CHAPTER VI
THE JAGUAR’S TRACK
One day, while poking her inquisitive little nose into Marian’s workbag, Esther fished up five or six knobby, roundish little lumps, demanding, “What are these, Marian?”
“Nasturtium seeds,” replied Marian carelessly.
“’Sturtium seeds?”
“Yes.”
“Why, Marian,” reproachfully; “why haven’t you been planting ’em? Don’t you know ’sturtium seeds are good to eat?”
Marian gazed steadily for a moment at the seeds in the little girl’s outstretched hand, then she slowly took them into her own.
“Pocahontas,” she said solemnly, “I never thought of that. Of course they are good to eat,—the seeds, leaves, flowers, stems, and all. We’ll plant them before the sun goes down to-night.”
“You’re a great squaw chief, you are,” said Esther scornfully. “Jennie! Dellie! Looky, here’s ’sturtium seeds been in Marian’s bag all this time, an’ she never thought of planting ’em.”
Jennie and Delbert came up excitedly. Jennie, too, was rather inclined to scorn at such evidence of Marian’s lack of thought, but Delbert threw his arms around her and planted vehement kisses on her cheeks.
“You shan’t scold her,” he declared. “She’s the best squaw chief ever was. Nobody could do better, nobody could, and I love her!”
“So do I! So do I!” shrieked the girls, rushing in to contribute their share of affectionate demonstration, and Davie, dropping the dig-spoon, ran up, crying, “Do I! Do I!” in parrot-like refrain; and Marian, laughing, had much ado to keep from being knocked down with the onslaught.
But the seeds were straightway planted, and in time became a profusion of red and gold and green which delighted the eyes, and incidentally the palates, of Marian’s nestful of hungry little hawks, as she called them.
In time also came warm weather and rains, and in some respects this bettered their condition and in some respects it made it worse.
With warm weather they needed less bedding and less clothing at all times. Moreover, the rains made things grow. In the pasture there were several things that they knew to be good for greens, and they gathered a mess of some kind every day, boiling them with salt, and wondering how it had been that they had once upon a time thought that greens must have butter and vinegar to be really good.
But the rains brought gnats and mosquitoes to some extent, and sometimes these were so bad among the mango bushes that they could take no comfort in fishing. Sometimes, too, they troubled them so that they could scarcely sleep of nights, though their Cave was so high up on the hill that there was usually a light breeze that drove away the insect invaders. When the pests were very bad, the tribe would draw the tablecloth over their faces or would throw grass and green leaves on the fire, making a “smudge” that would subdue their tormentors.
Marian thought the bananas had begun to respond a little to the cultivation she had given them in the way of thinning out their numbers. At any rate, they were bearing a slightly better class of fruit. As soon as a bunch ripened a little, the birds would promptly start in to take their share, and she would cut down the stalk and take the bunch up to the cave, where she could keep it safely covered up till it was ripe enough to be good eating.
With these and the greens and the watermelons she felt always sure of a sufficient commissary supply. Still, they were as keen as ever to detect new food. One day Delbert came in with several bulbs, or roots, that he had dug up in the pasture. He said they looked good enough to eat and he wanted to try them.
Marian was very doubtful, but finally put them to roast in the coals while they went down for their morning swim, intending to offer one to the baby burro when they got back. They had taught the burro to eat everything that they did, and Delbert had suggested that they try the new food on him first.
He was willing to be cautious, but he was not willing to let a perfectly good food lie in the ground unused because they were not courageous enough to find out about it. If the burro had no trouble with it, Marian herself would sample a little, but very cautiously. She would hold a little of it in her mouth awhile first and see if anything came of it, and if it seemed all right they would all eat a little.
