“Amos likes to stay here,” said Amanda, lowering her voice to a whisper; “he thinks it is fun to live as Indians do, and he doesn’t want to go home. If he gets enough to eat he’ll stay and stay, and then he can tell Jimmie Starkweather of being wrecked on an island.”
“Couldn’t we get across to Long Point?” asked Anne.
“No. We can’t swim, and ’twould be foolish to try,” answered Amanda.
“We’ll have cooked fish for dinner,” said Amos as they ate beach-plums for breakfast. “I’m sure I can find some punk somewhere on this island, and while I am looking for it you girls gather all the dry twigs you can find, make a good-sized hole in the sand and fill it up with dry stuff that will take fire quickly, and I’ll show you how Indians cook.”
“I’d rather have some Indian meal mush,” replied Amanda; “can’t you swim across to Long Point, Amos, and hurry home and send some one after us?”
Amos looked at her in astonishment, and then smiled broadly. “I know a better way than that,” he said, and without waiting to answer the girl’s eager questions he ran off toward the thicket of pines.
“We’ll dig the hole in the sand, and then find some dry wood,” said Anne; “anything cooked will taste good, won’t it?”
“Amos knows some way to get us home,” said Amanda, “and he’s got to tell us what it is, and start just as soon as he cooks his old fish. I wonder what it is!”
Now that Amanda saw a prospect of getting home she felt more cheerful and so did Anne; and they gathered dry brush, bits of bark and handfuls of the sunburned beach-grass until the hole in the sand was filled, and there was a good-sized heap of dry brush over it.
“Do you suppose Amos can really make a fire?” asked Anne.