Baby Island (8 page)

“Murder!” said Jean. “What is it, my pet?”

His voice rose in a series of piercing shrieks. Jean left her pail and ran to his assistance. He sat in a puddle and pointed dramatically to his toe. Jean’s anxious eyes saw a small green crab hanging on to his toe for dear life.

“Oh, it’s a
crab!”
she cried. “Poor baby, Jean will take it off. Go away,
naughty crab!”
She unloosed the sharp pincers, and the queer little creature skuttled sideways under a rock. Pink stopped crying. Then he pointed to the spot where it had disappeared and said, “Cwab!” Jean was delighted. She picked him up and ran to Mary.

“Pink has learned a new word. Think of it, Mary. He can say ‘Crab!’ Say ‘Crab,’ Pink.”

But Pink only looked at them. He put up his fingers before his face, he smiled, but he wouldn’t say a word.

That noon they had clams for dinner. How good they tasted!

Jean preferred to forage for food and Mary to tend the babies and keep house. So it very often happened that Jean went off alone, returning laden with bananas or cocoanuts or breadfruits, which they didn’t know by name but had found delicious when cooked. Sometimes she dug for clams or gathered mussels.

One day she managed to capture a big green crab.

“I’m sure I’ve heard of people eating cracked crab. I’ll
just take him home and crack him up to surprise Mary,” she said to herself. “But I’d better not let Elisha see him,” she added. “He’d be scared pinker than he is already.” So she put the crab inside the pail with a big palm leaf over the top to keep him in. As she came near the tepee, Mary ran out to meet her.

“Oh, Jean, something terrible has happened!”

“Is Prince Charley lost?”

“Oh, no! Worse, Jean.”

“Has Jonah swallowed a cocoanut?”

“Oh, no, worse!”

“Well, for pity’s sake tell me, Mary.”

“I’m trying to, Jean. But you ask questions so fast I can’t. Listen! I’ll never forgive myself—I’ve mixed the twins!”

“Mary! Not really!”

“Oh, I don’t know how I could have let such a thing happen,” wailed Mary. “You see Pink was undressed (I was washing his clothes), and then I went out to see if they were dry and left the twins together. And, when I came back, Blue had managed to wriggle out of his nighty, too, and there they were exactly alike and no way of telling which is which!”

“Shades of Mrs. Snodgrass!” ejaculated Jean solemnly. “Come to Jean, Blue.”

Both twins looked up and waved fat hands.

“Pink, come here,” begged Jean.

Both babies staggered onto their fat legs and toddled over.

“Elisha! Elijah!”

Both of them answered to either name. It seemed hopeless.

“Well,” remarked Jean, “I never did think it made much difference anyway.”

Mary, so brave in face of danger, suddenly burst into tears. “You know how I feel about that, Jean,” she sobbed. “Each baby has a right to his own name and his own color. I can’t help thinking how their mother would feel!”

Ann Elizabeth was creeping about the tent on a tour of inspection. She came to the pail Jean had left in the doorway. She tipped it over gently and took off the palm leaf.

“Pitty,” she said. “Pitty.”

But no one heard her, for Mary and Jean were too busy trying to identify the twins to heed another baby’s prattle.

“OOH!” said Ann Elizabeth, as the fat green crab walked out of the pail and into the tent. “Ooh! Ooh!”

Still nobody paid any attention. Mary and Jean were just giving up in despair, when suddenly the eyes of one of the twins went wide with terror.

“Cwab!” he shrieked.

Mary and Jean followed his gaze, and there was the fat green crab in the middle of the floor.

“It’s Pink!” cried Jean, catching him up to hug him. “Dry your tears, Mary, he’s solved his own riddle!”

And so he had.

