Chapter XIV

FRANK’S EXCUSES--CURING VENISON--MAROONING COOKERY--ROBERT’S VEGETABLE GARDEN--PLANS FOR RETURN---PREPARATION FOR THE SABBATH

When Mary and Frank arose next morning, they saw the small boughs of the oak hung with divided portions of venison. The boys had so placed them, after finishing, late at night, for the double purpose of allowing them to cool and of keeping them out of reach of the dogs. "Come, Frank," said Mary, "let us make up the fire, and get things ready for breakfast." The wood was close at hand, ready cut, and nothing more was needed for a fire than putting the pieces together, with several sticks of light wood underneath; a bright cracking blaze soon rose cheerfully before them.

"Buddy," she said, "can you not go down to the spring, and bring me some water, while I am preparing these other things?"

But Frank was lazy that morning, and out of humour, and the fire was so comfortable (for the air was cool) that he stood before it, warming his hands, and puffing at the smoke that blew in his face. He replied, "No, sister, I am afraid"--then he paused, trying hard to think of some excuse. "I am afraid that if I go the crabs will bite me."

"Crabs!" Mary exclaimed. "Why how can they bite you, when they are all cooked?"

"I do not mean the crabs in the dish," said he, "but the crabs in the river."

"Well, if they are in the river," argued Mary, "how can they hurt you, if you keep on the land?"

Frank found that his excuse was about to fail. But he was not disposed to surrender so easily. He therefore devised another. "I am afraid to go, for if the crabs do not bite me maybe the snakes will. Don’t you remember what cousin Harold told us the other day about snakes."

Frank said this very seriously, and had not Mary been somewhat provoked at his unbrotherly refusal, she would have laughed at the ridiculous contrast between his looks and his language. She said, reproachfully, "I thought, Frank, you loved me better than to treat me so. I want the water to make coffee for you, and the rest of us, and yet you will not help me."

"I do not wish any of the coffee," he answered. "All that I want for breakfast is some of that nice fat deer, and some of these fish and crabs."

"Very well," she added, in a hurt but independent tone, "I can help myself."

She took the bucket, and went to the spring. Frank looked ashamed, but continued silent. He drew up a billet of wood and sat upon it, pushing his feet towards the fire, and spreading out his hands, for the want of something else to do. By the time Mary returned from the spring, Robert and Harold came from the tent. They had retired late and weary the night before, and as a natural consequence had overslept their usual time for rising. "What is that we heard you and Frank talking about?" Robert asked of Mary.

"Inquire of Frank," she replied; "I prefer that he should tell you."

"Well, Frank, what was it?"

"Nothing," he answered, doggedly, "except that sister wanted me to go to the spring, and I told her I was afraid that the crabs and snakes would bite me."

"What did sister Mary want with the water?"

"To make coffee, I suppose."

"And do you not love coffee?"

"Sometimes; but I do not wish any this morning, for sister never puts in sugar enough for me."

"Well, well, we shall see who wants coffee at breakfast. Sister Mary, is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Cousin," said Harold, uniting quickly in the effort to shame Frank out of his strange caprice, "I wish you would let me too help you in some way. You are always so ready to do everything you can for us, that we are glad whenever we can do anything for you."

Mary needed nothing, except to have the kettle lifted to its place upon the fire. Frank was all this time warming his hands and feet, as if he was desperately cold. In reading the Scriptures, and repeating the Lord’s Prayer, his voice could scarcely be heard; he knew that he had done wrong, and was beginning to repent. At breakfast, Mary asked him in a kind, forgiving tone, if he would not have some coffee; but true to his resolution he declined.

The first business of the day was to take care of their venison. Yet what should they do with it? They had no cool place in which to keep it fresh, nor salting tub nor barrel in which to corn or pickle what they could not consume in its green state. Harold’s proposal was that they should cut the hams into thin slices, and jerk them in the smoke, as he had seen Torgah do; or else to dry them in the sun, which in the middle of the day was quite hot. Robert said he had heard or read of meat being saved fresh for several days by burying it under cool running water, and offered to try it at their spring. Mary said she liked both plans, but having had such good experience of Harold’s baked turkey, she hoped he would now give them a specimen of baked venison.

