"JEAN," queried Mr. Black, when the four rather disheveled youngsters had scrambled up the bank, "have you girls seen anything of a boat?"
"No," replied Jean.
"Have you been on the shore all the time?"
"Every minute."
"I didn't see a boat," offered Henrietta, "but about half an hour ago—or perhaps an hour—I heard something that made a noise like this: 'chug-chug, chuggity-chug, chug-chug-chuggity-chug'"—Henrietta gave a very fair imitation of a naptha launch.
"I heard it, too," admitted Margery.
"That was the boat," said Mr. Blank, scanning the forsaken lake anxiously. "It's Hillitt's fish-tug and it goes down to Lakeville at sundown every day when the weather's fair. The tug runs to Bear Bay. I expected to go home on that boat; but, unfortunately, I went to sleep and didn't wake up in time to signal her."
"She was very far out," volunteered Jean. "You couldn't have seen her from here—I looked in every direction when I heard that noise, but I couldn't see what was making it."
"I thought," confessed Marjory, "that it was some sort of an animal breathing queerly—I didn't exactly like it."
"Evidently," said Mr. Black, "that boat stayed a long way from shore—sound carries a great distance over water. Anyway, that eases my conscience a little. I ought not to have fallen asleep, but I didn't suspect that it was so late. You see, girls, our time is all off. Goodness only knows how long it took us to get here; and I'm sure I don't know whether it was one, two, or three when we ate our dinner. Now, what do you think that big, golden sun's doing—over there behind those trees?"
"I think," said Henrietta, eying it, sagely, "that it's either going down or coming up. And I know it can't be time for it to come up."
"And it can't possibly be time," protested Mabel, "for it to go down."
"I fear it is," said Mr. Black. "I ought never to have taken that nap."
"Peter," demanded Mrs. Crane, suddenly joining the group, "how are we ever going to get home?"
"Sarah," replied Mr. Black, with one of his sweet, whimsical smiles, "I'm blest if I know."
"But, Peter, it's too far to walk; and the Whale——"
"But, Sarah, I fully intended to go home by boat. I was told that that boat passed here every day. Well, it has passed, hasn't it?"
"Yes," admitted Mrs. Crane, dryly, "it passed all right."
"When the Whale broke down," continued Mr. Black, soothingly, "I said to myself, 'Never mind, old chap, there's Hillitt's launch—we'll hail that and ride home.'"
"And when you assured us that you knew of a safe and easy way to get home, you were depending on that boat!"
"Sarah, don't rebuke me. I was. But, having committed that fatal error, I'm willing to atone for it. Hi there, girls! We'll all have to work for our living for the next hour or so. You see, good people, we'll probably have to stay here all night unless somebody sees our fire on the shore. Jean, I'm going to take you and Henrietta to the Whale so you can help me rob him of his lanterns and cushions. Sarah, I want you and the girls to take this hatchet, my knife, the bread-knife, and anything else that is sharp, and cut as many balsam boughs as you can from that grove of evergreens over there—I want a whole wagon load. Bettie, you can sit here on this log and fill these two hamper-covers with chips—we'll need a lot of firewood."
Presently Mr. Black and his two companions were back with all the comforts that could be stripped from the Whale. Dropping them near the baskets of wood and the growing pile of evergreen boughs, he went down to the beach, to select several tall poles from the half-buried driftwood that past storms had heaped behind the numerous big logs framing the upper edge of the beach.
Having dug holes with a sharp stick, Mr. Black planted the poles in an upright position; and the sand, fortunately, held them firmly. More poles were fastened securely across the top; luckily Jean remembered seeing a tangle of buckskin thongs hanging in the birch-bark wigwam; Mr. Black appropriated those. Along the beach were many odd lengths of lumber cast up by a long series of storms; these, too, were tied to the poles or securely braced against them; for the castaways had no nails.
The tablecloth—fortunately a generous one as to size—was fastened on top for a roof. This curious shack, when completed, was six feet wide by about seventeen feet long. Three sides were inclosed, but the fourth, the long side facing the south, was left open.
"We'll build a fire outside," said Mr. Black, "to keep our toes warm."
The entire floor space inside the shack was covered with balsam boughs. Mr. Black showed the girls how to make them stand upright like a forest of tiny trees—the twigs were about fourteen inches long.
"It'll be almost like a mattress and springs," assured he, "when you have it finished. The Whale has provided three light dust-covers and three fairly heavy robes—we'll use those for bedding."
"But," objected Marjory, who was not at all sure that she was going to like the queer bed that Mr. Black was making, "we haven't any pillows."
"I guess," teased Mr. Black, "you'll have to use your shoes—campers always do."
"The woods are full of pillows," assured Bettie, who was helping with the balsam twigs. "There's running pine on the ground under the trees, a lot of nice green moss on the logs, all sorts of big, soft ferns; and whole bushels of leaves on the trees."
"That's right," commented Mr. Black. "Suppose you girls gather about seven pillows—good big ones because the stuff will pack down—off the nearest pillow-tree; and I'll see if I can't find another wide board or two."
"Where," asked thoughtful Jean, "do all the pieces of lumber come from?"
