“And I expect we’ll find members of our families there, too,” added Jim. “Say, this is a regular little New Bedford, isn’t it?”
But while the boys found plenty of Chesters and Lathrops, as their new friends had stated, they were all old English families, and the two boys were rather disappointed that they could not boast of having relatives on the queer, mid-ocean island.
They found the place very interesting, with its winding, crooked paths, and houses built of beach pebbles like the fishermen’s cottages in England, and they were tremendously surprised at the variety and luxuriance of the vegetables growing in tiny, irregular gardens sheltered among the huge volcanic boulders. Reaching the Potter residence, the four left Cap’n Pem chatting and gossiping with his white-headed cousin, Lem, and with Paul and his brother, climbed up the steep hillside.
Far up on the mountain slope the boys threw themselves upon a little patch of soft, gray moss and gazed down at the panorama of the island far below, with the Hector, looking like a toy ship against the deep green water, and the cottages so much like piles of brown rocks that they appeared mere portions of the landscape. Already, the people were busy gathering the vegetables and cattle for the bark and the boys could hear their shouts and could see them hurrying about like busy ants.
“What do you do to amuse yourselves?” asked Tom, at last.
“Us have plenty to do,” Paul replied. “There’s the gardens to be planted an’ cared for an’ the cattle an’ fishin’ an’ gathering kelp, and betimes we egg or hunt.”
“What do you gather kelp for?” asked Jim.
“And what do you hunt and egg?” inquired Tom.
“Kelp’s for to fert’lize the gardens,” explained Paul. “Grows big here, twenty fathom long sometimes, an’ after storms it looses up and gets adrift an’ us gathers it an’ rots it for the land. Goats is what we hunt, plenty o’ wild ones here, an’ betimes we go sealing an’ fishing. I like egging best. It’s more exciting.”
“How do you go egging?” asked Jim.