They had a fine swim. There were nice little breakers on the open side of the Island that morning. The children would run out a little way, wait till the right moment, then turn dextrously and let the foamy wave sweep them up on the beach. Marian kept hold of Davie, for the water was far too rough to trust his safety to his own little legs, sturdy though they were. But, with her to hold his hand, he had no fear, and laughed as loudly as the rest when the water slapped him off his feet and swept him up with the seaweed and the crabs. After a while he said he was tired and wanted to go and dig; so his sister let go of him, and he trotted off to where he had left the dig-spoon under a rock, and a moment later was excavating most industriously, while Marian turned her attention to the others.
They all joined hands and waded out a little farther than she had cared to go with Davie. It was splendid fun, but pretty soon Jennie called out, “Look, Marian! Davie is going up to the Cave!”
They all looked; sure enough the little fellow was almost up the hill. Delbert became excited immediately.
“I’ll just bet he will go to monkeying with those potatoes!” he cried, and started forthwith for the beach. The same thought had crossed Marian’s mind at the same instant, and, ordering the little girls to come too, she followed close at Delbert’s heels.
They made all speed for the Cave, but they got there too late. Davie was just gulping down the last mouthful as they reached him.
He did his best to look sweetly innocent as he told them it was “goo-ood!” Delbert’s face was a study. He was provoked enough to shake his little brother thoroughly, yet he was frightened enough to cry. Marian’s face turned pale. Perhaps the things were perfectly harmless, perhaps even highly nutritious, but again perhaps they were deadly poison. She dared not risk it, and tried everything she could think of to force the small gourmand to disgorge his stolen—or shall we say misappropriated?—tidbit.
It was no use. Davie would not drink a lot of warm salt water, and he would not let Marian run her fingers down his throat either.
She tried coaxing first, to no avail, and then she used force, but though they managed, by holding his nose, to get a few spoonfuls of the emergency emetic down his throat, and though Marian got her fingers well bitten, at the end of an hour or so the potatoes had not reappeared, and Marian, regarding the thoroughly enraged and squawling youngster, reflected that if any harm had been going to result from his impromptu lunch it would probably have begun to take effect before then, and so gave up the struggle.
Still she was not easy. She watched him closely all day. After he got over his fit of temper he went about his play just as usual.
Several times in the night the elder sister awoke with a start, and, leaning over him, held her breath till she heard the regular rising and falling of his. All the next day she watched, but everything seemed to be perfectly normal, and in the afternoon Delbert brought in another batch of the potatoes, which they did try on the burro. Davie watched with great interest. He said again that they were “goo-ood,” but he did not offer to eat any himself. Marian thought that if her fight the day before had not accomplished the end she worked for, it had probably taught Davie to attend more strictly to his own business, which might be of great advantage some time in the future.
The burro also said the bulbs, or potatoes as Delbert called them, were good, and ate all Delbert would give him; so afterwards they tried them themselves. They found them somewhat like rather poor sweet potatoes, but they were a welcome change for their bill of fare, nevertheless. But they could not find them very often.
The baby burro was a great comfort to the children. Sometimes, when they were quite sure his mother was not near, they would let him out of the corral, and he would follow them about like a dog. They even made him drag home little bundles of wood for them sometimes. The other burros were quite tame, but not enough so to be handled at will.
Often the children had glimpses of the deer and sometimes of the pigs. Marian had been afraid at first that these latter might be the wild peccaries and more or less dangerous, but, after seeing them quite close one time, she concluded that they were not, for they certainly looked like the domesticated pig except that they were not at all fat.
Always they kept watch of the sea, never forgetting that each day might bring rescue, but, though many and many a sail passed by in the distant Gulf, never a one turned into San Moros. Sometimes, indeed, Indian canoes had been seen inside the narrow sandbars that divided San Moros from the Gulf, hunting turtles maybe, but they did not come within signaling distance of Smugglers’.
Marian’s white skirt was flapping itself to tatters. Sometimes a heavy wind and rain tore it down altogether, and they would find it beaten into the sand, but it was always rescued, washed, dried, and sent aloft again.
