"Do you remember Gabriel Betteredge?" asked Adam, a day or so later, as he watched her set the house in order after their breakfast. "You know in times of great mental perturbation he always sought comfort and counsel from the pages of 'Robinson Crusoe.' When in doubt he waited until to-morrow, as Robinson advised; and no matter what his perplexities, he always found just what he wanted in that infallible book. If I remember correctly, but it's years since I read it, Robinson goes on a voyage of discovery the first thing."
"He built a raft to get away from the wreck first, I think," she said reflectively. "Or did he build the raft to get to the wreck? I can't remember. And then he built a house. Somewhere along there he wrote down his situation in a deadly parallel; I have sometimes wondered if he was the inventor of that style. But he offset the debit of being cast away with gratitude for having escaped with his life. We're not, at least I'm not, sure that belongs on the credit side."
"We don't want to do much exploring yet," he answered. "If we have no wreck to supply us with all sorts of things, we have a house ready to hand, not exactly as we would either of us have ordered it, I fancy, but better than we could build. Do you know what there is in it? We might begin our investigations here."
"'With lamp in hand we will explore,'" she hummed, "but two rooms and a cellar do not promise much. There is nothing to see in this room, except what we do see, and the contents of that chest, which is locked."
Adam tried the lock, then shook the chest. "There's nothing in it, anyhow," he said.
"As to the other room," she went on, "there is a bedroom set,—a better one than I should have expected to find in a place like this,—and a closet with some clothes in it. The man was about your size, but the feminine garments—well—they are all about the length of my bicycle skirt, and on the shelf there is a pile of bedding. There is no trap door leading into either subterranean or overhead apartments. In fact, there is nothing else, except a chair. It's very uninteresting."
Adam had been moving about the room, and stopped before the bookshelf. He wound the clock mechanically, and read the titles of the books aloud. A chemistry, a book on electricity, a Bible, a worn copy of Tennyson, the "Yankee at King Arthur's Court," and a patent medicine almanac made up the list.
"There is one mysterious thing," he said, "and that is the packing cases out under the shed. I can't make up my mind what they contain, and I don't quite feel that we ought to open them; I should like to; they look as if they might hold—"
"Canned goods?" she said interrogatively.
"I was going to say books, but I suppose we need canned lobster more," he assented. "If you are sure they contain oats, peas, beans, or barley, or anything that the farmer knows, that would justify me in opening them." He took up a hatchet, and they went out and inspected the boxes, which were very large and strong.