Tubby, nothing loath, sat down and breathed heavily. The day was hot in spite of the high wind.
Wyn got all the shoe strings and tied them together, with a bolt fastened to the lower end for a sinker, and let it down to the ground. There Tubby attached the end of the clothes line and they pulled it up. It was long enough, and strong enough, and Dave carefully raised the bucket of water–and oh! how good it tasted to the thirsty prisoners.
They were all provided with cups, for the Academy teachers and the Denton mothers were rather insistent on that point.
“But, oh, golly!” burst forth Frank, “if they’d only made us always carry an emergency ration.”
“We didn’t expect to be cast away on a desert island in this fashion,” said Dave.
But Wyn had another idea.
“There are melons on the back porch. I saw them there this morning. Go get us a lot, Tubby. Send ’em up by the bucket-full. And there are tomatoes in the garden, and some summer apples on that tree by the fence corner. We’ll make it all right with Mrs. Prosser. Why, say! we sha’n’t starve.”
“I’ll get you some eggs if you want ’em,” suggested the willing youth. “I hear the hens cackling.”
But all objected to raw eggs and thought the melons and fresh tomatoes would suffice.
“You go back to camp and report,” ordered Dave, through the window. “The prof, and Mrs. Havel will be having conniption fits if these girls don’t show up pretty soon. Tell ’em we’re all right–but goodness knows we want the wind to stop blowing.”