The rainy days were the dreariest. Then there was nothing to do but curl up at the Cave. The brush shade they had built in front did not avail to keep out the rain. Before the rainy season was over they got so sick and tired of huddling in the Cave every time it rained that they would reduce their clothing to a minimum and go on with their occupations as if nothing were happening. If you really don’t mind getting wet, there is a fascination in becoming a part of the gray, drizzling landscape. But they preferred the sunshine.
One day, as Jennie tossed down an armload of wood beside the fire down by the beach, something about her suddenly arrested Marian’s attention. She looked startled.
“Jennie,” she said, “come here.”
Jennie came wondering, while Marian, dish-towel in hand, stood motionless, gazing at her.
“What is it?” asked the sweet-faced little girl.
Her sister did not speak for a moment longer, then, “Lift up your skirt,” she said. Jennie obeyed, revealing her little bare legs.
Esther, drawing near, lifted her skirt also. Marian put down her dish and towel and knelt in front of the two for a closer inspection.
“Jennie,” she said finally, “Jennie, you are actually getting fat.”
“Is she?” questioned Esther. “She isn’t as fat as I.”
Marian took off Jennie’s jacket and inspected her arms. Delbert drew near, and Davie came up to pass his expert opinion on the subject. “You are getting fat,” repeated Marian.
And it was so. The little face was rosy, the cheeks were not hollow now, and the chin was not so pointed as it used to be. The little legs, though not so plump as those of Esther’s showing, were really and truly rounded out.
“Well,” said Delbert, “she hasn’t been sick, you know, not since we have been here, and we have been here ’most a year.”
“No,” said Marian, “she has not been sick. She has not even complained of feeling badly, as far as I can remember. Do you ever feel bad any more, Jennie?”
Jennie soberly examined her sensations for a moment.
“I feel hungry,” she said.
Marian laughed,—a long ringing peal; but there were tears in her eyes too as she went back to her task. It was stewed “duck” that morning, one that Delbert had shot with his bow and arrow and then swam out and got. It was stewed duck and watermelon,—all they could eat of the latter,—and after breakfast they armed themselves with the longest poles they could get and went up into the pasture after the fruit of the pitalla cactus.
This was the cactus whose dried bark they burned on their spearing expeditions. The fruit grows high up and must be poked off with a long stick and then have its many spines carefully removed before it can be eaten. Fortunately, when it is ripe the spines come off easily and the center is cool, sweet, and nutritious. They were very plentiful, and sometimes they stewed them down in the little granite kettle, stirring them constantly. This made a thick, syrupy jam that the children were very fond of indeed.
Marian filled her two-quart glass jar and set it away till times when there should be none of the fresh fruit to be had.
Conning their prospects over and over, Marian often pondered on the chance held out by the mainland. With the aid of the log they could easily reach it. It was not nearly so far across the harbor as it was down to the egg islands. They could manage the raft so well now, and they could all swim so well, that she was not afraid of going anywhere when the water was smooth.
And the mainland was just across the quiet little harbor. Suppose they crossed over, what was the chance of making their way to some ranch or settlement? Delbert could not remember just what it was that Clarence had said about it, but it was something about there not being a house for fifty miles, or was it a hundred?—he was not sure.
A wild tangle of thorny woods, no road or path, no compass to guide them! Perhaps a lagoon of water, perhaps not; perhaps plenty of pitallas, perhaps not! Marian always shook her head at the end. Here on the Island she was sure of food, here was safety and shelter, but out there—How long would it be before Davie would tire out and she would have to carry him? And then their path to be cut through how many miles of thorny brush? And no certainty then that they were not traveling in the wrong direction.
No! And still it drew her, that mainland.
Perhaps if they could climb to the top of those hills they could look out over the land beyond, and perhaps some sign of a ranch might be seen in the far distance.
