fit to
put into a new one either. We can’t walk back to the Port; it would be
hundreds of miles to follow the coast line, and we should be sure to
get lost if we tried any short cuts. If Davie was a couple of years
older, I’d say to risk it. But we aren’t going to wait two more years.
I want to see mother.” His voice broke a little, but he conquered it
and went on. “There is only one thing to do; it has been in my head
kind of hazy for some time, but now I’ve got it clear; we must fix the
old canoe, Marian.”
“How?” asked Marian quietly, for she had never been able to think of
any way to do that.
“Well, we must put a framework in the side that is gone, the hole, you
know. I’m not sure yet just what is the best material, but I think
palm-leaf stems would be,--we can burn holes through the canoe to
fasten to,--a solid framework, that will not break and give way at any
little tap, and as near the shape of the other side as we can make it.
Then we’ll weave in basketwork, strong as we can, and, as we go, pack
all the cracks full of fiber and _pitalla_ tar. I’ve got it all studied
out, Marian. We’ll weave the basketwork double with a space between,
and in that space we can put stones, just enough to make that side of
the canoe as heavy as the other. We’ll mix the fiber and tar together
and pound it down as we go along, and when it’s all finished, if there
come any cracks, we can fill them in with cotton and tar, and if we
can’t jam it in tight enough so but what it still leaks some, why, one
of us can bail all the time.”
“Do you know how to make _pitalla_ tar?”
Delbert threw up his head.
“Yes, I do! That is _one_ thing I saw made that I paid enough attention
to to know how it was done. Bobbie’s Uncle Jim used to try it out.
Don’t you remember? He had a place fixed down by the old blacksmith
shop, and we kids were always fooling around there, and he showed and
explained all about it to us.”
“And for a wonder you listened?” asked Jennie.
“For a wonder I listened,” he answered, smiling grimly.
“Good boy!” said Marian. “From now on we bend our energies to the
canoe. When it is done, we won’t wait for anything more,--once we can
sail it,--we won’t wait for anything more except a still day. The first
still day we’ll start for home.”
Delbert had a great time making a retort to extract his tar. He found a
place near High-Tide Pool where there was a hole in the rock which he
could utilize, and he built it up with stones and earth till it suited
him.
Then they began gathering the _pitalla_. They had gathered everything
near them for the fireplace, but they knew where there was plenty more
to be had, so they went after it,--up the _estero_, past the tide-flats
toward the lagoon. There they could gather it, pile it high on the
clumsy raft, and float it home as they had brought the thatch-grass.
It was slow work, but there was no other way. It was not so easy to
get down to the _estero_ as the grass had been, for the _pitalla_ is
thorny indeed, but they managed it somehow, because they had to. They
could gather a good deal on the shores nearer home, but nowhere was
there such an abundance as beyond that particular _estero_.
They decided, however, never to leave the home Island alone. They had
seen several canoes since the storm, and they hoped one might come into
San Moros and near enough to be signaled. Delbert and the girls were
perfectly capable of gathering the _pitalla_ and bringing it home; so
Marian and Davie stayed at home to do the work there and watch the bay
for canoes.
Marian put in a little garden, for they could not tell how long it
might take them to finish the canoe, and she planted part of the
melon-patch over again, thinking that what they did not reap perhaps
some one else would. She straightened up the bananas and mended the
fence where they had dragged the old canoe out of it.
As soon as they had got quite a little pile of _pitalla_, they began to
burn it in the retort, and some one had to watch that and attend to it.
Delbert was sure that he lost a great deal of tar because his retort
was so crude. He was sure Bobbie’s Uncle Jim got much more out of a
pile of _pitalla_ than he did, but he had to manage as best he could.
And the tar did come; it trickled down into the little dishpan slowly
but surely, and Delbert, impatient though he was, would set his face
toward the _estero_ and bring more _pitalla_.
Every morning the three were in such a hurry to get off that they did
not stop for a hot breakfast, and they took only a light lunch with
them for noon, but Marian always had a good hot meal ready for them
upon their return. The destruction of the garden was a drawback, for
the little new one was not of service yet. Still, not all the plants
had been destroyed by the storm; some had been rescued, straightened
up, washed, and tied to stakes, and were pursuing the even tenor of
their way again, and, of course, the turnips and carrots that had
already attained their growth were as good as ever, and the newly
planted seeds would soon be making quite a showing.