It was finally resolved to give each plan a fair trial. One ham should be sliced and jerked; another should be baked for the next day’s dinner, as the turkey had been; one shoulder should be cooked for that day’s consumption, and the other put under the drip of the spring to prove whether it would keep until Monday.

"There is one advantage at least that we shall gain from these experiments," said Harold; "a knowledge how to economize our meat."

For a minute or two Mary had been evidently pondering upon some difficult problem; and Robert, observing her abstraction, asked in a jesting tone if she was studying anatomy.

"Not exactly," she replied; "I was thinking of two things; how to cook this shoulder, when we have nothing in which to bake or roast it--"

"O, as for that," Harold interjected, "I will provide you in ten minutes’ time with a roaster wide enough for an ox, or small enough for a sparrow. Do you just hang it by a string from the pole I will set for you above the fire; it will roast fast enough, only you will lose all your gravy."

"The gipsies’ roasting-pole!" said she; "I wonder I did not think of it. The other thing is, that after you have sliced the steak-pieces from the bone, the remainder would make an excellent soup, if we had any vegetables to put with it."

"And what do you want?" Robert inquired.

"In beef soup," she replied, "cooks usually put in turnips, onions, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and the like."

"Carrots and potatoes I fear we must do without at this time," said he, "but the rest I think I can furnish, or something very like them."

"What! have you a vegetable garden already growing on the island?" asked Harold.

"Yes," he answered, "a very large and fine one; an endless supply of the most beautiful white cabbage, and most delicate asparagus, besides quantities of spinach, okra, and other vegetables. The palmetto gives the first, the tender shoots of the bamboo-brier the second; the leaves of the poke, when young, furnish the third, and those of the wild violet the last, or rather a substitute in its mucilaginous leaf, for the okra. Beside these plants (all of which, except the last, need to be boiled in several waters to free them from their bitter taste), there are multitudes more growing around us that are perfectly wholesome as articles of food--the purslain, the thistle, the dandelion, the lambsquarter, the cresses and pepper-grasses, to say nothing of the pink-gilled mushrooms, and the fungus that grows from logs of hickory."

"I will ask no more questions about your garden," said Harold. "I will confess at once that it is one of the largest and finest in the world; but will say too that it requires a person of your knowledge to use it aright."

"And no great knowledge after all," responded Robert. "I could teach you in half an hour every one."

"I will await them here," said Harold, "wishing you all success in visiting the garden, and cousin Mary all success in preparing the vegetables for use."

That afternoon they engaged in another discussion about attempting a speedy return home. Robert and Mary had become impatient of their stay, and were despairing of any one’s coming soon to their relief. The three and a half days of separation from their father seemed to them a month.

"Why not make the effort to return at once?" they contended. "This place is very good indeed; on some accounts we could not desire a better; yet it is not home."

Harold shook his head, and replied, "I am not sure, notwithstanding all your arguments, that any of us know where home is. One thing I do know, that this island seems to be a very safe and comfortable place for people in our condition. Moreover, I am confident that your father will use every means for finding us; and we can scarcely be in a better place than this for being found. My opinion still is that we had better continue here for a fortnight or three weeks in safety, than to risk what we should, by starting in an open boat, to go upon the broad sea, we know not where."

Harold, however, was overruled. Mary and Frank united with Robert in resolving to attempt their return homewards by coasting; and Harold yielded with a sigh, remarking that his heart was with them, but his judgment against them. The moment the question was decided, Frank began to show the greatest glee. To his hopeful spirit, to try was to succeed; and he was even then in fancy revelling once more in the scenes of happy Bellevue.

But when should they begin their voyage? Not that day, for they were not ready. Not the next, for that was the Sabbath, which they had been taught to reverence. Not Monday morning, because there were preparations to be made, which they could not complete without working on the Sabbath, They resolved to "remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy," by rest from labour, and by appropriate exercises, and then to start as soon after as possible; which, probably, could not be before Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

They prepared another oven, heated and protected as before, into which the ham of venison was introduced. They collected and cut a supply of wood to be used in case of cool weather the following day, and brought from the bank another basket full of oysters. After spending a pleasant evening in conversation, they retired to rest, happy in the thought that they had been trying to live as they should, and that they had resolved, of their own free will, to reverence the Sabbath, at the sacrifice of another day from home.