“I’d rather have milk,” said Dot thoughtfully. “I guess if Neale found hens here he can find cows, too,” and she laughed.
“Of course I can find milk,” declared Neale O’Neil promptly. “And don’t worry about the salt water for washing your face, Tess. It is very good for your eyes, sea-water is.”
Luke looked sideways at Ruth and muttered:
“Some boy, that Neale. He’d be cheerful at the bottom of a well.”
“We must admit Neale O’Neil is a very good person to have along if one is to be cast away on an uninhabited island,” said the critical sister, smiling. “But where, do you suppose, will he find the milk?”
They had forgotten the cocoanuts. Neale got a gimlet and bored the “eyes” of a big one and the milk foamed out into the children’s cups. They rather liked its sweetish flavor too.
“Although,” said Dot, “I think my milk’s been skimmed. It looks sort of blue.”
In the stores which they had brought ashore from the launch there was some canned milk; but they were sparing of this. The older members of the party refused to use it at all in their drink. There was considerable coffee and tea and some canned fruits and meat. They had not expected to be gone from the St. Sergius Arms much longer than two days, and had provisioned accordingly.
But Neale’s bright mind evolved makeshifts for food as well as for other things. He entered into the spirit of this Crusoe experience with all the gusto of live adventure. It would have seemed very tame indeed to him, on this uninhabited island, if his ingenuity had not to be taxed.
Mr. Howbridge warmly acclaimed Neale’s statement that the capture of the sea-turtles was important. After breakfast, which was graced by the turtle eggs which Agnes had helped discover, the whole party gathered about the three sprawling turtles, which the lawyer called “testudinate reptiles.”