BOUND FOR THE ISLAND.
But I did the best I could by him. I stood by him and pinned on his red bandanna handkerchief onto his head. But as I was a fixin’ it on, I see there was sunthin’ more than mortification ailed him. The lake was rough and the boat rocked, and I see he was beginnin’ to be awful sick. He looked deathly. Pretty soon I felt bad, too. Oh! the wretchedness of that time. I have enjoyed poor health considerable in my life, but never did I enjoy so much sickness in so short a time as I did on that pleasure exertion to that island. I s’pose our bein’ up all night a’most made it worse. When we reached the island we was both weak as cats.
I sot right down on a stun and held my head for a spell, for it did seem as if it would split open. After a while I staggered up onto my feet, and finally I got so I could walk straight, and sense things a little. Though it was tejus work to walk, anyway, for we had landed on a sand-bar, and the sand was so deep it was all we could do to wade through it, and it was as hot as hot ashes ever was.
Then I began to take the things out of my dinner-basket. The butter had all melted, so we had to dip it out with a spoon. And a lot of water had swashed over the side of the boat, so my pies and tarts and delicate cake and cookies looked awful mixed up. But no worse than the rest of the company’s did.
But we did the best we could, and the chicken and cold meat bein’ more solid had held together quite well, so there was some pieces of it considerable hull, though it was all very wet and soppy. But we separated ’em out as well as we could, and begun to make preparations to eat. We didn’t feel so animated about eatin’ as we should if we hadn’t been so sick to our stomachs. But we felt as if we must hurry, for the man that owned the boat said he knew it would rain before night, by the way the sun scalded.
ON THE BEACH.
There wasn’t a man or a woman there but what the presperation and sweat jest poured down their faces. We was a haggard and melancholy-lookin’ set. There was a piece of woods a little ways off, but it was up quite a rise of ground, and there wasn’t one of us but what had the rheumatiz more or less. We made up a fire on the sand, though it seemed as if it was hot enough to steep the tea and coffee as it was.
After we got the fire started, I histed a umberell and sot down under it, and fanned myself hard, for I was afraid of a sunstroke.
Wall, I guess I had set there ten minutes or more, when all of a sudden I thought, where is Josiah? I hadn’t seen him since we had got there. I riz up and asked the company almost wildly if they had seen my companion, Josiah.