IN about two weeks a brood of twelve chickens was hatched out, and the old hen fastened in the coop made no end of clucking and feather-ruffling in her anxiety that the fluffy, yellow-feathered little innocents should come to no harm. They ran in and out between the bars at pleasure, and very soon made friends with their mistress Alice, who could, or thought she could, distinctly recognize each of the little brothers and sisters, and distinguish one from another. In proof of this she named one after each of the twelve months of the year. By feeding them every day she soon got the whole brood so that it would come at call, and some of the chicks would frequently jump into her lap, or eat from her hand in a perfectly fearless manner. It was pleasant to hear her talk to her little pets and call them by name. The one she called April was a feeble little yellow chick, much put upon and driven about by the others, especially by the stout-legged, fluffy, brown ball named October, which seemed to be ever on the watch to snatch a bug or worm from the weakling.
“Now you bad, bad October,” I one time overheard her say, “I shall certainly have to lock you up, if you do not let April’s bugs alone. You selfish little creature, you drop a nice, fat worm of your own to snatch a bitter little bug away from poor April, and when you get it you don’t like it. Serves you quite right, and April has got your worm and run away with it, too. Why, December, I do believe you are losing the beautiful stripes on your back. Come, June; come, September, and you too, August. There, there,—no fighting; brethren should dwell together in unity.” Her father called the brood her Sunday-school class, and remarked with a smile, “Girls are all alike; they must have something to love and pet, and the more helpless it is the better they like it.”
The work of rope-yarn-making went steadily on day by day, the pile of the product of our labor growing by slow accretion, until it was a great heap. This was such very tedious work that you may be sure I kept up a steady thinking all the while how to lessen and lighten it. I thought of two schemes before long that would very materially diminish the amount of rope-yarn required. The first of these schemes to take form in my mind related to a substitute for the two great hawsers which we had thought would be required, one to go under the bow and one under the stern of the sunken galleon. I said nothing about this idea until it was fully matured in my mind. Then one day as I finished a half-hour’s grind, with the perspiration streaming from every pore and the breath about all gone from my body, I said:—
“Mr. Millward, what do you say to quitting for the day? It is now nearly noon. I feel as though I would like to go fishing.”
He looked at me a moment, and then replied, “I don’t wonder. I feel that way myself. If you are for a fishing excursion I am with you with all my heart. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’”
Immediately after dinner we overhauled the fish lines—real ones with genuine hooks this time, which belonged to Mr. Millward’s stores—and collecting a supply of whelks, clams, and shrimps for bait, were all ready for embarking by the time Alice came down to the boat. Just beyond the bar and the rollers we anchored the boat, and the sport very soon began by Mr. Millward pulling up a fine red-snapper, and continued until we had caught half a dozen fine fish. Then they ceased to bite for a long time, and the cause was made apparent by Miss Alice hauling up a three-foot spotted shark, which managed to break the line and get away. But though after that we sat patiently for an hour or two, there were no more fish to be had. The pirate was cruising about, and honest fish were not out in that neighborhood.
“Mr. Millward,” said I after a spell of silence, uninterrupted by bites, “I think we are done making rope, or nearly so at last.”
“Why, we are not half done, according to a liberal estimate,” replied he, looking up in surprise. “We have barely enough rope for the gourds, to say nothing of the much greater quantity needed for the two four-inch hawsers.”
“But,” said I, “suppose we don’t need the hawsers? I have an idea that it will be much easier to build a framework of beams strong enough to lift the hulk by, and thus dispense with the hawsers. At any rate even if it took almost the same amount of work—and it will not—I would favor a change of labor. The rope-making is getting very monotonous.”
“I most certainly agree with you in that,” he replied; “it does seem an endless task. But tell me how you propose to construct and attach your framework.”