“Yes,” said Jack. “Now you two girls wash up the mugs again, and Mike and I will find a good place for the stores.”
The girls went to the water and washed the things. The boys wandered up the beach - and, at the back of the sandy cove, they found just the very place they wanted!
There was a sandy bank there, with a few old willows growing on top of it, their branches drooping down. Rain had worn away the sandy soil from their roots, and underneath there was a sort of shallow cave, with roots running across it here and there.
“Look at that!” said Jack in delight. “Just the place we want for our stores! Nora, Peggy, come and look here!”
The girls came running. “Oh,” said Peggy, pleased, “we can use those big roots as shelves, and stand our tins and cups and dishes on them! Oh, it’s a proper little larder!”
“Well, you girls, get the stores from the cove and arrange them neatly here,” said Jack. “Mike and I will go and fill the kettle from the spring, and we’ll see if there isn’t a nearer spring, because it’s a long way up the hill and down the other side.”
“Can’t we come with you?” asked Peggy.
“No, you arrange everything,” said Jack. “It had better all be done as quickly as possible, because you never know when it’s going to turn wet. We don’t want our stores spoilt.”
Leaving Peggy and Nora to arrange the tins, baskets, and odds and ends neatly in the root-larder, the two boys went up the hill behind the cove. They separated to look for a spring, and Mike found one! It was a very tiny one, gushing out from under a small rock, and it ran down the hill like a little waterfall, getting lost in the heather and grass here and there. Its way could be seen by the rushes that sprang up beside its course.
“I expect it runs down into the lake,” said Mike. “It’s a very small spring, but we can use it to fill our kettle, and it won’t take us quite so long as going to the other spring. If we have to live in the caves during the winter, the other spring will be more useful then, for it will be quite near the cave.”