Part 10 (1/2)

The two girls worked at the trunk from opposite sides. The air was growing hotter and hotter, the insects became very troublesome, and as time went on and the incisions they had made in the sappy wood were still very shallow, both felt very much discouraged.

”We shall never get through the wretched thing,” said Tommy in disgust.

”Can't we snap it off, Bess?”

”I'm afraid that would only splinter it,” said Elizabeth. ”It is a bother. What troubles me most is that our knives will be hopelessly blunted if it takes so long to cut one tree. Still, we must peg away.

You rest now, Tommy, and let Mary try again.”

Tommy got up with relief, and strolled a few yards away while her sisters continued the work. In a few minutes she came running back.

”What idiots we are!” she cried. ”Stop work, you two. We needn't break our backs or our wrists at all. Come and look.”

She led them to the edge of the gra.s.sy knoll, and pointed to three small trees standing within a few feet of each other about the same distance apart, and forming the corners of a sort of triangle.

”There!” she said. ”Don't you see? There's half our work done for us.

Those three trees can be the corner posts of our hut, and we can use the branches to make a roof.”

Quite excited at her discovery, she pointed out that two of the trees had each thrown out a branch about seven feet from the ground, and the third had a branch a little higher. These overhanging branches protected one side of the triangle, and Tommy suggested that they could be employed as a framework upon which they might spread mats woven from the gra.s.ses on the bank of the stream.

”It would take a terrible time to weave the mats,” said Mary dubiously.

”Not so long as to cut down the trees,” replied Tommy, ”and not nearly so hard work. What do you say, Bess?”

”It's a capital idea, but I can't weave.”

”Oh, we'll soon teach you that,” said Tommy. ”You didn't go to a kindergarten like Mary and me; but it's not very different from the string work you did on board. Come along; let's make a start.”

They went hopefully to the bank of the stream, but when they tried to cut down the rushes, they found that their knives were already blunt.

As the day was now very hot, and they were hungry and tired, they resolved to have an early dinner, then rest for a while, and later on sharpen their knives on stones at the beach and try again.

By the evening they had cut a large quant.i.ty of gra.s.ses, which they placed in a heap to be weaved next day. They decided again to sleep in the boat, and returned to it just before sunset by way of the clump of banana-trees, carrying their supper with them.

”We have made a good start,” said Elizabeth cheerfully, as they sat munching bananas in the boat.

”Yes, but I tell you what,” said Tommy, ”I'm getting tired of bananas.”

”Already!” said Mary, smiling. ”Don't you remember how you said once at home you'd love to live in a banana plantation, where you could pick as many as you liked?”

”And you told me the story of a greedy boy who loved cake, and dreamt that he was in the middle of a big one, and had to eat his way out. I was a silly kid then. Anyway, I'm sick of bananas now, and people say it's bad to have no change of diet.”

”But what can we do?” said Elizabeth. ”We haven't seen anything else.”

”Except birds,” said Mary. ”Pigeon-pie is rather nice.”

”We might snare some,” said Tommy, ”or fish--what about fish? They'd be easiest to catch, I expect. I've got some string, and we can easily find something that'll do for a rod.”

”And a bent pin for a hook,” said Mary.

”Now just listen to that!” said Tommy. ”Anybody would think we were going fis.h.i.+ng for sticklebacks. No fish worth cooking would ever let himself be hooked by a bent pin. We'll find something better than that.”