Baby Island

by Carol Ryrie Brink

  “Well, you certainly scared them, whatever they were,” said Mary, “but I must say you didn’t set a very good example to the babies. Now you can just help me put ’em to sleep again.”

  A little cuddling, soothing, and singing finally eased the babies off to sleep. But Mary and Jean were too wide awake now to do more than lie still listening. After the howling and chattering, and the crying of the babies, there was deep silence. Then out of this great silence began to come a faint, persistent crying, very pitiful to hear. Something outside the tepee seemed lost and sad and begging for help. The crying went on and on, so mournfully that Mary could scarcely bear it She turned from side to side, trying to close her ears to the hopeless sound. At last she sat up softly and pulled on her dress.

  “You’re not going out there, Mary?” begged Jean.

  “I’ve got to go,” said Mary. “There’s a baby crying.”

  “Oh, babies!” said Jean, and it seemed to her that for once in her life she’d had enough of them.

  Mary slipped out of the tent, and Jean could hear her tiptoeing around and making soft calling noises. Then everything was still for a long time, or so it seemed to Jean.

  But at last Mary came softly back, and clinging to the front of her dress was a very tiny monkey. When the girls looked at him he covered his eyes with his little hands and shivered with fright. Mary held him gently, making soft, reassuring noises, and presently he hid himself under her arm, clinging closely to her warm body.

  “You see,” she said, “the other monkeys ran off and left him. Jeannie, we’ve got to take in another baby!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mary Mixes the Twins

  THE next day they put the little monkey out where his mother could find him if she chose, but she never returned for him. The screams from the tepee had frightened the monkeys so that they never wished to return. But it seemed to make very little difference to the baby monkey. He had found a new family which he liked quite as well as the old. The girls fed him and petted him.

  Although Mary had been the one to rescue him, he soon became Jean’s particular baby. Some spirit of mischief and adventure in the two linked them together almost from the start. Jean named him Prince Charley after the ranch her father managed in Australia, and it was not long before he knew his name and came when he was called. Unfortunately he often got himself into trouble with Mary, because he liked to steal Jonah’s bottle, pull Ann Elizabeth’s hair, or get the twins into mischief. But he was so gay and amusing that they could forgive him a great deal.

  The girls soon settled down to a regular routine of housekeeping. As the days passed Mary checked them off on her calendar, so that they would know where they were in point of time, and Jean as regularly “mailed” her letter to Aunt Emma, sealing it in an empty can and tossing it out to sea. Sometimes the waves brought it back, sometimes on a calm day when the tide was going out it danced away in the sunshine until it was lost to sight. Mary always sighed and shook her head when Jean performed this rite; but she said nothing, as Jean seemed to derive some comfort from it.

  One of the first things they had to do was to build a pen for the babies, so that they could play safely without straying away. In the shade of a couple of palms they built a small stockade by driving sharpened sticks close together into the ground. It was a hard task but well worth the trouble, for the twins and Ann Elizabeth were content to play there for hours without danger.

  Another great achievement was the building of the “pram”—perambulator for long, pram for short. This, like the tepee, was an idea which they had got from Cousin Alex’s fund of Indian lore. They made a litter of boughs, tied together with the strong sinewy vines that abounded everywhere and some pieces of their precious rope. More vines and rope made a sort of double harness which the girls put around their shoulders. When they wanted to go anywhere, they loaded the litter with blankets and babies and dragged the whole thing along behind them. True, it was very slow, and they once lost Blue off altogether and had to go back nearly a quarter of a mile for him. But on the whole the pram was very successful. They found the abundance of vines useful for many purposes. Jean discovered a natural swing hanging between two trees in the edge of the jungle.

  “Don’t you let either of them fall, Jean,” warned Mary. “I’ve got an awful responsibility to Mrs. Snodgrass, and I don’t know whether she would approve of swinging or not.”

  “Oh, they love it, Mary, and I’ll be awfully careful of them. You know,” Jean added a little wistfully, “I’m really beginning to feel settled—now that we have a swing.”

  They soon discovered that, when the tide was out, the little sun-warmed pools among the rocks made splendid bathtubs for the babies. One morning while baths were in progress, Jean suddenly began to rub her eyes.

  “Mary, do you see what I see?”

  “I see four darling babies, if that’s what you mean,” said Mary happily.

  “No, look down at that sandy stretch! Look! There are funny little squirts of water coming up.”

  “Sure enough,” said Mary.

  “But Mary, you’re so calm about it. I think it’s mighty queer to see water squirting right out of the sand. Come on, Pink, you’re dry enough, now. Let’s investigate.” Taking Elisha by the hand, and Prince Charley on her shoulder, she went down the beach to look at the queer little holes from which the water came. She picked up a piece of driftwood, and began to dig where the tiny spout of water had been. Presently she was digging faster and faster.

  “Ach! Mary! There’s something down here,” she called. “And it’s going down just as fast as I can dig. Oh, wait a minute, you! I’m getting it!” Suddenly she gave a triumphant shout. “Mary, look what the cat brought in!” And Jean held aloft an oval shell.

  “Why, Jeannie, it’s a clam!” cried Mary. “Aren’t you a smart girl! Folks stew them or steam them or something and eat them for dinner.”

  Jean was through with baby washing for the rest of the morning. She ran for the pail, put her clam safely inside it, and began to dig wherever she saw a spout of water. The Pink Twin waddled joyfully behind her, digging very busily, too, but never catching any clams.

  “Clams! clams!” [sang Jean].

  “We haven’t got pork chops,

  We haven’t got hams,

  We haven’t got mutton

  Or beef or lambs;

  But we’ve got clams

  An’ clams an’ clams!”

  The bottom of her pail was well covered when the Pink Twin suddenly uttered a fearful howl.

  “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 sca
red 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

  Hunting Friday

  FOR 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.