Baby Island

by Carol Ryrie Brink

  “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.

  “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

  Another Baby

  “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. Pe
terkin 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?”

  “Oh, Jean, everybody has better feelings if you can just get at them.”

  “I think Mr. Peterkin’s are pretty far under,” said Jean gloomily.

  “You leave him to me,” said Mary.

  They were awakened in the morning by a hoarse voice singing:

  “Oh, Bedelia,

  I’d like to steal yuh!”

  Halfred, the parrot, had come over to inspect camp. He walked around and around them while Jean held the chattering Charley safely in her arms.

  “Good morning, Halfred,” said Mary politely. “I hope that you had a good night.”

  “Oh, you would, would you? Oh, you would, would you?” said Halfred sarcastically.

  Mary held out a small piece of hardtack. Halfred took it in one claw and, standing one-legged, nibbled it daintily, cocking his yellow eye at them the while.

  “Well, bless my soul!” he remarked. “Well, bless my soul and body!”

  Mary held out another bit of hardtack.

  “Oh, you would, would you?” said Halfred, but this time his tone had lost its sarcasm and was quite ingratiating. Presently he was like one of the family, letting the twins pet him and call him “Birdie,” and Mary scratch his head and smooth his tail feathers. For Mary knew the right place to scratch parrots’ heads, too.

  In the midst of this pleasant domestic scene, Mr. Peterkin arrived like a thundercloud.

  “Halfred, come out o’ that!” he commanded sternly.

  Halfred flew obediently to his master’s shoulder, tweaking his ear and remarking hoarsely, “Man the pumps, Captain, man the pumps!”

  “Look ’ere,” said Mr. Peterkin, addressing Mary, “that kid’s sick again. ’E won’t eat no’ow. I gives ’im the bottle just like you did, an’ bly’me if ’e don’t shun me cold.”

  “Well,” said Mary, “of course he won’t take the bottle if you’re cross with him. You have to make yourself look and sound like his mother.”

  “Me?” roared Mr. Peterkin. “Me look an’ sound like a nanny goat?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Look ’ere, Miss. You come give ’im the bottle. I’ll give ye milk for yer young ’uns’ breakfast, if ye’ll get the little beggar to take ’is.”

  Mary wanted nothing better. “Here, you hold these babies for me,” she said, putting Jonah and Ann Elizabeth into the astonished seaman’s arms, and she ran off to the goat pen.

  Jean followed her, holding the twins by the hand, with Halfred and Charley hopping along on each side. Last of all came the dazed Mr. Peterkin, carrying the two babies as gingerly as if they had smallpox. Ann Elizabeth gave Mr. Peterkin a long look, and then her face dimpled into a lovely baby smile.

  “Pitty,” said Ann Elizabeth, touching his fierce black whiskers. “Pitty-pitty.”

  Mr. Peterkin was embarrassed, but he was also just a little flattered. Nobody had ever before called his beard pretty.

  It took Mary only a moment to persuade the baby goat to take his breakfast. All he wanted was a kind hand and a gentle voice to administer it. When he had finished it, Mary turned to Mr. Peterkin.

  “Now, I’ll show you how to get his confidence,” she said, and in a moment the haughty Mr. Peterkin was taking lessons in the art of looking and sounding like a mama nanny goat.

  “Well, blow me down!” he remarked hoarsely, when Mary told him that he had done well at his lesson.

  Meanwhile inquisitive Jean and the twins were exploring Mr. Peterkin’s shanty.


  “Oh, Mary,” cried Jean, from the shanty door, “he’s got a phonograph.”

  As it happened, the phonograph was Mr. Peterkin’s greatest weakness, and now he couldn’t resist showing it off. Making a great pretense of grumbling, he went into the shanty and wound it up. It was an old-fashioned affair with a large horn shaped like a purple morning-glory. The records were little black-wax cylinders. With a certain amount of pride and condescension, Mr. Peterkin played two records for them: “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree,” and “Oh, Bedelia.” Halfred, perching himself upon the horn, sang the choruses. He was quite off key and about a measure behind, but nobody minded that.

  “So that’s where he learned it,” said Mary, “and nearly scared Jean to death!”

  Jean and the babies were delighted, but soon tidy Mary could do nothing but gaze about the awful disarray of Mr. Peterkin’s one room.

  “Oh, Mr. Peterkin!” she said, “what a dreadful mess!”

  “I’m not a ’ousekeeper, Miss,” said he, apologetically.

  “I should say not!”

  “Oh, but it’s a lovely mess, Mary!” cried Jean. “What with the phonograph and Pharaoh’s Horses in that great gold picture frame, and the shells and ship models, and the iron stove, and that great brass-bound chest. What’s in that, Mr. Peterkin?”

  “I say, you leave that chest alone, you ’ear?” Mr. Peterkin was angry again, and Jean retreated rapidly. “You’re not to touch that, never! D’you ’ear?”

  “But his bed’s not made,” said Mary, unable to think of anything else, “and the dust is terrible.”

  “Well, I ’ates ’ousework!” cried Mr. Peterkin crossly. “’Tis the only ’ardship in living by myself. Cookin’ is ’ateful, too, but a man’s got to live even on a desert hi’land!”

  Suddenly Mary’s eyes grew starry with an idea.

  “Look here!” she said. “If one of us came over every week and cleaned your house and cooked up some food for you, would you give us milk for the babies? Would you?”

  He scratched his head. “You’d bother me,” he growled.

  “No, we promise not to bother! We’ll cross our hearts, won’t we, Jean?”