A LOCAL HABITATION
"Now, my dears," said Elizabeth as they sat at breakfast next morning, "I've got an idea."
"Hurray!" cried Tommy. "What is it, Bess?"
"It's just this. We must act as if we were going to stay on this island for ever."
Tommy gasped, and a look of dismay came into her eyes.
"Don't you think we'll be rescued, then?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't give up hope. We may be seen from a ship any day, or Uncle may come for us; but we can't depend on it. Plenty of men and boys have been shipwrecked like us on a lonely island, and have managed to shift for themselves. Why shouldn't we? We're used to outdoor work: at least, I am, and it would be an odd thing if we couldn't manage to make ourselves comfortable on an island like this, with half our work already done for us."
"What do you mean?" asked Mary.
"Why, if you're right about there being plenty of fruit—and I don't see why you shouldn't be—we shan't have to grow our food, and that's the chief thing. So we shall have more time for other things. The first thing is to see just what we've got. Here's mine."
She turned out her pocket, and displayed two handkerchiefs, a thimble, a small whistle and her jack-knife.
"That's not a great deal," she said, smiling. "Now, Mary."
"There's my knife, and a hanky, and my little pen-knife, and hurray! my housewife."
And as she suddenly remembered that on the night before the storm she had been mending her uncle's clothes, the recollection almost moved her to tears.
"I've got the most," said Tommy, with a laugh. "Look here—scissors, hanky, some bits of string, my match-box, jack-knife, picture postcard of an aeroplane—wish we had an aeroplane!—and——"
She had unfolded a much-worn scrap of paper; now she folded it again and replaced it in her pocket.
"What is it?" asked Elizabeth.
"It's only that stupid old receipt for butterscotch: no good to us here."
They all smiled.
"Well, we can't boast of much in the way of personal possessions," said Elizabeth; "but we have the boat, two oars, a boat-hook, the painter, a few cups and things, my string bag, that's a lucky find—and our macintoshes. More than Crusoe had."
"Not so much, Bess," said Mary. "You don't remember. I always think Crusoe was jolly lucky."
"I dare say you are right. Well, we've taken stock. That's one good thing done. Now what do you say to building a hut?"
"What! With scissors and knives?" asked Mary.
"You'll see. We ought to try, I think. The weather is lovely now, but I shouldn't care about sleeping in the boat in a rainstorm, even under a macintosh. And you know how it rains in these tropical parts."
"It'll be great fun," said Tommy, "but I don't see how it's to be done."
"We'll have to cut down some saplings with our jack-knives. I don't quite see myself what we shall do next, but that will be a start, anyway, and I dare say ideas will come as we go along."
"That doesn't sound much like an architect," said Tommy, "but let's try. It will give us something to do and keep us from getting catty."
Elizabeth smiled as she saw her intentions thus realized.
"We must choose our site," she said. "Surveying, don't they call it?"
"All settlements are made near running water," said Mary, "so it ought to be near the stream."
They followed with their eyes the course of the bright little stream as it flowed out of the woodland down to the shore. There was no suitable spot for the hut near at hand, and to find one involved going farther than they had yet ventured to go. But having now a definite object in view they found themselves a little more courageous, and springing up they set off along the bank of the stream towards the higher ground. They walked cautiously and in silence, looking about them with wide-open eyes, ready to flee at the slightest alarming sight or sound. Suddenly Tommy said in a whisper—
"Here! this is the very place."
She indicated a grassy knoll some ten or twelve feet above the bed of the stream. The girls stopped at its edge and looked at it. On the inland side it was fringed with a row of small trees; seaward the view was uninterrupted.
"It looks nice," said Mary. "Let's measure it."
Elizabeth, being the tallest, stepped the grassy plot from end to end and from side to side.
"I make it about twenty feet by sixteen," she said, "just about the size of our dining-room at home. I think it will do splendidly. There's water close at hand; there are plenty of saplings in the woods beyond; and the hillside will protect us from storms, unless they come from the sea."
"And what a lovely outlook it has!" said Mary, turning towards the sea. "We couldn't have a nicer place."
"Then we will fix on it," said Elizabeth. "Now who's to be architect?"
"Oh, you, Bess!" said Tommy; "we're no good at that."
"I'm afraid I'm not either," said Elizabeth, laughing. "But I suppose we ought to put up some posts for the walls, and weave rushes and things between them. Anyway, the first thing is to cut down some stout saplings that will be strong enough."
"Well, there are plenty in the woods; quite close too," said Tommy.
"But how can we cut them down?" asked Mary; "we haven't axes or saws."
"We have our knives, though," said Tommy. "Come on, let's begin."
They went into the wood, where the trees at the edge were not at all dense, and selected several saplings of about the same height and thickness. Then each dropped on her knees before one of the saplings, scratched a circular line on the bark and began to hack away at this with the knife. For some time nothing was heard but the slight sounds made by the knives; each girl worked hard as though engaged in a competition. But presently Tommy straightened her back, and uttered a sort of sighing grunt.
"How are you getting on?" asked Elizabeth, without desisting from her task.
"All right," cried Tommy, stooping and setting to work furiously. "They shan't beat me," she said to herself.
But in a few minutes Mary gave a plaintive little exclamation, dropped her knife, and rubbed her right hand with her left.
"You're soon tired," said Tommy, working harder than ever.
"I think my tree must be a specially tough one," said Mary. "I don't seem to make much impression, and my wrist does ache so."
"Take a rest, dear," said Elizabeth. "Shouldn't we get on better if two worked at the same tree while the other rested? We could take it in turns. When we have cut down the first, we shall have something to show for our work."
"A good idea!" said Tommy, springing up and running to Elizabeth's tree. "You take first spell off, Mary."
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 grassy 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 grasses 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 quantity of grasses, 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 fishing for sticklebacks. No fish worth cooking would ever let himself be hooked by a bent pin. We'll find something better than that."
"We'll see what we can do to-morrow," said Elizabeth. "We've never done any sea-fishing, and fishing in the river at home won't help us much, I fancy. Still, we can try, and I'd like a little fish for a change. You both look awfully tired, so let's go to sleep now; we shall have plenty to do in the morning."
And Elizabeth, as she laid herself down that night, felt happy in the success of her plan. "If we can only keep busy," she said to herself, "all will be well. But I do hope it won't be for long."