Clarissa A. Kneeland

“ When it became pretty warm, the pigs assembled by the lagoon to drink and wallow in the mud. Before so very long the Muggywah appeared, with Jennie and Esther on board. They moored her out a little way and waded in. Quietly they drove the herd up toward the rocks and bushes, for, though not what could be called wild, the pigs would not permit a close approach. Presently one of them poked his nose through Delbert’s waiting noose, and Delbert fairly held his breath till he stepped on, and then he gave a mighty jerk and began hauling in his rope over the pulley. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the warp was all ready, Marian tried weaving in the cross-thread with her darning-needle, as she would have mended a sock; but that was altogether too long and tedious a process, so she hunted for a thin flat stick such as the Indians have, to weave in and turn up on edge to hold the threads apart, while she slipped through a shuttle which she made of a weed stalk. That did better, but was not wholly satisfactory, and Delbert kept thinking and thinking, trying to remember how that part of the work had been done on the carpet-loom. ”

“ They did not cross the harbor and go to climbing mountains this time, however. They took the raft down the bay and followed one of the winding esteros that led between mango bushes, off and off, farther and farther, twisting and turning and growing narrower and more and more shallow till they came out into a comparatively level country, with no hills near at hand, but great stretches of mud flats and sandbanks and miles and miles of pitalla and scrubby brush. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the new firm mast which was in no danger of falling down, they could utilize a wind that had been much too strong for them to tamper with before, and with the children able to swim like little fishes, they could brave a possible capsize or tumble overboard. Of course Marian was not going to risk the great waves outside in the Gulf, and when the wind blew the water into breakers on the Island, white and thunderous, she kept her tribe busy in the pasture or the garden. ”

“ Near the lagoon were several low hills, and on these they found the cotton-tree. This tree in its season produces big pods full of silky white cotton, and though the yield is not so very abundant, nor the quality so very fine, yet they saved every pod they could find, Delbert and Esther often climbing up for those that could not be reached from the ground with a pole.
“Some day I will invent a spinning-wheel and a loom,” said Marian, “and we will make cloth.” And the children, remembering the rope-making machine she had made, never doubted her ability. ”

“ They had never gone down into it before, having always skirted it quite a way up on the hill, for there was no sand at that part, only ragged rocks with broken shells and barnacles, interspersed with occasional clumps of mango bushes,—certainly not easy ground for little feet to run over. But this day, as they were returning home with the little dishpan of luscious sweetness, Esther had declared, “I see a bottle”; and on the strength of that declaration they climbed down into the cove, for a bottle would be a very valuable thing to have. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If I lost one of you in trying to get back, I should never be happy again.”
“How well shall we have to swim?” asked Esther.
“Better than any of us do now,” said Marian. “We must be able to swim so well that if the Muggywah should swamp or turn turtle out there, we could all get to shore if we had to. It is a good deal, but we can do it in time. Clarence could have done it, but it may take us several years yet. We don’t dare go out of the bay yet, and we all get tired out if we have much hard paddling to do; but to go to the Port in the Muggywah would take several days. ”

“ When they first began their life on the Island, Delbert was the only one who could swim to amount to anything. Clarence had taught him, and he had been a very apt pupil; but the others knew so little of the useful art that Marian herself dared not venture beyond her depth, while the little girls declined water that was more than knee-deep and Davie preferred it even less than that. But already there was a vast improvement among them all. As the way to learn to walk is to get up and walk, so the way to learn to swim is to strike out and swim, and they were following that method. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ She had an idea that Davie must not be moved at all for a week at least, and as a precaution against this she tied the bandaged leg to the side of the wickiup. For the life of her she could not remember how long it took a broken bone to heal, though she must some time have heard some one say; and of course the others were no wiser. Delbert had it running in his head that it was three weeks, but Jennie said, “No, that is how long it takes a chicken to hatch.”
“Anyway,” said Esther, “when it does grow together it itches awfully. I heard Mr. Faston say so.” ”

“ Marian held up a couple of light shoulder shawls. “Delbert has his coat,” she said, “and Esther and I never want anything around us anyway. There are always a couple of blankets on the launch seats.”
“Oh, you foolish child,” declared the lady; “you wait.” She ran back into the house, and in a moment came back with a very large heavy circular cape, “There, you take this,” she said. “It will cover you and Esther and the baby too. Jennie will need both those flimsy shawls. You know it won’t do to let her get chilled.” ”

