Baby Island (9 page)

“Now see what you’ve done, Jean,” said Mary severely. “When you feel one of those screams coming, you ought to hold it in.”

“That awful voice!” gasped Jean. As she spoke they heard it again.

“Oh, Bedelia
,

I’d like to—”

“Shut yer trap, Halfred,” growled the voice of the pirate.

There was silence. Then they could see one eye and a bit
of the pirate’s beard as he peeped at them through his little window.

Mary’s usual bravery in case of emergencies came to her rescue now. It seemed to her that both Jean and the stranger were behaving very stupidly. They had come down the hill expecting to be afraid of the pirate, and here he was being afraid of them. She went up and knocked at the door.

“We won’t hurt you,” she said, “if you won’t hurt us. We have just dropped in to call.”

“Oh, Mary,” whispered Jean. “There’s someone else in there, too. Didn’t you hear that awful voice?”

But Mary was unmoved. She knocked again. “I know you weren’t expecting us,” she said, “but you might at least say ‘How do you do.’ We are your neighbors, and we are awfully glad that you are not a savage.”

The door opened a few inches at a time, and the pallid pirate looked out.

“You’re not very brave, are you?” remarked Mary kindly.

“Are ye real?” asked the pirate in a hoarse whisper.

“Of course!” said Mary. “What did you think? We’re going to Australia, but our ship got wrecked, so we’re stopping here on the way.”

“Young ’uns!”
exclaimed the man in a dazed fashion, “and I came ’ere to be free from young ’uns!” He sat down on the doorstep and held his head.

“How did you get here?” asked Mary.

“This ’ere is my ’ome,” said the pirate. “I come ’ere to get peace.”

“Pieces of eight,” suggested Jean, whose fear was now lost in curiosity. “I knew he was a pirate.”

“Pirate?” said the man crossly. “Pirate be blowed! I’m a honest Henglish seaman, I ham.”

“There’s something wrong with his speech,” said Jean. “Can you understand him?”

“What is your name?” asked Mary politely.

“Well, mum, ’tis ’Arvey Peterkin, if it does ye any good to know.”

“’Arvey,” repeated Jean. “I never heard that name before.”

“He means Harvey,” explained Mary. “He’s mixed up on his aitches. Were you shipwrecked, too, Mr. Peterkin?”

“Did you build this house yourself?” asked Jean.

“How long have you been here?”

“Do boats ever stop here?”

“Where do you get your milk?”

The unfortunate English seaman put his hands over his ears.

“Questions!”
he cried, “just like my brother’s wife, Maggie!
Young ’uns!
Just like my brother’s wife, Maggie! I come ’ere to be rid o’ that.”

“I’m sorry,” said Mary politely, “but there are so many things we want to know.”

“Bly’me!” went on Mr. Peterkin bitterly. “I never thought to see babies on a desert hi’land. No, sir! I give up my ’ome, I give up my sweetheart, Belinda, I give up all I ’olds dear, to get free from the likes o’ you! But ’ere you be, aknocking on my werry door!”

“Oh!” said Mary and Jean, rather taken aback, and Mary added regretfully, “You aren’t very glad to see us, are you?”

“You asks your questions so fast, maybe I am an’ maybe I’m not. Give me time to think it over.”

“You see we haven’t had a chance to ask questions for a very long time. I expect that’s why we ask so many.”

“It muddles me,” said Mr. Peterkin plaintively.

Just then a frightful uproar broke out in the cabin. Prince Charley, unnoticed by the girls, had gone inside to explore, and they could now hear his angry chatter mingled with outraged cries from the hoarse voice which had previously been heard singing.

“Oh, save my Charley from the pirates!” screamed Jean.

“’Ey Halfred, what’s the matter?” shouted Mr. Peterkin, going inside.

There was a moment’s pause, full of terrible suspense. Then Prince Charley came out first, triumphantly clutching in his small brown hand several long green and red feathers. Next came Mr. Peterkin, very angry, with a large red and green parrot on his shoulder, ruffling its feathers and crying hoarsely: “Oh, you would, would you? Oh, you would, would you?”

Jean, with Charley on her shoulder, and Mr. Peterkin, with Halfred on his, gazed at each other angrily.

See the front of battle lour!

But just at this moment Mary saw something which made her forget everything else. Around the shanty had come a little white goat. She uttered only one word, but that one word meant everything to Mary.

“Milk!”

CHAPTER NINE

“A
GOAT!”
cried Mary. “Goats give milk! The babies shall be fed!”

Even Jean forgot Prince Charley’s troubles in contemplating the marvel of a goat.

“Keep away from them goats,
if
you please!” shouted Mr. Peterkin angrily. But he had spoken too late. Mary never saw a little animal without loving it, and her affection was always returned. She and the little white goat were already making friends. Two other goats followed the first one, and in a moment Mary was surrounded by them, and was busy making soft, baby-talk noises to them and scratching their foreheads between their horns. “It’s just here that you scratch them,” she said tenderly, “and how they love it!”

