John Fleming Wilson

“ Mrs. Evans glanced quickly at her and a sudden blazing tenderness came into her weary eyes. “And you, too! You dear child!”
She held out her arms, and Meta swept into them, sobbing, “Yes, yes!”
When they were gone, crying over each other womanlike and softly, Nelson stood up and looked at me.
“Holding master’s papers, I am competent to perform marriages, my son. Shake hands!”
But One Hop, the Chinese cook, bent smiling over his work, silent inscrutable; and up the hill Anerson stood amid the great stalks, alone in the garden he had no share in. ”

“ Nelson assembled us in the windy dawn and addressed us solemnly.
His remarks were made with the tilted hulk as a background—a grim commentary.
“We’re on an island that no one ever heard about,” he said. “How we got here doesn’t concern us now. But we are. The Indian Star is a total wreck, so entire that we must hasten to secure what provisions may be left. And”—he lowered his tones—“this islet is absolutely barren, so far as I can tell now. So we must get provisions off the ship to last us until we are picked up.” ”

“ The wreck rode to the drag of the cable in uneven swings. Now she took a wave on the starboard bow, now on the left. Once in a. while a sullen crash and sharp quiver of the hulk told of a surge met squarely.
Through the heavy glasses in the ports of the low deck-house came a slight glow, showing that the survivors of the crew still felt confidence in their shelter.
“She’s riding it well!” I cried in Nelson’s ear.
“Not long!” he bellowed back. “Ship’s old—leaking—sea rising.”
And then we were joined by a third figure, Meta Braun. ”

“ Nelson said. “But as she fills up”—he knuckled the table furiously with his brine-drenched hands—“why haven’t we a ship left? God!”
At that moment, as if invoked by the appeal, entered the cook, a Chinese known to us as One Hop. He bore in his slender brown arms a steaming bowl of soup. ”

“ For we had all got such a loathing for salmon that we ate only enough to keep us alive, or to satisfy an unnatural craving. Yet there was one gratification I had—she was barely civil to Anerson, who now openly and violently made love to her. ”

“ Not even a seed has grown!”
“It’s the old question of the owl and the egg,” I said, trying to jest. “The seed or the plant—which is first?”
“Only one seed, and we could have a new creation, couldn’t we?” she responded in a lighter tone. “Maybe we could find a seed.”
“We’ll have plenty of time to hunt for one,” I couldn’t help saying.
By the camp-fire, now replenished by the assiduous Chinaman, we found the rest of the party busy opening some salmon. Evans was testing it carefully.
“Best ever,” he announced. Ruthie, you and Meta will have to get up a salmon cook-book.” ”

“ The wreck’ll be gone in another day, my son.”
“I suppose no ships ever take this slant, either,” I suggested.
Nelson sniffed. “Right you are; they don’t. You can see that this island is as bare as a skull. No bird ever roosted here; there’s only a few mussels on the rocks, and—well, human nature on a bare rock like this isn’t what it is in a city. ”

“ Evans, spreading her little hands out in dismay.
Meta smiled faintly. “I’d rather have a dozen lemons, seeing it’s to go on salmon. Next time I’m wrecked I’m going to have all the seeds with me.”
Nelson stopped short as he passed and looked down at her. “Seeds? Seeds? There ought to be seeds somewhere around. Why not look for ’em?”
“Just one seed!” she said eagerly. “Just one might do!”
I shall never forget the next three weeks. Imagine us all waking before the dawn to search for seeds.
We examined the beach, in hopes that some stray grains might have floated in from the wreck. ”

“ Time had elapsed sufficient for the skiff to have arrived at Honolulu and for a rescue steamer to come for us. But Nelson refused to discuss the matter. So at last I took it up with Meta one blowy morning while she tended the corn.
She dropped her rough hoe and looked at me long and intently when I had briefly stated the fact that every day made hope of rescue fainter.
“Yes,” she admitted. “That is true. And Mrs. Evans will not live long.”
She wrinkled her brows a little, glanced at the fat stalks amid which she stood, and then came to a sudden decision. ”

“ She cast her gaze down on the grit at her feet. “And nothing has ever been born here!” she breathed.
“God-forsaken!”
“No,” she corrected me gently. “God hasn’t come yet. We’re just in one of God’s new empty houses. ”

“ And in order that the skiff might stand a chance of arriving somewhere—on which our own safety also depended—its crew must have bread and whatever else we had that could give them strength for their voyage.
There was a profound stillness. Evans opened his mouth several times, but said nothing. Mrs. Evans merely stared at the shadowed figure of the grim sailor, while Meta Braun seemed lost in thought. Nelson finally spoke abruptly, as a commander to his men:
“Take the skiff and the grub. You ought to make the Hawaiians, with any kind of good weather. Tell ’em we’re here. ”

“ Thereafter the cook slept and ate by this precious grain. I don’t know what all he and Meta talked of nor how they forced pidgin English into the channels of their ideas.
But one morning I found them both kneeling over a small spear of green. When the announcement was made in the camp we made a pilgrimage to the spot.
Mrs. Evans, who had refused food, except the oil from the salmon, for two days, became hysterical. Evans himself stolidly supported her on his shoulder, and later he and Anerson carried her back to the shelter. She had fainted. ”