“Oh, I didn’t mean that your picnic lunch would get wet,” said the sailor who had spoken of the danger of the boat upsetting. “I meant that the provisions this boat is stocked with might get soaked.”
“Is there other food in this boat than that which Mr. Brown has in the basket?” asked Mrs. Brown.
“Oh, yes’m,” said Will Gand. “You see Captain Ward always keeps his lifeboats stocked with things to eat. He says you never can tell when you’ll have to launch them in a hurry, and there might be no time in case of a wreck when you have to leave the ship in a rush to put things in the boats. So they’re kept stocked.”
“And there’s fresh water on board this boat, too.” The sailor pointed to a locker, or compartment, up in the bow and nodded toward another locker in the stern. “They are both well filled with things to eat,” he said. “It’s mostly canned stuff, though.”
“Oh, well, that would keep us alive if we had to stay here,” said Mr. Brown, with a laugh. “That’s a good idea of Captain Ward’s—to have the lifeboats stocked with food and water.”
“Yes,” agreed Sam Trend. “You never can tell when you’re going to be wrecked, and sometimes you have to take to the boats a thousand miles from land. In that case the shipwrecked ones could live for a week or more on what’s aboard.”
“But we aren’t shipwrecked, are we?” asked Bunny.
“No, little man, you aren’t,” answered Will Gand. “But if we had been going fast and had hit the sand-bar harder, we might be going to pieces now instead of having our ship safe and sound.”
“I don’t like to think of it,” said Mrs. Brown.
By this time the boat was nearer the island and it could be seen that Bunny’s guess was right—the trees that fringed the shore were cocoanut palms.