CHAPTER VA PICNIC WITH STUMPY
Itwas but a short time after the adventure with that highway and byway robber, Master Crow, when it came time for Stumpy’s annual vacation, and he puffed gloriously away in the Lighthouse tender for his week in San Francisco. As his place was taken meantime by a dull seafaring gentleman having two legs, but no acquaintance with the art of story-telling, the children greatly missed their old friend and were wild with joy when, the day after his return, he begged their father to let them come down to the shore for a picnic.
It was Saturday; of course there were no lessons, of course there were fresh doughnuts, fresh bread, and goats’ milk cheese, so was not a picnic the simplest thing in the world? There was every probability, too, that Stumpy might make chowder in a kettle on the rocks and, oh, why did children have to be scrubbed and brushed within an inch of their lives when the sun shone and the waves called to the picnic?
Preparations at last being completed they set off,Ronnie carrying the basket and scampering like a rabbit down the rocky path.
“If it wasn’t for Lesley, I’d never trust him so long out of my sight,” sighed Mrs. McLean, watching them from the doorway.
“Well, there’s Stumpy, you know,” said her husband, drawing near, “and Ronald climbs like a cat.”
“That’s just what he does do,” agreed Margaret. “I never knew a cat but could climb up a tree, but there’s a many that don’t know how to get down.”
Malcolm laughed in his good-humored way. “It’s a fine thing you’ve got your children on an island,” he said. “If they were on the mainland, you’d be worrying about them night as well as day.”
Lesley meantime was composing a piece of po’try in the secret language, which was to be a sort of ode to Stumpy on his return from foreign parts.
“Stump-ery home-ery,No longer roam-ery.Children are glad-ery,So is their dad-ery.”
“Stump-ery home-ery,No longer roam-ery.Children are glad-ery,So is their dad-ery.”
“Stump-ery home-ery,
No longer roam-ery.
Children are glad-ery,
So is their dad-ery.”
AS THEY DREW NEAR AN ODOR AROSE THAT WAS THE BEST KIND OF PO’TRY IN ITSELF
AS THEY DREW NEAR AN ODOR AROSE THAT WAS THE BEST KIND OF PO’TRY IN ITSELF
AS THEY DREW NEAR AN ODOR AROSE THAT WAS THE BEST KIND OF PO’TRY IN ITSELF
These were the four opening lines and there were to be another four to be recited by Ronald, in which Stumpy was to be asked to recount the incidents ofhis visit. These were never composed, however, for just as the last line of the first verse was thought out, a turn in the path disclosed Stumpy and the chowder-kettle, and as they drew near an odor arose that was the best kind of po’try in itself. A large school of porpoises, far out at sea, had just smelled it distinctly and asked for a holiday to find out what it was, and Ronald exclaimed, as his nose wrinkled and wrinkled and sniffed and sniffed, “That’s the best smell I ever smelled since I lived in this country!”
“You bet good smell!” laughed the old sailor. “Everything good in that chowder, but how you children get along all last week without Stumpy, hey?”
“Stump-ery true-ery,We love you-ery!”
“Stump-ery true-ery,We love you-ery!”
“Stump-ery true-ery,
We love you-ery!”
cried Lesley, hugging him hard.
“Oh-ery, how-ery we-ery you-ery miss-ery!” shouted Ronald, in a burst of eloquence.
“Well,” said Stumpy, “I ask boss for time off some day and learn your language. Pretty hard learn, I guess. Maybe you better learn Spanish; then we all three have secret. Come now, you get plate and spoon, little son; we have dinner.”
If it wasn’t time for dinner by the clock, it was by the stomach, and no geese fattened for killing could have been rounder and shinier than the picnickers were when the meal was over. A walk to the cave where their father had once saved nine lives from a wreck had been promised the children, but rest on a smooth rock seemed better after such a feast, and after much coaxing Stumpy consented to tell a story, meantime.
It is better, perhaps, to tell it as Stumpy would have done could he have used his native tongue, for his English was faulty, and though it was clear enough to Lesley and Ronald it might not be so to the reader.
“It was two years ago, my children,” Stumpy began, his eyes looking far out to sea, “when I visited a cousin in Santa Barbara and went many times during my stay to service at the old Mission and talked with and learned to know the good Fathers there. Naturally I told them where I lived and that my work was on an island, and Father Francisco promised to tell me a strange island story some evening when he was not busy. The time came and this is the tale in his own words, as far as I can remember them.”
“There are eight islands in the Pacific, off the coast of Santa Barbara, lying from thirty to seventy miles away and protecting the mainland from fierce winds and heavy tides. The nearest of these are now used for sheep-grazing, and San Nicolás, the farthest off, was formerly noted for its fine herds of otter and seal. On this San Nicolás lived a tribe of Indians—if theywereIndians, for no one seems really to know—and at the time of our story, nearly one hundred years ago now, it was heard that the tribe had been reduced by disease to less than twenty souls. A fisherman whose boat had been blown far out to sea by adverse winds had landed on the island for fresh water and brought the news back to Santa Barbara, adding that one old man among the natives had been able to speak Spanish and had begged him to tell the Missions along the coast of their plight and to implore the good Fathers to rescue them from their island prison.
