Smugglers' Island and the devil fires of San Moros

by Clarissa A. Kneeland

“If Clarence was here, he’d make her go better than she does,” said Delbert.

“I think he would,” returned Marian; “but what we don’t know about sailing her we must learn; and meantime, I am tired of living in this little hole in the rocks, and the next job on hand is to build a house. We can do it.”

The first thing to do usually is to select a site. Esther thought a good place to put the new dwelling in would be down by the pier, where the smugglers had had their house. It would be close to the water and the garden. But that took them out of sight of the bay and the distant Gulf, and mosquitoes and gnats were apt to be plentiful there at night, and so it was not to be thought of. Jennie, too, still retained her fear of the water during storms, and the higher they could get the better it would suit her. One thing about the Cave which they meant to improve upon in their new habitation was the fact that their view was cut off by the big rock in front. To see what might be out on the water they had to go clear past it, out of the house, as one might say. Of course, it sheltered them from wind and rain to a great extent, but Marian wanted to be sheltered from the elements and still be able to see out on the water.

From the mound that had been the smugglers’ house projected a crotched timber, and Marian suggested that they dig it out for their new dwelling, though she had not yet decided where to build nor what material to use.

They made some wooden rakes and shovels,—that is, they called them that,—and these did a little better for the work than the old dig-spoon and the little spade. As they dug and scraped, Marian told them of the ancient cities which lay buried for centuries and then were sometimes discovered and excavated and of the wonderful things found in them. The children were very much interested, and straightway they ceased to be Indians and became a band of eminent scientists who had discovered an ancient, oh, a very ancient, city. It was very interesting indeed, for, when you came to think of it, there was really no knowing what you might or might not find.

They finally got the timber out. It was shorter than Marian had hoped, but then the children wanted to go on and dig the whole mound over. They had found a few bits of broken pottery, which they seemed to think very wonderful, and they hoped for more riches.

So, as it seemed a pity to veto anything so exciting, Marian consented to go on with the work. It seemed almost strange that they did not find more things than they did. There were a number of other timbers unearthed, but all but one of them were too rotten to be of use. There was the half of a metate stone[5] which they made a great deal of use of afterwards, and a broken pitcher and more pieces of pottery, but none of it big enough to be of any use. There were some very small fragments of glass and quite a number of bricks; also a few rusty scraps of iron, one of which had been an oarlock and one a knife. The bricks were mixed in with a number of stones, all bearing the marks of fire,—a cooking-place of some sort evidently.

[5] A stone used for grinding Indian corn.

The children were most excited over the pitcher. It had a gay flower on one side of it, and they watched eagerly for other fragments. They found a few and fitted them together, but when all was done there was still a hole in it as big as Delbert’s fist and a piece gone from the nose, but they took as much pride in that old fragment as if it had been really something valuable.

But to Marian the bricks appealed the most. She meant to have a real fireplace in the new house, and they would aid very much. The crotched timber, short though it was, would also come in very handy, and the ground they had dug over so industriously was in fine condition for a garden.