But minutes went on, and the fountain pen began to ooze from being too full, and none of us could think of a single thing to say.
“If we just write to him ourselves,—in our own form, I mean,” Jerry said, “it’ll be stupid. And I don’t feel maroonish here on the porch. We’ll have to wait till we go to Wecanicut again, and write from there.”
I felt somehow the way Jerry did, so we put away the things again and went out under the hemlock tree to talk about the Castaway. Greg didn’t come, and we supposed he’d gone to feed a tame toad he had that year, or something. The toad lived under the syringa bush beside the gate, and Greg insisted that it came out when he whistled for it, but it never would perform when we went on purpose to watch it, so I don’t know whether it did or not.
Under the hemlock is one of the best places in the garden for councils and such. The branches quite touch the grass, and when you creep under them you are in a dark, golden sort of tent, crackley and sweet-smelling. You can slither pine-needles through your fingers as you discuss, too, and it helps you to think. We thought for quite a long time, and then I got out the letter and spread it down in one of the wavy patches of sunlight, and we read it again.
“Did you really think anybody’d find it?” Jerry asked suddenly, and I told him I hadn’t thought so.
“Neither did I,” he said; “let alone such a jolly old soul. Why, he’d be better than Aunt on a picnic.”
“I do wonder why he has to stay there,” I said.
“Perhaps he’s a fugitive from justice,” Jerry suggested; “or perhaps he’s a prisoner and the bearded person comes out with Spanish Inquisition things to make him confess his horrible crime.”
“He sounds like a person who’d done a horrible crime, doesn’t he!” I said in scorn.
“Well, then,” said Jerry, who really has the most inspired ideas for plots, “perhaps he’s an innocent old man whose wicked nephews want to frighten him into changing his will, leaving an enormous fortune to them. And they’re keeping him on the island till he’ll do it.”