“What the master calls ‘woodcraft.’ Yes. Wonder how he is, and all of them? Say, what do you think I thought about when I was whirling round that pool, before I didn’t think of anything?”
“Your sins, I suppose. That’s what I’ve heard comes to a drowning man.”
“Shucks! Saw the mére’s face when she broke that glass. Fact. Though I wasn’t there at the time. And one thing more; saw that ridiculous Xanthippé, looking like she’s never done a thing but warble. Oh, my! how I do wish Margot’d sell her.”
“Shall I help you get birch for the canoe now? I begin to believe you can do even that, you are so clever.”
This praise was sweet in Pierre’s vain ears and had the result which Adrian desired, of diverting the talk from their island friends. In their present situation, hopeful as the other pretended to find it, he felt it best for his own peace of mind not to recall loved and absent faces.
They went to work with a will, and will it was that helped them; else with the poor tools at hand they had never accomplished their undertaking. Indeed, it was a labor of considerable time. Not only was that first meal of boiled beans cooked and eaten, but several more of the same sort followed. To vary these, Pierre baked some, in the same method as he had boiled them, or else in the ashes of their fire. He even fashioned a sort of hook from a coat button, and with cedar roots for a line, caught a fish now and then. But they craved the seasoning of salt, and even the dessert of blueberries which nature provided them could not satisfy this longing, which grew almost intolerable to Adrian’s civilized palate.
“Queer, isn’t it? When I was at that lumber camp I nearly died because all the meat, or nearly all, was so salt. Got so I couldn’t eat anything, hardly. Now, just because I haven’t salt I can’t eat, either.”
“Indians not that way. Indians eat one thing same’s another. Indian just wants to live; don’t care about the rest. Indian never eats too much. I’m all Indian now.”
Adrian opened his eyes to their widest, then threw himself back and laughed till the tears came.
“Pierre, Pierre! Would you had been ‘all Indian’ when you tackled Angelique’s fried chicken. Um-m! I can taste it now.”