CHAPTER XXII
FRANK AND HIS "PIGS"--THE CAGE--WALK ON THE BEACH--IMMENSE CRAWFISH--THE MUSEUM--NAMING THE ISLAND
Frank's first words the next morning, as in his night-clothes he ran from Mary's room, were, "Have you brought my pig?"
"Yes! yes!" they answered, "three of them; and all yoked to boot, so that they cannot get either into the garden or the cornfield."
Frank did not comprehend this enigmatical language; he hastily dressed and went out. Close to the awning he found the new comers sitting, each secured by the novel pillory which Harold had contrived. They were ugly looking creatures, with long, hypocritical faces, coarse, grizzly hair, and an expression of countenance exceedingly contemptible. Frank had often seen opossums before, but the fancy name of pigs had caused him mentally to invest them with the neat and comely aspect of the little grunters at home. When he hurried from the tent, and saw them in their native ugliness, writhing their naked, snakey tails, he turned away with unaffected disgust.
"They are not very pretty," said Harold, watching the changes that flitted across the little fellow's face.
"No, indeed," he replied; "they are the ugliest things I ever saw. You may keep them and feed them yourself; for I will not have them for mine."
The unsightly appearance of the opossum excites in many persons a prejudice against its use for the table. But when young and tender, or after having been kept for several days, its flesh is so nearly in taste like that of a roast pig, that few persons can distinguish the difference.
A cage for the captives was soon constructed, of poles several inches in diameter, notched into each other, and approaching at the top like a stick trap. The floor was also guarded with poles, to prevent their burrowing out.
"Now we need one or two troughs for their water and food," observed Harold, after the prisoners, loosed from their neck-locks, had been introduced into the airy saloon erected for their accommodation. "I propose, therefore, that Mary and Frank shall go with one of us to Shell Bluff, and bring home a supply of conch shells, to be converted, as we need them, into troughs, cups, dippers, and trumpets."