This conclusion verified the Professor's observation, and you may be sure that the new discovery gave an air of gravity to the camp which it did not have before.
"I also wanted to say to-day," was the Professor's last remark that night, "I am satisfied that there is no intimate intercourse between the different tribes on the island." The boys looked at each other without questioning, as usual; but the next morning, as soon as George awoke, his first observation was: "I can't understand what makes you think that the natives of the different tribes do not associate with each other."
"Simply for the reason that the styles of the arrows differ so greatly. With them, as with civilized people, the intermingling of the races should tend to make their tools and implements alike."
The next night, after the evening meal, they sat in the wagon until late, discussing their future course. It was now fully nine months since they left home. The thought that their parents and friends would consider them lost was the hardest thing to bear. Did the boys ever get homesick? I need not suggest such an idea to make it more real than it was to them. With beautiful home surroundings, loving parents and brothers and sisters, absence, uncertainty; the fear that they would never again be able to return; danger all about them; the belief that perils still awaited them, which fears were now, in all probability, to be realized, all these things did not tend to produce a pleasant perspective to the mind.
But the Professor was a philosopher. He knew that the human mind craved activity. If it could not be exercised in a useful direction it would invariably spend its energies in dangerous channels. He knew this to be particularly true of young people.
Boys are naturally inquisitive. Their minds are active, like their bodies. They must have exercise; why not direct it into paths of usefulness, where their accomplishments could be seen and understood by the boys themselves.
That thought is the parent of the manual training system, where the education imparted comes through the joint exercise of brain and muscle. Boys resent all work which comes to them under the guise of play; and all play which is labeled "work." But when there is a need for a thing, and the inquisitive nature of the boy, or his mental side, starts an inquiry, the manual, or the muscular part of him, is stimulated to the production of the article needed to fill that want.
The Professor did not force any information upon the boys, as will be noticed. It was his constant aim to let inquiry and performance come from them.
Could anything have been more stimulating or encouraging than the building of the water wheel, the sawmill, or the wagon? See what enjoyment and profit they derived from it. Thus far they had not given their time and the great enthusiasm to their various enterprises because of the money returns. Do you think it would have made their labors lighter, or the knowledge of their success any sweeter if they had been paid for their work?
The "Baby" went to sleep early, as was his custom now, and the boys and the Professor sat up later that night than usual, talking over their condition, and the situation as it appeared to them. The day had been exceedingly warm, following the rains.