“O, John, I tell you, we’ll go on to Indian Island, and make a birch of our own—a smasher. I know I can make one.”
“And we’ll get Uncle Isaac to work the ends with porcupine quills.”
“Then we shall have the Perseverance, Jr., to go outside in and fish, and take the girls to sail. We’ve got a boat now—no old dugout—and we’ll go exploring just where we like—way down the coast.”
As is often the case with boys, they planned employments and enjoyments enough to occupy a whole summer, while they intended to allow themselves not more than three weeks of vacation at the outside.
“I felt real bad, John, when father wrote that the partridges had gone; but come to think, I’m glad of it, ’cause they’ll breed in the woods, and if I want to try to tame some more, I can find the eggs.”
“I should be; because when it blows, and you can’t get off the island, or any time after supper, you can take the gun, and find them in the yellow birches.”
While the boys are revelling amid these anticipated pleasures, let us note what effect the announcement of their coming produced at home.
CHAPTER V.
TIGE’S NOSE BETTER THAN THE CAPTAIN’S SPY-GLASS.
No sooner had Captain Rhines received the letter, informing him of the time at which they expected to set out, than he hurried home with it, and then, getting into his boat, made sail for Elm Island, where his information caused no little gratification. He had scarcely left the shore on his errand, when Elizabeth made the discovery that there was not a needle in the house fit to sew with, nor one grain of beeswax.
“You must go to the store, Elizabeth, and get some needles and wax,” said her mother; “and tell Fred to send me half a yard of cloth from the piece I looked at yesterday. I must finish John’s waistcoat before he comes home.”