Jack agreed, but wondered whether it would not have been wiser to have had the opening face the west instead of the east. “If we have any very hot weather it’s going to be stifling in there.”
“That’s easy,” said Hal. “We can raise the sides of the tent around the bottom. Let’s get the stuff up here and think about supper. I’m getting starved. Bee was in such a rush to get away that I didn’t have time to eat a decent luncheon.”
“Eat!” Bee groaned. “I thought you’d never get through. That’s one thing that scares me a bit,” he confided to Jack as they descended to the beach. “We’ll have to go to town every day to buy food for that chap, I’m afraid.”
For the next twenty minutes they were busy toiling up the slope with boxes and bundles and trotting down again for more. The only pause came when Bee dropped a bag of lemons from the summit of his load and the elusive things rolled in every direction down-hill. Jack and Hal, glad to rest a minute, sat down and laughed while Bee, depositing the rest of his load on the ground, tried to round them up.
“I can only find eight of the pesky things,” he said at last, raising a perspiring face to his grinning companions. “Come on and help me you pair of gargoyles.”
“We’re tired,” said Hal. “We refuse to lend you any lemon aid.”
“Ow!” Bee collapsed to the ground and gave a spirited imitation of a boy having a fit. In the course of the performance he inadvertently upset the bag again and once more the lemons rolled away. Finally, Jack going to his assistance, all but two of the lemons were found and the routine began again.
“Some day,” panted Bee, as he trudged on up the hill with his bundles, “folks will find this island covered with a lemon grove and they’ll wonder, won’t they?”
When all the belongings were within the tent Hal raised the question of cooking arrangements. Hal had tried all day to confront Bee with some contingency not already provided for by that foresighted youth and so far had failed. He failed again in the present instance, too, for Bee answered promptly.
“Jack’s going to build a stone fire-place near the door here,” he said.