Many a time she had felt humbly grateful to Clarence for the things he had taught them, odds and ends of stray knowledge that had come in their need to be like precious jewels,—how to get oysters and clams, how to sail a boat, how to paddle, and many other things. Now she felt a little provoked that he had not taught them more.
Why in the wide world couldn’t he have told Delbert where the nearest habitation was, and what it was?—for it was quite likely that he knew. How had he got his information? she wondered.
When she suggested to Delbert that they cross over the harbor and climb that highest mountain and see what they could see, he was very willing; he had thought of it himself.
So they started out one morning, taking water with them, but depending on the pitallas they would find for food. They crossed over easily enough and did not have much trouble in reaching the foot of the mountain. But the ascent was not an easy matter. There was cactus of every description, all interwoven with thorny brush,—such a thick, matted underbrush that the children were scratched and pricked all over.
Davie was crying lustily before long, and Jennie fell and, in her efforts to catch herself, rolled a stone on Esther’s foot that showed black and blue for many a day afterwards. Sometimes there would be a space comparatively clear where they could pick their way without encountering thorns at every step, and it was in one of these that Marian saw that which turned her back and kept her feet from the mainland for a year to come.
They had just come up a particularly steep part of the mountain, where an outcropping ledge added to the difficulties for little climbing feet. Above it was space to breathe before one had to cope with the next ledge above, which rose in an abrupt cliff. There was a pitalla tree there with a dozen fruit on it, all opened out red and inviting, and Delbert started with the long pole to bring them down.
Marian paused to get a thorn out of Esther’s thumb and two from her next-to-the-littlest toe, and when that was finished the little girl ran on to help the others gather the fruit, and the older one, rising, put the needle carefully into a little case she had and slipped it into her pocket. Her supply of needles was limited and she must not lose a single one.
Then, as she turned to join the others, her eye fell to the ground at her feet, and there, plain and distinct, was a cat-track so large that she could not have covered it with one of her hands, and her hands were not so very small either. Fascinated, she stared at it. There was no doubt as to what it was. She glanced around, but could see no others. The ground chanced to be a little soft in that particular spot. But surely that one was enough; there was no need of more. What a monster it must have been to have made that track! Marian drew in a quick breath and then threw up her head and called casually, “O children, come back now. We won’t go any farther.”
Delbert, his eyes wide with surprise, came quickly with some protesting words, but Marian frowned warningly at him and with a tilt of her chin indicated the track. His gaze found it instantly. Indeed, it seemed to Marian to be the most conspicuous feature of the landscape.
He bent his head toward it a moment; then his eyes met hers again. For a second they looked at each other; there was no need of words. He turned back to the pitalla to hurry the others back, and Marian saw him casting surreptitious glances at the cliff above them.
The little girls and Davie were so glad to turn back that they asked no questions, taking it for granted that the plan was changed because there were too many thorns.
The two older ones were rather silent on the way back. They went as quickly as they could, but it was not a thing that could be done so very quickly, and Marian grew more and more nervous. Supposing the creature saw them, supposing—she jerked herself up and mentally gave herself a good scolding, but never was she so glad as when they left the mountain behind and pushed through to where the raft was tied, waiting for them.
As they pushed out and paddled back, calmness came to her. There were hard things in her pathway, dreary things to face, but, compared with what might be, her life seemed full of rosebuds and sunshine.
Four pair of bright, loving eyes looked at her; four healthy, warm, breathing little bodies would lie within reach of her touch that night. Suppose one were ever missing through her fault or carelessness, what pleasure would life hold then?
Looking back at the face of the mountain, she judged that they had climbed about a third of the way up.
It was well into the afternoon when they got home, and a hungry lot they were, too.
That night Delbert waited till he was sure the little ones were asleep and then he cautiously spoke Marian’s name.
She was awake. “What is it?”
He turned over and raised himself on his elbow.
“Do you—do you suppose—it could swim over?”
