“Can’t we go this afternoon?” cried Billy, eagerly.
“We can under-run the trawl to-morrow,” added Elizabeth.
“How about it, Captain?” asked Mr. Remington.
“Just as you say, Mr. Remington. I can set the girls and boys over to Adams’ Beach an’ its only two-mile walk from there to Sabbath-Day Harbour. If these men want a tow we kin tote ’em along an’ save time.”
After Mrs. Remington became the possessor of a number of sweet-grass baskets for souvenirs, the Captain loaded his launch with the young folks and, lastly, added the two Indians who wisely preferred to tow an empty canoe.
The walk over Isleboro was an interesting experience. On the way, Mitchell Webster, one of the Old-Town Indians, showed the Islanders the sweet-grass pond but warned them that the sweet-grass grew alongside the ordinary grass and was difficult to recognise.
“Why,” said he, “ruther ’en waste my time pickin’ out th’ spears of that grass I ups an’ buys a pound from a feller down Old Orchard beach-way. Paid a dollar fer it, too. Kinder dear fer hay, hain’t it?”
Reaching Webster’s tent, the children found a squaw busily engaged in dying the thin strips of split ash that they wove into the larger baskets. Alas! how fallen are the mighty! No more the natural vegetable dyes used by the denizens of the forest. Instead, the children found printed labels scattered about with directions for using the analine colours.
The host told the children that he and his squaw came down from Oldtown, up the Penobscot River, and camped on Isleboro every summer, making and selling baskets. The birch-bark baskets, however, were made in Oldtown during the winter and early spring because that is the time when birch-bark is more pliable and is easier to peel off of the trees.
The young people did not remain very long, and having purchased a few baskets from the squaw, they started back for the launch.