Twice since the storm Delbert had killed a deer, and the meat was not
allowed to spoil. What could not be cooked immediately was salted and
dried, some of it smoked, and all was watched carefully to thwart the
flies. When the raft came back at night it would bring game of some
kind,--a rabbit killed in the brush of the shore or a fish speared
on the way down the _estero_. These would be put into the kettle
and left simmering over the coals till morning, or wrapped in green
banana leaves and buried in the hot coals, to be raked out hastily for
breakfast; and of the remnants Marian would make a stew to have piping
hot for supper, flanked by a dish of greens which she and Davie had
picked.
As they ran across them, the children brought in other things that they
needed,--tough sticks, or mescal plants to make ropes of,--and Davie
was always waiting for them on the pier to see what the particular
booty of the day was and to carry it up to the wickiup to show Marian.
And Marian always had warm water ready for them, and when they had
washed off the day’s accumulation of dirt and combed the tangled hair
and braided it anew,--they did not stop for that in the morning,--they
would sit down and eat; and they always ate all Marian had prepared for
them, too, and then filled up on bananas and chattered and chattered
like a flock of birds all the time. Then they would go down and unload
the _pitalla_ and carry it over to the retort, and by that time they
were ready to settle down in the wickiup in front of the _pitalla_ fire
for a rest.
There would be a very short session of school then, a little reading
from the rabbit-skin book, a review of the multiplication or division
tables, and a spelling-lesson. It was not much; Marian had got them
about as far as she could without books, and it did not seem as if
it mattered so much, now that the home-going was, as you might say,
in sight. They always sang in the evenings. Their mother had come of
a musical family, and Marian had taught them all the songs she knew,
and there was not one of them that could not sing sweet and clear and
strong. Marian gloried in their voices and knew that her mother would
too.
And she always had to tell them a story after lessons were over. They
said that was Marian’s lesson. She had become quite expert at it.
Usually it was a rehashing of some dimly remembered thing that she
had read, but sometimes it was a pure product of her imagination. If
it was an Indian story, why, so much the better, for the tribe never
forgot that it _was_ a tribe, though sometimes the Indian names and
pretenses would be dropped for several weeks, only to be taken up with
renewed vigor later.
When Marian thought that it was long enough since they had eaten, and
about bedtime,--her watch had stopped the year before,--they would go
down to the water and have their swim. Sometimes the water was pretty
cold, but they were so used to it that they did not stop for that any
more. Once in a while Davie was left asleep at the wickiup, but as a
rule he went with them.
They would take the raft away out from shore and have oceans of fun
plunging from it, diving, swimming races, floating, in short doing
everything that could be done in the water.
A favorite game was “rescue.” One of them would fall overboard with
a yell of “Oh, save me!” and then do as little as possible to help
himself, while another one would dive in after him and those on the
raft would paddle it off a little, so as to give the gallant rescuer
scope for his or her endeavors. They got so that there was not one of
them--except Davie--who could not take care of himself and one other
in the water, and even Davie could make a very respectable stagger at
it.
Delbert and Esther were the best swimmers; they could do the most
difficult stunts. In a straight swim, though, Marian would outlast
Esther, while Jennie fell considerably behind her.
Moonlight nights were best for this play. Marian, her paddle in hand,
watched them with exultation in her heart, they were so strong and
full of grace; and they were hers,--she had thought, studied, prayed,
watched, and worked for them. Once she had read a novel whose hero had
been described as being “straight and handsome as a young god.” That
was the phrase that always came into her mind out there on the raft as
she watched Delbert,--“straight and handsome as a young god,”--but she
never said it aloud.
And Jennie,--puny, sickly little Jennie, always the least pretty of
them all,--how slim and lovely she stood in the moonlight, her hair
in two dripping braids, her eyes like shining stars! It fairly took
Marian’s breath away sometimes to realize what a winsome beauty was
growing to be Jennie’s. She had always expected Esther to be pretty,
but that Jennie should blossom out like this!
Sometimes the water was full of phosphorescence. This was, of course,
more noticeable on dark nights, and then every move they made was a
pale blaze. That was better than moonlight; it was magic; it was a
fairyland made real. Then they quit playing they were Indians and
played they were mermaids and sea-goblins of the deep. The raft was
a Spanish galleon wrecked in ages past and drifting still, filled
with treasure. Just see how the jewels gleamed! Or it was a great sea
turtle, ridden by sea nymphs, plunging and careering, unable to throw
off its tormentors. Then it was foam of the waves, unsubstantial and
formless, and the fish that came scurrying by in silver flashes were
chased in glee.
It was always hard to coax them back to land on these nights, but
sooner or later they had to go, and they would then huddle about the
fire a little, drying their hair, before they lay down to sleep soundly
till morning. Then early the three would be up and off, generally
taking their breakfast with them to eat on the way up the _estero_,
while Marian and Davie took up their daily tasks.
