"Its little heart is beating frantically," she said. "Let us take it back with us and try to rear it. You know I wanted one."
"Do you think we can rear it?" said Mary.
"It will starve if we leave it," replied Tommy. "I shall love to try."
The others agreed that there was no harm in trying, so Tommy carried it carefully back with her, now and then stroking the ruffled feathers. When they got to their camp she laid the bird on a bed of grass, peeled one of the breadfruits, and held a few crumbs of the pulp in the palm of her hand just below the parrot's beak. But it was too young, or perhaps too frightened, even to feed itself, and it would have fared ill had not its captor been a country girl and known how to deal with such an emergency. She had seen young birds fed by hand, and she at once cut a thin stick and sharpened its end, upon which she stuck a little bit of breadfruit. Then holding the bird in her left hand, she waited until it opened its beak to cry, and quickly slipped the food in. The little bird swallowed it greedily, much to Tommy's delight, and she went on feeding it until Elizabeth suggested that she would kill it with excess.
"The poor thing was hungry," said Tommy. "It's not nearly so much alarmed now. I shall keep it for a pet."
"You'll have to clip its wings, then," said Mary, "or it is sure to fly away as soon as it is strong enough."
"You do it, Mary. Be very gentle, won't you?"
"There's no need yet, perhaps," suggested Elizabeth. "Do it in a day or two when it has got over its fright. It would be just as well to put it in the boat while we are busy. You must take care not to overfeed it, Tommy."
After dinner they went first to the flag-staff. Not a shred of their scarves was left. As they had no material for making another flag, except their handkerchiefs, which they did not care to part with, and their wraps, which they could not spare, they had to give up for the moment any idea of erecting a signal. Then they hastened in the opposite direction, southward, to fetch bananas and oranges for the other meals of the day. A grave disappointment awaited them. There was plenty of fruit on the ground, but the trees themselves, standing in the direct path of the storm, had all been uprooted or broken off, so that when they had used their present supply they could obtain no more at this spot. It would be necessary to go once more in search of food, for they found the breadfruit too insipid to form their only vegetable diet. They knew the district between their camp and the ruined plantation; nothing edible was to be had there. The only other place where they knew that fruit existed was to the east, beyond the ridge; and even now they could not make up their minds to revisit the scene of their scare.
Next day, however, when Tommy had fed her bird and Mary had clipped its wings, and they had spent an hour or so tidying up the site of the hut preparatory to rebuilding, they set off again in a southerly direction, having resolved to extend their exploration within easy distance of the shore. Crossing the broad path of uprooted trees, flattened grass, and torn undergrowth, they found as they proceeded that the ridge hemmed them in, closer and closer to the sea. This was partly due to the curving of the shore, and partly to the diagonal lie of the rising ground. Little foothills of the ridge extended downwards towards the coast, forming ridges in miniature, cut here and there by streamlets.