“I don’t think so,” said she; “it is probably strong enough, but it seems to me I have read that they never go into the water unless they are compelled to. No, I am quite sure it would never do that.”
Delbert drew a long breath of relief.
“I know the house kitty never wanted to get her toes wet,” he said.
“No, we are quite safe from it here.”
“I guess we’d better stay here,” he said.
They did stay there. When the weather turned cold again, they were in better condition than they had been the year before. They had two rabbit-skin blankets, or robes, that kept out the chill winds at night, and they had the brush shelter in front of the Cave so thick and matted and interwoven with banana leaves and strips of stalk that the wind did not penetrate that either; so with the bright fire they could be comfortable through the evenings and cold nights. In the daytime they were always so active that the cold did not much trouble them. Besides, it soon warmed up after the sun rose.
One day, while up in the pasture, hunting food and fuel, they noticed an unusually large mescal or century-plant. These were very common on the island, and Marian had never thought of any use they could put them to, but that day it suddenly dawned upon her that very similar plants were cultivated in some places for the rope fiber in the great sharp-pointed leaves. Perhaps it would be stronger and better than banana fiber. So they dug this one up by the roots and dragged it home.
They chopped off the thick leaves and tossed the stump to one side. Then, with some stones, the hatchet, and the knives, they thumped and pounded and smashed the leaves and worked and scraped away till they got the fiber out, and when they finally did get it, it seemed to Marian that it really was better than banana fiber. That evening they would see what kind of a rope could be made out of the new material. So after supper they got at it, sitting before their fire at the Cave.
They did not braid their ropes any more; they had learned better than that; but they both felt that their method of rope-making could be vastly improved upon, for it was a very slow process at best, and the rope finally produced was a very uneven thing.
But ropes they had to have. The raft must always be well lashed together, and ropes so used soon wore out. Their fences were tied with ropes in many places. They never went on any excursion without taking some ropes along, for they were constantly wanting them, chiefly, perhaps, to tie about their bundles of wood. A very large bundle of heavy sticks could be quite easily dragged home with a rope.
In the first place they had had only Delbert’s hair rope and had used it for everything, but now they were trying to be as saving of it as possible, never using it when another one would suffice, but Delbert always carried it with him, coiled up and tied at his waist.
When they finished working out the fiber it was clean, straight, and pretty as it lay in a neat pile.
“Now, how is the best way to do this?” asked Marian in a businesslike tone.
“I have been thinking,” said Delbert. “Remember that time I went with Clarence and his father after a load of corn? Well, at one place where we stopped there was an old Indian making ropes. I’ve been trying for a long time to remember how he did it. Dear me!” he exclaimed in disgust, “why didn’t I pay ’tention? Clarence explained it all to me, but I just let it go into one ear and out the other. I wasn’t interested in making ropes then.”
“Can’t you remember anything about it at all?” asked his sister sympathetically. “If you could just remember a point or two, we could work it out from that, maybe. Davie, don’t you want to put a stick of wood on the fire? Not that one, dear; that one won’t burn,” for Davie had picked up the stump of the mescal plant and heaved it into the center of the flames.
“Yes, will burn,” asserted he complacently, and returned to his play of fitting little clamshells together and laying them in a row.
Jennie poked the stump to one side and raked the coals and hot ashes over it. “We’ll dry it out, and then maybe it’ll burn, Davie dear,” she said.
“Here,” said Esther, gingerly handing over a piece of particularly thorny pitalla; “this will make a light.”
“Why, you see,” said Delbert, “they had the fiber—este they call it—all in a pile, but tangled as if they must have tangled it themselves. They had that part of it all done when we got there, but I remember Clarence said they laid it on something—a board, I guess—and hooked one end over a nail to hold it, and scraped it with an old machete blade fixed in a crooked stick,—scraped it and scraped it till there wasn’t anything left of the leaf but the fiber; then, I s’pose, they tangled it all up next; anyway, the man had a thing he whirled and he backed off across the yard, a-whirling it and whirling it and spinning a strand of rope out from that pile of este.”