So the weeks passed, and, as nothing disagreeable happened to them, they began to feel quite at home in the tepee. Now that they had found fresh water and plentiful supplies of fruit and shellfish, Mary had only one great worry. How long would the canned-milk supply hold out? It was worrying her one Saturday morning. She had just been looking at the calendar and thinking that, since tomorrow was Sunday, they might treat themselves to a can of beef, when she noticed how few cans of milk were left. She heaved a deep sigh. It was often difficult being mother to so many. Even Jean needed watching over. Her twenty-third Psalm was getting very rusty from being in a heathen country so long, and Mary resolved that she should say it tomorrow at Sunday worship.

She had Sunday on her mind and she was particularly surprised when Jean burst in, crying, “Friday! Friday!”

“No, dear, it’s Saturday,” corrected Mary absently. Then something in Jean’s tone made her pause.

Jean was panting so that she could scarcely speak.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mary.

“I told you—it’s Friday. I saw his tracks!”

“You saw whose tracks?” cried Mary.

“Oh, Mary, like Robinson Crusoe. Don’t you remember? There were tracks in the sand! I saw them!”

“Jean,” said Mary, “You’re all excited. I’ll bet you saw your own tracks and got scared. There is certainly no man Friday around here.”

“Oh, isn’t there?” cried Jean bitterly. “I guess I’m smart enough to know my own tracks from those of a big savitch!”

“Did you see anything besides tracks?” asked Mary.

“Goodness, Mary! How much do you expect for a nickel? I tell you I saw tracks as big as—as big as—oh, enormstrous! And
one toe was missing!”

Mary was much troubled. Suppose there really were other people on the island? Would they be unfriendly? “Where did you see the tracks, Jean?”

“Way down the beach—farther than we ever went before. I ran all the way home. Come and I’ll show you.”

Wide-eyed and pale, Mary followed Jean up the beach.

“There!” panted Jean at last.

Clear and fresh in the moist sand near the water’s edge were the tracks of naked feet. No one could possibly imagine them to be Jean’s. Farther up they were lost in the loose sand and rocks. They were very large, and the imprint of the middle toe was missing from the left foot.

CHAPTER EIGHT

F
OR
two days, after they had seen the footprints, the children stayed in the tepee. They went out only for such necessities as food and water, and took turns keeping watch at night. They no longer dared light a fire for fear the smoke would lead those big bare feet in their direction.

“I’m sure it’s a pirate, Mary,” said Jean. “They always have something missing. Mostly it’s legs, but why not toes?”

“I’m afraid it’s a savage,” said Mary. “I only hope it’s not the kind who eats babies.”

“Oh, Mary!” wailed Jean.

“Well,” said brave Mary, “we must face the worst. But I’ll fight to the last for my babies. He’ll never stew a Snodgrass or an Arlington while Mary Wallace lives and breathes!”

“Same here!” cried Jean, and she began to chant:

“Now’s the day an’ now’s the hour.

See the front of battle lour.”

But as time went on and nothing happened, existence grew unbearably dull. The babies were restless, and kept upsetting
things and getting into mischief. Prince Charley made a nuisance of himself.

On the evening of the second day in the tepee Jean cried: “Ho-hum! I’d rather be stewed than live like this! If the savitch won’t hunt us, let’s go and hunt him!”

“Well, Jean, I know how you feel,” said Mary. “Of course, it won’t do to go and hunt him. But we might as well live comfortably until he finds us.”

“No,” insisted Jean. “I think we ought to find him. It’s like being afraid of ghosts. We’ll never feel happy till we know who made those footprints.”

“But what shall we do with the babies?”

“We’ll take ’em with us. Friday was good to Robinson Crusoe. Maybe our savitch will be good to us.”

“Not likely,” said Mary, gloomy but wavering, “and don’t keep calling him a ‘savitch,’ please.”

“If he wants food,” continued Jean, “I’ll let him eat me first. My bones will stick in his throat and choke him before he ever gets around to your nice fat ones.”

Mary was very doubtful, and yet anything seemed better than sitting in the tent and waiting. “Perhaps a sight of the babies will soften his heart,” she said. “It’s wonderful what the sight of a sweet, clean baby will do to a hard and cruel heart!”

They agreed that the island needed exploring anyway, for
who knew what dangers or delights lay on the other side?