Davie found it a little lonesome with Delbert and the girls gone all
day, but he was such a sunny-tempered little chap that he managed
pretty well after all. There were his lessons, which went much faster
and smoother than they had done at first, and then he helped Marian do
everything, even cook. And he made little boats and sailed them, and
he rode on Jackie, who was growing very steady and sedate this year,
and he gathered in wood and crabs. Always he watched for little shells
and other treasures of the sea, to bring to Marian for her inspection,
as she sat weaving or writing in the rabbit-skin books. It was at this
time that she wrote out “Thanatopsis,” all but six lines that she could
not for the life of her remember.
She kept her subconscious mind on the retort and went out every so
often to attend to it, for all things now were subordinate to the
tarring of that canoe. When the little dishpan was full of _pitalla_
tar and they had a nice big pile of _pitalla_ on hand, they decided to
begin on the work. So they dragged the canoe into the water at the
pier and paddled it round to the other side of the Island and dragged
it up high on the beach not far from the tar retort. Then they began
the main task to which all these weeks had been preparatory.
Marian left the housework and cooking to the girls; they could spear
the fish and gather the greens and cook them, they could boil down
the salt water and take it out on the raft to the reef and bring
back the dry salt, and they could watch the dry meat and gather the
bananas. The older sister and Delbert devoted their time to the canoe.
There were holes to be burned and the toughest and strongest of pegs
to be whittled and driven in; there was much testing of materials,
much discussion of ways and means, much sighting and squinting and
balancing. This work must be done right.
Slowly the framework grew. The basket work would be made entirely of
the split palm stems, or, if there were not enough of them, they would
put the next best thing on the top.
They tipped the old canoe into the best position to work on and propped
it up with stakes and stones. And when the framework was finished,
they called in Jennie for her opinion on the next step. So she worked
too, for none of them could weave so well--so neatly and tightly--as
she. And as she wove, Marian and Delbert began packing in the tarred
fiber. It took a lot of it, but Delbert thought that, if they ran out
entirely, they could, perhaps, use some kinds of seaweed at the top
where it would not matter so much.
Egging-time came and went. They stopped work long enough to go for eggs
once, and then Davie and the girls went alone, or Davie and Esther,
while the three older ones worked steadily on the canoe.
They had it about two-thirds done and were shifting it into a different
position one day and propping it up, when Esther and Davie came running
down the hill laughing. They had been off in the pasture. As soon as
she got within calling distance Esther began to shout, “Davie’s found a
_panal_! Davie’s found a _panal_!”
“Don’t believe it,” said Delbert shortly.
“Have,” declared Davie, coming up with a grin reaching from one ear
round to the other. “Have, too. ’S whopper. Heap big chief me. Find
whopper _panal_. All the tribe eat.”
Marian smiled indulgently. “Great brave, Hiawatha! Where did you find
it? Where Pocahontas had just pointed it out to you?”
“No,” with great scorn; “I saw it myself. _I_ pointed it out to _her_.”
“Is that so, Pocahontas?” asked Marian, still smiling.
“Yes, it is,” declared Esther; “and it is a big one, bigger than we
ever had before, and we have been by it lots of times and none of us
ever saw it before. Come on, Marian, let’s have it for supper. We
haven’t had one for a year.”
“I guess we haven’t,” agreed Marian. “Somehow _panales_ are not very
plenty. What do you say, Delbert? Shall we knock off work and take in
this newly discovered and most marvelously large _panal_?”
“All right,” said Delbert, throwing down his stake. “Let me fix the
retort first.”
So they all trooped off and were soon _en route_ to the pasture. It was
a big _panal_, and it was so near to the path that it was a thousand
wonders that they had never seen it before, with all those little
workers flying back and forth. But then it was a long way from the
wickiup, and they had been so busy with the canoe lately that they had
not been much in the pasture; and probably it had grown pretty fast and
a few weeks earlier would not have shown much.
At any rate, they took their toll of the little workers now, taking
care to leave enough of the center for them to build on again and going
off with their booty in the kettle and pail well covered. They had not
gone far when they came upon the deer, and, of course, Delbert must
try for a shot. He could have got one, a little fawn, but his heart
forbade. It was such a dainty little darling that he wouldn’t have
minded catching it alive, but as long as there was other food he would
not kill it.
It was past noon as they wended their way back. Those who were not
carrying honey gathered up wood. Davie was ahead. As they came out by
the rock where the path wound smoothly down to the pier, Davie stopped
suddenly and let his wood fall to his feet.
“Look!” he said excitedly. “What’s that? Is that a canoe by the pier?”
They all looked.
“Canoe!” said Delbert in a queer, quiet voice. “That’s the launch.”