“No, it wasn’t. It was just a little stick thing he held in one hand,—two sticks, one of them whirled on the other.”
“Give me your knife,” said Marian, “and, Jennie, hand me that piece of driftwood there by you; no, the other one. Was the stick he had as long as that, Delbert?”
“Just about, but it was nice and smooth.”
“This will be nice and smooth when I get through with it. You just tangle some of that fiber the way the old Indian had his.”
Delbert began picking it apart and dropping it careless and crisscross.
“You can just bet,” he burst out, “you can just bet your boots, if I ever have a chance to see anybody else doing anything again, I’ll see what they are doing; don’t care what it is.”
“That is the best way,” admitted Marian. “There are a whole lot of things, simple things, that would help us a great deal if we only knew how to do them. Can’t you remember anything more Clarence said about this?”
Delbert wrinkled his brows. “There was something about a balance-wheel. What is a balance-wheel?”
“I don’t know that I can explain it, though I know what it is myself. Maybe I can show you pretty soon. Hand me that little smooth stick about a foot and a half long, that one with the knob on the end. Yes, I think that will do nicely.”
She had shaved and whittled the piece of driftwood till it was about a foot long, an inch thick, and two and one half inches wide at one end and tapering to a point at the other, which point she whittled into a button-like knob. Just back of the knob she made a hole big enough to slip the second stick into. It slipped down, but was prevented from slipping clear off by the knob on the end of it. Then, grasping this second stick, she began to whirl it so that the driftwood stick whirled round and round on it.
“There!” she cried; “does that look anything like it, Delbert?”
“It does! it does! That’s it exactly! How did you guess?”
“I didn’t guess. I have seen one myself somewhere, but didn’t know what it was for. I think I saw a couple of them down at Doña Luisa’s one morning when I went down for milk. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let’s see how this complicated machine will work.”
She twisted a little of the tangled fiber round the knob on the driftwood stick and began to twirl. Of course it promptly twisted the fiber into a little strand.
“Here, Delbert,” she said, “you whirl this while I spin out the strand, or else it will all twist up in bunches.” Sitting down by the little pile of fibers, she grasped the twisting strand in one hand so that it should spin out of an even size. “Now, whirl away,” she said, “and back off as fast as it spins out.”
“This is just the way they did it,” said Delbert. “I remember now, there were two of them; one whirled the stick, and the other sat down and pulled the strand out of the pile of fiber just as you are doing it.” And he backed off, whirling vigorously, until the little pile of tangled fibers was all used up.
“There,” she said, “that is a lot better than twisting it just with our fingers, as we have been doing with the banana fiber, and it certainly beats braiding all hollow. We can twist and twist and twist, and then we can put as many strands as we want to into the rope.”
They worked that night till they had used up all their fiber, and then went to bed, agreeing to go next day and gather more mescal plants.
In the morning, when Marian raked open her fire, she raked out the stump of the mescal plant. It was brown and juicy. She began to examine it.
“Looks good. Doesn’t it?” she said to the children, who were rolling out of the Cave.
Esther came suddenly forward and bent over it. “It is good, too,” she declared. “That is the stuff they had down at Julianita’s one day. They were eating it, and said for Jennie and me to eat some too, but Jennie wouldn’t touch it ’cause she was ’fraid it would make us drunk.”
“You didn’t eat any either,” remonstrated Jennie.
“I didn’t ’cause you didn’t.”
Marian was cutting the stump in pieces. They all tried it. It was sweet and good, though there was a great deal of string and fiber to be discarded after the sweetness and goodness had been chewed out and swallowed.
“But it is what they make mescal of; isn’t it?” asked Delbert.
