CHAPTER XVIIIANOTHER STORM
Bunny and Sue thought of the hut only as a place wherein they might play until the ship came back for them. They thought this would be in an hour or two.
But Mr. Brown and his wife and the two sailors began to think that something serious had happened aboard theBeaconand that she might not return for many days. In that case the hut would be a good shelter for the castaways.
“There doesn’t seem to be any one in it,” observed Mr. Brown, after waiting several seconds. No one came out of the hut and there was no sound within.
“It doesn’t look as if anybody had ever lived on this island,” said the sailor, Will.
“Then how did the hut get built?” asked his mate. “It didn’t put itself up.”
“That’s evident,” agreed Mrs. Brown. “Some one must have been here.”
“I guess you’re right, lady,” replied Will. “But there’s no one here at present.”
They were walking slowly toward the palm leaf house when Bunny said:
“Maybe they’re asleep.”
“Who?” asked his mother.
“Whoever lives in there,” Bunny answered, going a step nearer.
“That’s so,” said Mr. Brown. “I didn’t think of that.” Then he suddenly called: “Hello there! Anybody inside?”
“My, what a shout!” exclaimed his wife, putting her hands over her ears. “That would awaken any one.”
But no one came out of the hut, which seemed to prove that no one was in there.
“I’ll go and take a look,” offered Sam. Going forward quietly, he thrust his head in behind the swaying curtain of palm leaves and grass, woven together as if done by a native. “Nobody here,” he said. “It will be a good place to stay for the night, especially for the children.”
“Isn’t there room for all of us?” asked Mrs. Brown, who liked the sailors, having found them kind and obliging.
“We’ll bunk under the boat,” said Will Gand. “We’re more used to that.”
“That’s right,” agreed his mate.
Making sure that the hut was vacant, they all went closer and looked inside. It contained nothing except some rudely made mats of grass and leaves and some low stools made of wood. In one corner on a flat stone were some ashes of a fire.
“Some one must have lived here and cooked here,” said Mrs. Brown. “But as the hut hasn’t any chimney, I should think they would have been smoked out.”
“Perhaps they used charcoal,” said her husband. “That doesn’t smoke much and the fumes of it would go out of the cracks,” and he pointed to several openings in the walls and roof of the hut.
“I like it here,” said Bunny Brown.
“So do I,” echoed Sister Sue.
“Well, it will be the best place for us to stay, I think,” said Mrs. Brown. “Do youreally think the ship will be gone all night?” she asked her husband.
“It’s hard to say,” he answered. “What happened I don’t know. But I don’t believe Captain Ward purposely went away and left us. He will be back as soon as he can and take us off. Meanwhile we must make the best of it.”
“That’s what we’ll do,” said Mrs. Brown, with a little laugh. “We’ll camp out here. I brought along some steamer rugs,” she added to her husband. “They are in the boat. I thought maybe the children might want to lie down here on the island. Now the rugs will be bed clothes for us. We have plenty of food, but I should like something hot. I don’t suppose,” she said to the sailors, “that there is anything like a teakettle in the boat or some tea? We might make a fire and have tea, if there was,” she said.
“Yes’m, there’s tea in the boat, and coffee too,” said Will.
“There is?” cried Mrs. Brown, in delight.
“And a teakettle and a tea pot and a coffee pot,” added Sam.
“And some pans and an alcohol stove that burns funny white cubes of fuel,” proceeded Will.
“How wonderful!” cried Bunny’s mother. “Why, we can really camp out now on our wonderful island and live here in the grass hut. It isn’t going to be half as bad as I thought. I didn’t see how we were going to have anything hot, but with tea and coffee and warm soup—for I suppose there is canned soup in the boat—we shall be very well off.”
“Yes’m, there’s canned soup in the boat lockers,” said Will. “Captain Ward always has his lifeboats stocked with enough to keep shipwrecked folks comfortable. It was him as put in the alcohol stove, for he knew that out in an open boat you can’t build a fire.”
“Well, as long as we must stay here,” said Mr. Brown, “we had better get the things out of the boat and see about a meal. It will soon be time for supper. We’ll also get up the steamer rugs and see about making some beds for the children,” he added.
“Sam and I will cut some palm leaves and grass and put them in the hut,” offered Will.“They’ll make a soft bed with a rug on top.”
“You’d better put some grass under your boat, if you are going to sleep beneath it,” said Mrs. Brown.
“That’s what we’ll do,” agreed Sam.
Mr. Brown looked off across the ocean. Only a faint smoke from theBeaconwas now to be seen. She was going farther and farther away every minute. Mr. Brown could not understand it.
Soon the island was a busy place, with the sailors bringing the things up out of the boat and with Mrs. Brown getting ready to cook a meal over the alcohol stove. It was really rather a large stove and two or three things could be heated at once in special pans made to fit closely together.
There were many kinds of canned food in the boat lockers, and the balmy evening air that hovered over Cocoanut Island, as Bunny called it, was soon fragrant with the aroma of the cooking. Sue and her brother sniffed the air hungrily. So did the two sailors.
There were tin plates and cups in the boat and a box cast up on the beach was made toserve as a table. Soon all were seated about it on the warm sand, eating a jolly meal.
“I’m glad we came here,” said Bunny Brown.
“So’m I,” echoed his sister Sue. “Elizabeth likes it, too. Eat your dinner, Elizabeth,” she went on, pretending to feed the doll.
“Pooh, she can’t eat!” scoffed Bunny.
“She can so!” cried Sue. “My child can sleep and eat and talk.”
“You can’t hear her talk,” said Bunny.
“Well, maybe you can’t hear her,” admitted Sue. “She talks, all the same. She talks in whispers.”
“Well, I never heard her,” said the little boy.
After the meal the children played on the sand and went down to the edge of the water, finding a big crab which they watched as it walked along in its funny, side motion.
“Better not try to pick it up,” warned Mrs. Brown.
But Bunny and Sue, being children of a fish dealer, knew enough to let big crabs alone.
It grew dark quickly, as it always does down near the equator, and when Mrs. Brown had made up the rug beds for the two children they were glad to crawl into them.
“It’s funny, going to bed with your clothes on,” laughed Bunny, for neither he nor his sister could undress, there being no pajamas for them.
“It’s like camping out,” his father said, and indeed it was. Will and Sam made their bed beneath the overturned boat, far up on the sand out of reach of the tide, and Mr. and Mrs. Brown lay down in the hut with the children.
For a time neither the father nor the mother of Bunny and Sue could sleep. But at last they dropped off into slumber. How long they were asleep they did not know. But they were suddenly awakened by Bunny calling out:
“I’m all wet! The rain is coming in on me!”
Mr. Brown had with him a pocket flashlight, and, switching this on, he saw a streamof water coming through the roof of the hut. And, at the same time, he became aware that there was a storm.
The wind was blowing and shaking the frail grass hut. Out on the beach the waves could be heard pounding the sand.
“What is happening?” asked Mrs. Brown, who was now awake, as was also Sue.
“Bunny is getting a shower bath,” said Mr. Brown. “It’s raining and the hut is leaking.”
“What a terrible storm!” cried Mrs. Brown, as the hut shook in the gale of wind. Then Sue began to cry.