“Oh, look, Mary,” said Jean, laying Jonah in the “pirate’s” hammock and hurrying forward. “There’s a baby one, too. But there’s something wrong with it. Look how thin it is.”

Indeed, the tiny kid, which wobbled along behind the others was a pitiable sight. When it came too near the older goats, they turned and pushed it away with their horns.

“Why, Mr. Peterkin!” cried Mary. “This baby goat is starving!”

“You tellin’ me?” said Mr. Peterkin crossly. “Don’t I know that?”

“Well, why don’t you do something about it?” asked Mary.

“Bly’me,” shouted Mr. Peterkin, “’E won’t eat, th’ little beggar. ’is Ma died last week an’ ’e won’t eat nothin’, an’ them big goats, they won’t let the little beggar come near them, they won’t. Hunnatural, I calls it, hunnatural!”

“Have you got a bottle?” asked Mary. “I’ll get him to eat.”

“Meddlesome young ’uns,” grumbled Mr. Peterkin, “meddlesome, I calls ’em.” But just the same he fetched an empty rum bottle and warmed some goats’ milk in a pan.

Mary made a hole in the cork of the bottle, so that a small amount of the milk could come through, and when the bottle was filled she stuck the cork in tightly.

“Jonah’s bottle would be better,” she said, “but Mrs. Snodgrass was always so careful about sterilizing things, I guess she wouldn’t want a goat using it.”

“’E won’t eat,” said Mr. Peterkin pessimistically. “Ye’re wastin’ your time.”

But Mary knew better. She took the little goat on her lap, stroking him and talking kindly to him. At first he
turned away his head and refused to take the bottle. But Mary did not give up trying, and, when at last she succeeded in getting it into his mouth and he tasted the warm milk, he greedily drank it and bleated for more.

“Strike me pink!” said Mr. Peterkin in surprise, and for the first time since they had met him, he looked really pleased.

“Now,” said Mary, when the baby goat had had his fill, “we’ve come about as far as we can today, Mr. Peterkin, and I’m afraid you’ll have to let us spend the night.”

“Not if I can ’elp it!” cried Mr. Peterkin, the frightened look returning to his face. “Me an’ Halfred an’ the goats, we live here
alone.”

“We won’t be any bother,” said Mary. “We have our own food and camping things. If you’ll just give us a little milk for the babies’ supper, we’ll go ’way up your beach and not bother you at all.”

Mr. Peterkin looked very glum. “See ’ere,” he said. “My brother ’Enry ’e made a great mistake. ’E went an’ got married, ’e did; a awful naggin’ woman ’e married, name of Maggie. An’ they have twelve young ’uns, awful meddlesome young ’uns. I was promised to be married myself to a lady named Belinda, as fair a wench as ever balanced a tray. But, sez I, ‘twill be ’Enry an’ Maggie all over, sez I. So I hups an’ runs away to this ’ere hi’land to be rid of young ’uns for the rest of my life. That’s why ye’re not welcome, d’ye see?”

“Yes, I see,” said Mary. “You told us that before. You are very, very much mistaken about young ones, Mr. Peterkin. If you knew us better, I am sure that you would like us. But we promise to go away first thing in the morning. Now, please do be a good man and give us some goats’ milk for supper, and we won’t bother you another bit.”

Grumbling a great deal, Mr. Peterkin filled their pail half full of goats’ milk.

“My, you certainly have a lot!” said Jean admiringly. “What do you do with all of it?”

“Cheese,” said Mr. Peterkin glumly.

“But you surely can’t eat so much cheese all by yourself, can you?”

“Questions! questions! questions!” grumbled the honest seaman, and at a sign from Mary, Jean wisely held her tongue.

The pram made a very good bed with the blankets spread over it, and it was quite pleasant sleeping once again under the bright stars.

They made a campfire and roasted bananas and steamed clams, which smelled very good in the clear night air, and tasted even better. And the babies smacked their lips over the fresh goats’ milk.

The baby goat had gone with them to their camp and followed Mary’s every move, bleating piteously. This seemed to anger Mr. Peterkin still more, and he came down and got it and shut it roughly into his goat pen.

“My goodness!” said Jean, “I almost b’lieve I’d rather have found a pirate or a savitch than that old crosspatch.”

“Oh,
no
, Jean,” said Mary. “I feel so sorry for him. Not to like babies! Think what he’s missing! Besides, if he had been a savage he might have eaten us, and a pirate might have made us walk the plank. Mr. Peterkin just wants us
to go away. And then he owns goats! Somehow, Jean, we’ve got to persuade him to let us have milk!”

“But how?” asked Jean. “He’s about as sociable as a sour oyster.”

“We’ll have to work on his better feelings, of course.”

“Do you think he has any?”