“The news spread throughout southern California and all were eager to send for the islanders, but no ship large enough for the purpose made its appearance. At last, theNext-to-Nothing, a schooner thathad been on a hunting expedition in Lower California appeared in San Diego Harbor with a cargo of otter skins for sale and the skipper made a bargain with the Franciscan Fathers to sail to San Nicolás and bring the exiles back.
“The trip was made, but even before theNext-to-Nothingreached its destination a gale sprang up and a landing was effected with great difficulty. No time was wasted ashore and the islanders who, of course, had had no warning as to when, if ever, they would be sent for, were hurried into the boats in great excitement and confusion and all speed was made to reach the schooner.
“Somehow, in the hurry and hurly-burly a child was left behind whom a young mother had placed in the arms of a sailor to carry aboard. How this may have been we do not know, but no such child was to be found, and the mother, desperate with fright, with pleading gestures implored the Captain to return.
“To do this would have been almost impossible and would have imperiled the lives of the whole party, and the skipper could only shake his head at the woman’s frantic pleading.
“Finding that they were putting out to sea the poorgirl, for she was little more, leaped overboard and struck out through the angry waters for the shore. No attempt was made to rescue her, perhaps none would have been possible, and in a moment she was lost to sight in the huge waves that crashed against the rocky coast.
“TheNext-to-Nothing, after a stormy voyage, at last reached the harbor of San Pedro and the islanders were distributed among the neighboring Missions. The skipper planned to return at once to San Nicolás to look for the mother and child, but first going north to San Francisco for orders from the owners, theNext-to-Nothingwas wrecked at the entrance to the Golden Gate and, there being no other craft at the time fit for the hazardous journey, the expedition was given up. The Franciscan Fathers never lost their interest in it, however, and for fifteen years they offered a reward of two hundred dollars to whoever would go to San Nicolás and bring them word of the unfortunate mother and her child.
“In the fifteenth year of the offer, a seal-hunter did visit the island, but could find no trace of human occupation, and people began to forget the story.
“Three years later a Santa Barbara man organizedan otter-hunting expedition to San Nicolás and took with him a large company of Indian guides and trappers. He had heard the tale of the abandoned pair, but saw and heard nothing to make him think they were still living, or on the island.
“On the night before they were to leave San Nicolás, however, Captain N., walking on the beach, saw before him the print of a slender foot—”
“Oh! like Robinson Crusoe!” interrupted Lesley.
“Yes,” nodded Ronnie, “and Man Friday!”
“He saw the print of a slender foot,” continued Stumpy, “and knew it was that of a woman. He organized a search party, but found nothing that day save a basket of rushes hanging in a tree with bone needles, threads of sinew, and a partly finished robe of birds’ feathers made of small squares neatly matched and sewed together.
“Inland, they discovered several roofless enclosures of woven brush and near them poles with dried meat hanging from them, but no human beings. These were sure signs, however, that the island had inhabitants and Captain N. kept up the search with a will. After two days fresh footprints were found in the moss that covered one of the cliffs and, following them up,a woman was discovered, crouching in terror under a clump of low bushes at the top. Captain N. greeted her gently in Spanish, and in a moment she came timidly towards him, speaking rapidly in an unknown tongue. Nobody in the party understood a word she said, although there were Indians of a dozen tribes among their number. Captain N. described her as a tall and handsome woman, in middle life, with long braids of shining black hair and a curious and beautiful dress of birds’ feathers, sleeveless and with rounded neck.”
“Could she have been the child left on the island?” interrupted Lesley, hurriedly.
“Oh, no,” answered Stumpy. “She was too old for that. The child must have died, and this must have been the girl who leaped from the boat.
“She seemed gentle and quite willing to be taken back to the Santa Barbara Mission, where, although there were then many Indians there and the Fathers themselves spoke many tongues, no one of them understood her language.
“The good Fathers baptized her under the name of Juana Maria, and she made no protest, whatever they did, or pointed her out to do. She drooped, however,so the story goes, from the moment she left the island, seemed dazed and looked about with questioning eyes, and one day she fell from her chair in a faint and the next morning had passed quietly away. Father Francisco showed me her grave in the shadow of the Mission tower, poor lost creature, alone and lonely in a strange world!”
“And no one ever really knew who she was, or what had happened to her?” asked Ronald.
“No; how could they when they could not speak her language and she had no time to learn theirs? She might not even have been the woman they were looking for; she might not have been an Indian at all; who knows?”
“Poor, poor thing!” mourned Lesley. “Oh, what a sad story, Stump-ery, bump-ery!”
“So sad,” cried the old sailor, lifting himself from his rock, “that I forget my work. You wait here, you children; I come back one half-hour and we go where your father save me from wreck and where I lose my leg and that was one day, half good luck, half bad luck,” looking down ruefully at his crutch.