“Tomorrow, if you say so and there is time, I’ll row you over and we can find out. I don’t believe I ever heard of Hurricane Island before. It’s a nice adventurous kind of name though.”
Mabel came bouncing along the deck in the way peculiar to her and broke in with, “Everybody is raving about the beauty of this place and, of course, I know it is really lovely but nobody will listen to me and my material thoughts. I have seen one million lobster pots, I know and, Breck, please try and see tomorrow if you can’t get some for us. Where there are so many lobster pots, there must be some people to take the lobsters out.”
The next morning directly after breakfast Jane and Frances took the dinghy and rowed over to explore a small island running up into a high peak. Mr. Wing had promised to let the little party stay at this interesting spot for as long as they liked. The original plan had been to cruise on to Bar Harbor and then come leisurely back to New York. With one accord, it had been decided that it would be more fun to stop at Old Harbor for a few days than to go on to Bar Harbor for, as Mabel said, “there is nothing at Bar Harbor but clothes and silly little men,” and Charlie had said, “What about the fluffy little girls?”
Jack and Ellen and Mabel and Charlie had gone out in the tender to follow some fishermen and make arrangements for getting Mabel the coveted lobsters. Mr. Wing, the steward, and Breck had stayed aboard the “Boojum” to keep ship, which meant for Mr. Wing, lying on the deck mattress and dozing in the sun; for the steward, a general galley cleaning, and for Breck the filling of many sheets of white paper with his surprisingly small writing.
“Now that we are here,” Frances said to Jane as she jumped out on the rocky beach of the island, “I don’t see what in the world we are going to tie the dinghy to.”
“Why not lug one of these rocks down and set it on the rope? That ought to hold it,” suggested Jane.
Assuring themselves that the dinghy was made fast, the two friends set out to see the island. It was literally covered with blueberries, as they had so often found to be the case in the other little islands they had seen during the trip.
After eating her fill, Jane announced that she was going to lie down and go to sleep in the sun.
“Lazy Jane, no sleep for me. I am going to climb to the very top of the hill and to the very top of the huge rock on top of the hill. Excelsior! It will be a gorgeous view up there. You ought to come.” Frances started out with many flourishes of a long stick she had found.
The warmth of the sun and the sound of the water beating against the rocks that bordered the island soon sent Jane into a delicious sleep.