No boat was in sight - only four big white swans, quarrelling among themselves, and slashing the water with their feet and wings!
“It’s all right, boys!” she shouted. “It’s only the swans! It isn’t a boat!”
So Daisy was left in peace and the hens were emptied out of the sack again. Nora was teased, and made up her mind that she would make quite certain it was a boat next time she gave the alarm!
One day Jack slipped down the hillside when he was reaching for raspberries and twisted his ankle. Mike had to help him back to the camp on the beach. Jack was very pale, for it was a bad twist.
Peggy ran to get some clean rags and soaked them in the cold spring water. She bound them tightly round Jack’s foot and ankle.
“You mustn’t use it for a while,” she said. "You must keen quiet. Mike will do your jobs.”
So Jack had to lie about quietly for a day or two, and he found this very strange. But he was a sensible boy, and he knew that it was the quickest way to get better. Soon he found that he could hop about quite well with a stout hazel stick Mike cut for him from the hedges - and after a week or so his foot was quite all right.
Another time poor Peggy overbalanced and fell into a gorse bush below her on the hill. She was dreadfully scratched, but she didn’t even cry. She went to the lake and washed her scratches and cuts, and then got the supper just as usual. Jack said he was very proud of her. “Anybody else would have yelled the place down!” he said, looking at the scratches all over her arms and legs.
“It’s nothing much,” said Peggy, boiling some milk. “I’m lucky not to have broken my leg or something!”
So, with these little adventures, joys, and sorrows, the summer passed by. No one came to the island, and gradually the children forgot their fears of being found, and thought no more of it.