"There!" Jim gestured toward the wooden framework on the right wall.
Percy thrust his hand into one of the bunks.
"Why, there's no mattress or spring here! It's only a bare box!"
"That's just what it is, Whittington! You've hit the nail on the head this time. You'll have to spread your blanket on the soft side of a pine board. If you want something real luxurious you can go into the woods and cut an armful of spruce boughs to strew under you."
Percy disregarded this badinage. From his view-point the situation was too serious for jesting. It was outrageous that he, the son of John P. Whittington, should be expected to shift for himself like an ordinary fisherman.
"I'm not used to living in a pigpen!" he snapped. "This cabin's too dark to be healthy; besides, it isn't clean."
A spark of temper flashed in Spurling's eyes.
"Stop right there, Whittington! This is my uncle Tom's cabin. Any place that's been shut up for weeks seems stuffy when it's first opened. You'll find that there are things a good deal worse than salt and tar and fish and a few cobwebs. I want to tell you a story I read some time ago. Once in the winter a party of Highlanders were out on a foray. Night overtook them beside a river in the mountains, and they prepared to camp in the open. Each drenched his plaid in the stream, rolled it round his body, and lay down to rest in the snow, knowing that the outside layers of cloth would soon freeze hard and form a sleeping-bag. In the party were an old chieftain and his grandson of eighteen. The boy wet his plaid like the others, but before he lay down he rolled up a snowball for a pillow. The old chief kicked it out from under the lad's head. He didn't propose to have his grandson be so effeminate as to indulge himself in the luxury of a pillow when everybody else was lying flat on the ground."
Whittington grunted. "I don't see how that applies to me."
"In this way. You've lived too soft. You need something to wake you up to the real hardships that men have to go through. Then you won't be so fussy over little things. Perhaps I've talked plainer to you than I should; but I believe in going after a fellow with a club before his face rather than a knife behind his back. Now let's open those windows so the fresh air can blow through, build a fire in the stove to dry out the damp, and get everything shipshape. After supper we'll go up on top of the island and take a look about."