“Then there will be blackberries and nuts,” said Jack. “They won’t fetch so much money, but at any rate I can get enough to store up plenty of things for the winter. If we can get flour, potatoes, rice, cocoa, and things like that, we shall be quite all right. Daisy can always give us milk and cream, and we get lots of eggs from the hens, fish from the lake, and a rabbit or two. We are really very lucky.”
“Jack, read to us to-night,” begged Nora. “It’s so long since I heard a story.”
“We’ll begin Robinson Crusoe first, then,” said Jack. “That seems sort of suitable. By the way, Nora, can you read yourself?”
“Well, I wasn’t very good at it,” said Nora.
“I think it would be a good idea if we all took a night each to read out loud,” said Jack. “It’s no good forgetting what we learnt. I’ll read to-night - and you shall read to-morrow night, Nora.”
So, by the light of the two candles, Jack began reading the tale of Robinson Crusoe to the others. They lay on the heather, listening, happy to be together, enjoying the tale. When Jack shut up the book they sighed.
“That was lovely,” said Peggy. “My goodness, Jack, I guess we could write an exciting book if we wrote down all our adventures on the island!”
“Nobody would believe them!” laughed Peggy. “Yet it’s all true - here we are, living by ourselves, feeding ourselves, having a glorious time on a secret island that nobody knows!”
The next day Jack and Mike rigged up some shelves on which to keep some of their new stores. It was fun arranging everything. The children soon began to make out their next list of things for Jack to buy when he went to market.
“We shall have to keep the days pretty carefully in future,” said Jack. “I don’t want to miss Wednesdays now because Wednesday is market-day at the village. I shall get better prices then.”