“ Then came the question of a line.
“Delbert,” she said, “quite a while ago wasn’t Bobbie’s Uncle Jim teaching you boys how to braid round whiplashes? Yes? Well, do you remember now how he did it?”
“I guess I do,” said the boy slowly; “but you haven’t got near enough thread to make a line strong enough to amount to shucks. That colored silk would be all right, but you’ve got only a teenty bit of that.”
Marian smiled. “Why is your rope better than a common one?” she asked him.
“’Cause it’s hair and it won’t rot and wear out like the fiber ones.” ”

“ Marian laughed. “I had no notion of bringing it,” she said. “Well, Mr. Pearson, I guess we are all ready. You’d better start off before we think of something else we might like to take.”
“Just think, Marian,” said Delbert; “Mr. Pearson has not been outside the harbor since he has been here.”
“No? Never been to the Rosalie Group, Mr. Pearson?”
Pearson cleared his throat. “No; when a man is busy he don’t get much time for picnics,” he said.
“I am to show him the way,” continued Delbert, “and he is to make the launch go there.” ”

“ Trip after trip she made up the hillside with the rope and hatchet, and her face and hands were scratched with the thorny brush. The children grew tired of helping, and Davie was crying because he was hungry, for Marian would not stop to prepare food. She dared not. In that little pool was food, food. If she could shut the way across before the tide came in, then she and her little ones were safe without question for some time to come; if not—“Why, Delbert,” she said, “we might live here for years before we should have such a chance again.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ He found life very interesting and satisfactory and felt no need of more extensive society. His comical baby ways were closely watched and intensely enjoyed by the other children, who loved him dearly, and they would eagerly report to Marian everything funny he did when she was not present. Even when he was naughty, which he occasionally was, they were rather apt to overlook it and laugh at the funny spectacle he made of himself. Delbert, though, would get provoked sometimes. ”

“ It takes money to travel, and ordinary people cannot get money so easily that they can afford to spend it on anything that is not strictly necessary. Certainly Clarence wanted badly enough to go and show the way to Smugglers’ and search for his old playmates, but the best he could actually do was to make a map of the coast and San Moros as well as he could remember it, and give it to Mr. Hadley, with the name of the old Indian who had told him about Smugglers’ in the first place, but who, doubtless, had slept with his fathers for years now. ”

“ Food!—that was the main topic of conversation,—to find clams, to get big crabs, to make traps and set and watch them afterwards. Never a fish was sighted but they wondered if it was good to eat; never a bird flew over but they discussed whether or not it would cook up tender. Delbert used to go twice a day, at least, to look over his traps. Simple things they were, made of sticks fastened together with strips of rag torn from the towel that had been wrapped around the bread, and afterwards of the fibrous stems of the banana leaves. ”

“ This is too good a thing to let the tide take away from us. Why, there must be fish enough in there to last us a week at least, maybe two. See, Delbert, we must build some kind of a fence across, so they can’t get away when high tide does come. Then we can come every day and get what we want till they are all gone.”
Delbert splashed right out without more remarks.
“We can do it with rocks and sticks and brush,” she continued. “It won’t be possible to drive stakes in the ground here, because it isn’t ground,—it is all rock,—but we can make them stand firm by piling rocks around them.” ”

“ The Harrises had been old neighbors at the Port, being in fact none other than the family who numbered among its members the Clarence to whom the Island Hawks felt that they owed so much.
Clarence was not a boy now; he was a man grown, but he still lived at home and helped his father run a fruit ranch of about four times the size of that of the Hadleys. A man grown he was, but in many respects the same boy, as was proved by the way his widowed sister’s children trailed at his heels all day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The fierce protective spirit of58 motherhood swept over her. They were hers, these little ones; come what would, they should not perish, they should be fed, sheltered, cared for. They should have their child’s rights of tender love and happiness. Esther, running up just then, was caught in a close embrace and kissed fervently.
The Cave afforded the best shelter for night that they could find. As soon as things were dried up a little from the storm, Marian set about improving it somewhat. For tools she had only the hatchet, Esther’s spade, the dig-spoon, and Delbert’s knife and lariat. ”