“We’d better take food enough for several days,” said practical Mary. “You know how slowly we travel with the pram.”

Jean agreed and helped tie up the cans of beef and milk. “Why, Mary, the milk’s nearly gone!” she exclaimed.

“I know,” said Mary with tears in her eyes. “I haven’t spoken about it, because—well, what can we do? But I don’t know how the babies are going to get along on straight cocoanut milk, when this is gone.”

They started at daybreak the next morning, traveling cautiously and silently, at least as far as the hilarious twins could be hushed into silence. It was very slow and difficult with the unwieldy pram to pull, and babies always tumbling off when they went over bumps. Nevertheless, by late afternoon, they were in new territory, a part of the island they had never seen before. It looked wilder and more rugged here. But they intended to keep going until they had encircled the island and come back to their own camp once more.

The tide had washed out Friday’s tracks, and, although they were continually on the watch, they saw no more. They began to wonder if the tracks had been only a dream, when suddenly Jean cried,
“Look!”
It was a very small thing—a
tag of blue cloth caught on a thornbush. But they were both on the alert at once.

“It’s a piece of blue shirt,” said Mary positively.

“Then he’s not a savitch—he’s a pirate!” hissed Jean.

“He might still be a savage,” said Mary staunchly. “Mr. and Mrs. Snodgrass were taking trunks full of shirts to put on the savages. They said they were going to clothe them in righteousness, but I think it was mostly blue shirts. It’s a very good sign. He probably won’t be so wild.”

“Remember that missing toe, Mary. That looks pretty wild to me!”

“Well, we must go very carefully now. He may not be far away.”

The ground had been growing rougher, and soon it led up to some rocky cliffs by the sea. They began to discern faint traces of a path leading to the top. With some difficulty they dragged the delighted babies up after them, and paused at the top with open mouths. Below them spread a beautiful little harbor with crescent-shaped beach and white sand. And at one side was a little
house!
Oh, a very tiny house made of driftwood and bark and pieces of tin, but after all a house. The path was more clearly marked, going down the cliff, and led to the very door of the house. The girls stood spellbound, gazing at this entrancing sight. Even the babies seemed touched with awe and looked with round eyes of surprise at the house on Baby Island.

Everything was silent around the little house. A few sea gulls flying over the harbor were the only signs of life.

“Let’s scout,” said Jean at last.

Each took a baby on her arm and a twin by the hand and began to scout. This meant slipping behind rocks and brush, and gradually working their way down without being seen. It might have been impossible, had the twins not caught the spirit of the game and behaved like good Indians. Soon they reached the bottom of the cliff and squatted behind a clump of bushes to look at the house.

“Isn’t it bee-autiful?” sighed Jean.

Mary’s eyes were full of tears.

“Well, it isn’t exactly beautiful,” she said, “but it kind of reminds me of home.”

Suddenly the Blue Twin broke away from Jean and went staggering out after a yellow butterfly. Jean sprang after him, and the others followed in terrified silence. Around the corner of the shanty, they all stopped in amazement. Even Blue stood still and gazed. Stretched in a hammock, softly snoring, lay Friday! He was not a savage, so he must be a pirate. He wore a blue shirt and tattered duck pants.

“The toe!” breathed Mary. Sure enough, his feet were bare and the middle toe on his left foot was missing. He had a very large nose, and his slightly open mouth was surrounded by a strong, black beard.

“It’s him,” whispered Jean, and Mary was too astonished at the moment to tell her to say “It’s he.”

How long they stood and gazed they never could have said, but suddenly there was a little rustling noise inside the shanty, and a very hoarse voice began singing:

“Oh, Bedelia
,

I’d like to steal yuh!”

Jean’s nerves were not very steady by this time, and she couldn’t help screaming. The pirate sat up as if he had been shot. He rubbed his eyes and looked at them. Two girls and four babies stared at him with six pairs of fascinated eyes. An expression of the liveliest surprise crossed his face. Then he went white with terror, jumped out of the hammock, and hurled himself into the shanty, slamming the door behind him.