Also she learned that a handful of grass so old and dry that it had all turned gray, if it were broken and rubbed till it was very fine, made good kindling. With a handful of that over her precious coal of fire, she could, with careful coaxing, get a blaze, and then it was easy to build on with other material.
Having once learned how, she felt easier. She laid up pieces of the selected wood in several places on the Island, where they would keep dry,—carried some away back into the bat cave for one place,—besides having a good supply tucked away in the home Cave.
When they went away from the Island, they would take a couple of the fire-sticks with them along with Delbert’s arrows. They used to tie them high up on the mast to keep them out of the way of spray and splashings, and Marian would slip the bottle-bottom into her pocket. The glass was somewhat clumsy, however, and there was danger of cutting her fingers on it, and afterwards they found some shells—big barnacles, I think they were—which served the purpose just as well and were neater and safer to handle.
Dried grass they could always find; so they could have a fire whenever they wanted it without using the matches, which were dropped into the workbag to await some possible emergency. On the Island, however, they found it more convenient to bury the brands from one fire over to another, as they had done before.
Their trips to the egg islands, however, did not wait on all of this. As before mentioned, there were two of these islands. On the farther and smaller of the two they found several things that proved of value. It was the one the nearer to the mainland, and some time or other there had been a house or camp of some description on it. They found the blackened stones where the food had been cooked over the fire and some broken fragments of pottery such as the natives use, and, not far away, some scraps of iron so broken and rusty that they could not make up their minds what they had been, but Marian saved them.
Growing near were shrubs and bushes like those in their own pasture, but Delbert found one bush that had two shoots longer and straighter than any he had yet seen, and when cut and trimmed they made better spear-handles than the one he had been using. And at low tide they found there the largest oysters they had yet discovered anywhere.
When back at their own camp, Marian and Delbert resolutely attacked the job of making a better spear or harpoon than the one they had. It seemed to the girl that if one only understood a little of blacksmithing, one of the pieces of iron could be altered a little and made into a very respectable spear-head, and perhaps, if one did not understand, one could learn a little.
She could easily poke the iron into the fire till it grew red-hot. To handle it afterwards was the question. She and Delbert were both afraid of getting burned, and wasted much time because of that fear.
They rigged up a rude pair of tongs with some green sticks and a little rope, and, using the hatchet for a hammer and a flat stone for an anvil, they began work. It was intensely interesting.
The experiment in “duck”-raising proved unsuccessful, for the cormorant squabs which they brought home alive would eat nothing but fish, and as each one of them demanded more than his own weight in food every day, the children soon found that the task of keeping them fed was a hopeless one. They killed them all off at once, therefore, and had such a feast of “duck” that they were content to do without that particular kind of meat for some time to come.