"Dear Mother:" wrote Mabel. "Please send about a thousand bananas. We are going to stay here."
All around this was an elaborate border of drawings—attempts at squirrels. Mabel had left no room for further writing.
"I hope," Mrs. Tucker said, eying the drawings, apprehensively, "that that place isn't infested with rats."
"They're rabbits," explained Mrs. Bennett, with conviction. "Mabel has quite a talent for drawing. But I wish she'd written a little more."
"She probably needs all the articles that Bettie asks for," said Mrs. Tucker. "Bettie says she's feeling fine. I suppose they found an empty farmhouse and took possession of it."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Bennett, "I can just see them moving into those empty rooms and making them as homelike as possible."
It was a good thing, perhaps, that Mrs. Bennett couldn't see the house that her daughter was living in; for it certainly wasn't much of a house, even with the extra touches that Mr. Black was adding at that very moment. But of course it was better than none. The good lady, re-enforced by Bettie's really useful list, went home to hunt up as many as she could locate of Mabel's scattered belongings; for Mabel, ever the untidiest of mortals, kept her wardrobe in the unlikeliest of places.
Poor Mr. Saunders certainly had his hands full collecting all the things for which Mr. Black and his good sister had asked—these hospitable souls were bent on providing their guests with every possible comfort. It was not easy, either, to find a boatman willing or able to go so far—the distance was greater by water than by land.
When all else was packed in Captain Berry's gasoline launch, Mr. Saunders paid Dave's fine and secured his release from the jail, for Mr. Black had written that Dave was to ride with the motley cargo. This cargo was all aboard, even to Mabel's bananas, but it was the morning of the following day before the boat was able to start, because Captain Berry, the launch-man, had discovered at dusk that his gasoline barrel was empty. By that time Dave was missing. But dauntless Mr. Saunders employed Mulligan, the policeman, to find him; and Dave, very much the worse for the liquid portion of his breakfast, was finally loaded, with his snarling dog, aboard the launch. Dave, it was only too plainly evident, was unable to resist the temptations of town life.
At last, however, to the great relief of Mr. Saunders, the launch was started on its way. "I feel," said the weary bachelor, turning away from the wharf, "just like the father of a whole orphan asylum."