“One iron kettle, one spider, a baking pan, and two sauce-pans,” enumerated Polly. “And some dishes.”
“Well, it’s a mighty good thing I packed up plenty in de boxes,” said Aunty solemnly, and with deep gratification. “I felt it in mah bones it was a desert isle, and I’ve done kept mah eye on dose boxes ever since we left Ole Point Comfort behind us. I’ve watched ’em, and I’ve sat on ’em, and I just know dey’s safe.”
Polly said nothing, but she thought hard. She had forgotten all about the two big packing-cases that contained their bedding, and general camp outfit. The last she had seen of them, they had been stowed away on the lower deck of the Hippocampus for safekeeping.
“Don’t you fret one bit, dear,” she said at last, “I’ll ask grandfather where they are, and if they’re not here, then they must be there. Stoney told me when I lost my cap overboard, a thing is never lost as long as you know where it is. Just make out that list, Aunty, for us, and we’ll hurry up with luncheon, and coax grandfather to let us go over this afternoon to the club-house for good.”
It didn’t require very much coaxing. Polly herself broached the subject at the table down in the long, shady dining-room, and the Admiral told her she might do as she pleased.
“I’m not going to interfere except when it’s absolutely necessary. I’ll just stop here for a while till you’re on your course, then I’ll go South again until the regatta. You manage your own fleet. I’ll be on that veranda for a week longer, though, and if there’s any mutiny or danger, just send a couple of rockets and I’ll come alongside.”
“Wireless, Admiral Page, wireless,” Kate corrected, in her amusing way. “We’re strictly up-to-date, you know. Polly will have a wireless apparatus over there sure as can be, and you’ll get many a ‘C.Q.D.’”
“Grandfather, dear,” began Polly, suddenly remembering, “where are the two big boxes with all our things in?”
“On the way to the island this minute,” answered the Admiral. “That is once I forestalled you, young lady. But here’s one question I cannot solve, so I shall have to put it before the club. How are we to get Aunty Welcome to the island?”
Polly meditated. So did the rest, but Ruth solved the problem.