“What is that?”
“If you ever come across a little cub, save it for me, or a pair if you can.”
“You going to stock Elm Island with bears?”
“I would if I could. Joe, what’s the reason pigeons don’t come to Elm Island? Only once in a while half a dozen light as they go over.”
“’Cause there’s nothing for them to eat there. They live on what bears do—acorns, beech-nuts, and blueberries; but on your place there’s enough for both. Come, hurry up your cakes, and get on to it, and we’ll hunt in company.”
In the afternoon Joe carried the boys down to Captain Rhines’s in the boat, with pigeons and bear’s meat enough for his family and Ben’s. After meeting Sunday, Charlie returned to the island.
CHAPTER XI.
MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS.
One would naturally suppose that Charlie, returning to the quiet of Elm Island after the exciting week he had passed, would have experienced at least a transient feeling of loneliness; but he manifested no such sentiment, and went to work at his cart-wheels with the greatest assiduity and evident enjoyment.
In the course of the week he was most agreeably surprised by a visit from John and Fred, bringing Isaac Murch, Jr., with them, now a tall, strong young man, swarthy from long exposure to the East India suns and sea-winds, bearing a very strong resemblance to his uncle, with intelligence and energy in every feature.
It was past the middle of the afternoon when the boys arrived at the island. After Isaac had spent some time with Ben and Sally, the four friends strolled up to the old maple. They told Isaac the history of the holes bored in it, and of all that had transpired in respect to temperance while he had been away, and then listened with great interest to an account of his life at sea, and the scenes he had witnessed in the East. John at length inquired if he intended to continue in the same employ; to which he replied that he did not.