“You are sure you have got time to show your island and sure you don’t mind it,” Breck asked, feeling that if he were the owner of such a near future he would no doubt be very busy.
“You don’t know how glad I am to see people. I’m always so glad when people come on the island. It is really a pleasure to show them around. You know, of course, that this was once a quarry, and at one time several hundred workmen lived here.”
“We didn’t know it, but we certainly should have if we had given any notice to that huge crane and all those slabs of granite heaped up on the beach. The workmen, of course, lived in those cottages?” asked Breck interestedly.
“I wish Daddy would come out and tell you about it, because he knows so much more about it than I do, though I was a little boy when we first came here. There is an awful lot of machinery connected with the quarry; I never have been interested in it, and so don’t know very much about it. Daddy knows all about every kind of machine. But I can’t disturb him now because he is working on his plans for some sort of submarine detector,” the boy told them as he led them past his vine-covered home towards a frame building about a hundred and fifty feet long and fifty feet wide.
“How did you happen to come here to live? You don’t mind me calling you Fred, do you?” Jane asked as they entered the strangely shaped building.
“My uncle had the contract to build a sea wall and he knew that granite was on this island. He found that it would be cheaper to start a quarry here and carry it over to where they were building the sea wall than it would be to have to transport it from some other point much farther away. After the sea wall was finished and there wasn’t any more use for operating the quarry, my uncle took his workmen and they went back to their regular working place. Then, you see, my uncle didn’t like to leave all these houses and machinery without some one as a sort of overseer, and as Daddy likes to be quiet so he can work on his inventions, they got together and made arrangements for us to come out here.”
“Don’t you ever get bored or lonesome,” Breck asked the boy.
“It was more fun before my sister went away, of course, but there really is plenty to do. I made enough money off lobsters last year to buy that boat you passed on the way in and then, of course, there are an awful lot of books Daddy brought with us.”
“Breck,” said Jane, wrinkling her forehead, “why couldn’t Fred sail Tim Reynolds’ boat back to Nantucket?”
Breck looked at the boy and shook his head. “Too much for him to handle by himself.”