She led them to the edge of the grassy knoll, and pointed to three small trees standing within a few feet of each other about the same distance apart, and forming the corners of a sort of triangle.
"There!" she said. "Don't you see? There's half our work done for us. Those three trees can be the corner posts of our hut, and we can use the branches to make a roof."
Quite excited at her discovery, she pointed out that two of the trees had each thrown out a branch about seven feet from the ground, and the third had a branch a little higher. These overhanging branches protected one side of the triangle, and Tommy suggested that they could be employed as a framework upon which they might spread mats woven from the grasses on the bank of the stream.
"It would take a terrible time to weave the mats," said Mary dubiously.
"Not so long as to cut down the trees," replied Tommy, "and not nearly so hard work. What do you say, Bess?"
"It's a capital idea, but I can't weave."
"Oh, we'll soon teach you that," said Tommy. "You didn't go to a kindergarten like Mary and me; but it's not very different from the string work you did on board. Come along; let's make a start."
They went hopefully to the bank of the stream, but when they tried to cut down the rushes, they found that their knives were already blunt. As the day was now very hot, and they were hungry and tired, they resolved to have an early dinner, then rest for a while, and later on sharpen their knives on stones at the beach and try again.
By the evening they had cut a large quantity of grasses, which they placed in a heap to be weaved next day. They decided again to sleep in the boat, and returned to it just before sunset by way of the clump of banana-trees, carrying their supper with them.
"We have made a good start," said Elizabeth cheerfully, as they sat munching bananas in the boat.