That week the children made all their plans for passing the winter in the cave. Already all their stores were safely placed in the inner cave. It was just a question of getting the outer cave comfortable and home-like. Peggy was wonderful at this sort of thing.
“You two boys must make a few shelves to put round the cave,” she said. “You can weave them out of stout twigs, and put them up somehow. We will keep our books and games there, and any odd things we want. You must somehow manage to hang the lantern from the middle of the roof. Then, in the corner over here we will have our beds of heather and bracken. You boys can bring that in, too. If it’s wet we’ll dry it by the fire. The bracken is getting old and dry now - it should make a fine bed.”
Peggy swept up the floor of the cave with a brush made of heather twigs, and then she and Nora threw fine sand on it which they had brought from the beach. It looked very nice. The boys brought in the heather and bracken for the beds. Peggy arranged them comfortably, and then threw a blanket over each bed but one. There were only three blankets - two new ones and one old one - so it looked as if someone must go without.
“What’s the fourth bed going to have for a blanket?” asked Jack.
And then Peggy brought out a great surprise! It was a fur rug, made of rabbit skins that she had carefully cleaned, dried, and sewn together! How the others stared!
“But how lovely, Peggy!” said Jack. “It’s a most beautiful fur rug, and will be as warm as toast. We’ll take it in turns to have it on at night.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Peggy, pleased to find the others admired her rabbit rug so much. “It was very hard to sew the skins together, but I did it at last. I thought it would be a nice surprise for when the cold weather came!”
Soon the cave began to look very homely indeed. The shelves were weighed down with the books and games. The lantern swung in the middle, and they all knocked their heads against it before they became used to it there! The beds lay neatly in the corners at the back, covered with blankets and the rabbit rug. In another corner stood the household things that Peggy was always using - the kettle, the saucepans, and so on.
And then Jack brought out a surprise - a nice little table he had made by himself! He had found the old plank the children had brought with them months ago when they first came to the island, and had managed, by means of a saw he had bought during his marketing, to make a good little table for Peggy!
It was a bit wobbly. The four legs were made of tree branches, the straightest Jack could find, but it was difficult to get them just right. He had sawn the plank into pieces, and nailed them together to make a square top to the table, and this was very good. Peggy was delighted!