"There's a sawmill at Big Bear Harbor, some fifteen miles north of here. I suppose a good many boards get lost through careless handling. None of this is first-class lumber, however. This plank, you see, is full of knot-holes. This one is hemlock and has two long splits in it."
"I guess there's a shingle-mill somewhere, too," said Bettie. "Mabel picked up a whole basketful of pieces of brand-new shingles."
"Sarah," said Mr. Black, turning to his sister, who still seemed rather stunned at the idea of spending a night in the woods, "you'd better fix some supper for us before it gets too dark. Now that we have a house to live in, we must have regular meals."
"What's that lean-to at the side for?" asked Mrs. Crane, pointing to the row of boards that rested against one end of the shack, forming a triangular space about four feet wide by six feet long.
"For me and the provisions," explained Mr. Black. "I never did like sleeping seven in a bed. And, in case it should rain, we must keep our food dry."
"It's lucky," said Mrs. Crane, touching a match to the neat fire that she had laid, "that we all brought more of everything to eat than we needed. And I'm glad I brought my old gray shawl; it's as warm as a blanket."
"If it turns cold," said Mr. Black, "we'll build a big fire just outside the open end of our house. But I think it's going to be a comfortably warm night—— There, I've got that plank fastened at last and our palatial home is finished. And bless me! Here comes the pillow brigade with all its petticoats turned into pillow-cases; and the brigade all giggling. They're certainly a happy lot, Sarah."
"Mine's for Mr. Black," shouted Mabel.
"Mine's for Mrs. Crane," shrieked Marjory.
"And mine," said extravagant Henrietta, dropping to her knees before Bettie, and proffering her lace-trimmed burden, "is for the Lady Bettina, with the devotion of her humblest slave."
"I guess," said Mr. Black, eying the roof of his house, ruefully, "that we'll have to eat without a tablecloth. Sarah, how's that supper?"
"Just about ready," said Mrs. Crane, stirring the cocoa with a long, clean stick. "The water will boil in a moment or two and Jean is cutting the bread."
The sun, red and glorious at the last, had gone down; but, while the campers, seated in a circle about the two dish-towels that Mrs. Crane had spread for a cloth, were eating their ample and delicious meal, the sky was so wonderful and the lake so marvelous with its calm surface touched lightly to burnished copper, that the castaways all but forgot that they were castaways, until Mr. Black brought them back to earth.
"There's only one thing that troubles me," said he, "and that's the mothers and grandmothers and Aunty Janes that we left in Lakeville."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Crane, pouring a second cup of cocoa for Bettie, "they're sure to worry. No matter how far we've gone in the Whale, we've always been home by bedtime."
"And I can't recall," said Mr. Black, running his fingers through his thick, iron-gray hair, "that I told a single soul exactly where I was going."
"And none of the rest of us knew," retorted his sister. "I've said, a great many times, that your fondness for surprising us would get us into trouble some day, and it has."
"But it's pretty nice trouble," offered Bettie, the peacemaker. "Of course all our grown-ups will worry, because grown-ups always do, anyway. But I'm sure they'll remember that you've never lost any of us yet, or starved us, or let us freeze."
"Granny will think," assured Henrietta, giggling at the thought, "that we're staying at a hotel, waiting for repairs on the Whale. She always thinks of hotels as a safe refuge for the homeless—she couldn't imagine a spot without a convenient hotel."
"Well, if nothing rescues us to-night," promised Mr. Black, "I'll walk to Barclay's Point at six to-morrow morning and hail that fish-boat. It leaves Lakeville six times a week at daybreak."
Their meal ended, the castaways sat in a circle about the big driftwood fire that Mr. Black built on the beach. Even Ambrosial Delight enjoyed the unusual evening. He ran round and round the group, just at the edge of the darkness, chasing nocturnal insects or the shadows cast by the flickering firelight; and once, greatly to his own surprise and to the campers' amusement, he leaped from a jutting log into the smooth, glassy lake. After that surprising experience, he was willing to lie cuddled in Henrietta's lap.
When it became evident that nobody could stay awake any longer, Mrs. Crane tucked all her little charges—even to the kitten—away for the night.
"I'm so sleepy," yawned Mabel, "that I could sleep on cobblestones."
"We'll leave a big place for you, Mrs. Crane," promised Jean, thoughtfully, "and we'll remember not to lean too hard against the walls."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Marjory, "isn't it queer without sheets!"
"This bed feels good to me," murmured Bettie, drowsily.
"Not a word more from anybody," said Mr. Black, who had donned his fur automobile coat and was crawling like a big shaggy bear into his triangular den. "It's time all honest people were asleep."
"I just wish," murmured Mrs. Crane, stretching herself luxuriously upon her fragrant balsam bed, "that all those mothers could see how safe and comfortable we are. They'll surely worry."
"They surely will," agreed Mr. Black, drowsily, "for it's an unheard-of thing, in Lakeville, for a picnic to stay out all night. It's a calamity, but it can't be helped."
And then, never guessing that to a certain about-to-be-shipwrecked boy their going home at the proper time would have proved a far greater calamity, the castaways closed their eyes.