“I presume it is; in fact, it must be, only this wild plant doesn’t grow just the same as the tame ones, maybe; but it must be that they cook the centers something like this and mash them and let them ferment and distill it some way. It seems to me I have heard how it was done, but I was like you about the ropes; I didn’t pay enough attention to remember. It certainly never occurred to me that there was anything about it that was any good to us. I think we owe Davie a vote of thanks.”
“Clarence ought to have told us,” said Esther reproachfully.
So another food was added to their list, and after a little practice they could turn out mescal fiber ropes that were so smooth and well twisted that they could be used to lasso with.
The two little girls had learned to lasso burros, but Marian’s aim was not much better than Davie’s. She did not practice the art as her little sisters did. She whittled out a big crochet-hook, though, and then twisted a very fine strand of fiber and crocheted a bag of it that was very useful to put things into on their travels. Whenever there was a storm, they would always go to Bonanza Cove afterwards to collect the riches found there.
These consisted mostly of driftwood, and the small pieces could go into the bag, while the big ones were tied together and carried or dragged home. But sometimes other things came, bottles empty but corked,—so many of them that Marian concluded all sailors must be sad drinkers,—bits of board, an old leaky bucket, and, best of all, this second year, a broken oar.
“I hope it didn’t incommode any one much when it broke,” Marian said, “but we certainly can make good use of it.” It was just barely long enough to use as a paddle.
When it came nesting-time again, they were right on hand at the bird islands. They would put the eggs into the bag and the demijohn and a few young squabs into the barrel, and they were so much better equipped for the cruise than they were the first time they made the trip that it did not seem such a big undertaking, and they could go oftener.
Once, while out on one of the sandbars, hunting clams, they saw something farther out still, something dark on the water. Delbert thought it was probably only a mass of seaweed, but he wanted to go and see. So, as the water was very smooth that morning, they paddled the raft out, though they had never been so near the Gulf before since their arrival.
They found the dark spot to be another log, much smaller and somewhat shorter than the one in their raft, but they took it in tow just the same.
They found some turtle-eggs on those sunny sandbars that second summer. Sometimes they saw the turtles themselves, but they were never able to catch one, though Delbert was very enthusiastic in the pursuit.
That summer they had vegetables; and how good they were! The turnips and carrots grew splendidly, and the children devoured them both cooked and raw. The green peppers, for some reason, did not flourish so well till the next year, but they were eaten with a relish also. The lettuce, when transplanted and cared for, set in solid heads that reminded them of cabbage, and the children ate it like so many hungry little calves eating clover, and Marian often boiled a head of it with a fowl, and they voted it fine.
The bananas bore good fruit now, large, well-filled-out bunches. Marian dried some. Among the edible fruits of the Island was the wild tomato. They found very few of these, and the fruit was very small, scarcely larger than the tip of Marian’s little finger, but when the seeds were planted in their garden they came up and did well, plenty of water increasing the size and quality of the fruit somewhat. The plants bore abundantly, and the flavor was good. They put them in soups or stewed them by themselves sometimes, sweetening them with the juice boiled from the pitallas, or, at rare intervals, with wild honey. But the greater portion of them were eaten raw.
There was certainly no lack of food now. Delbert did not set traps any more. He could shoot so well with his bow and arrow that he did not need traps to secure a rabbit when one was wanted, and the little girls could sometimes hit a hopping mark as well as he.
They lost the hook one day, some big fish making off with it, and they caught their fish entirely with the spear after that.
They were milking two burros. Jacky, being thoroughly weaned, was turned out of the corral and went where he pleased, and he generally pleased to go with the children whenever they were going where he could follow. Jennie was really plump now, strong and healthy, but not so strong or so healthy as Esther, who, solid little urchin, could follow Delbert very closely in all his exploits. She could run as far without getting tired, she could shoot an arrow with almost as accurate an aim, and she did not always miss the fish she aimed her spear at.
She was a splendid little swimmer, better even than Marian, and it used to seem to Marian that she was the prettiest little mermaid any one ever set eyes on.