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<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> <h3>THE CASTAWAYS</h3> “My, it was cold last night,” shivered Amanda, as she and Anne went toward the spring of fresh water which bubbled up near the shore for their morning drink. “I do wish Amos would plan some way to get us home to-day.” “How can he?” asked Anne; “he hasn’t any oars, and see what a long way it is across the water to Long Point. He couldn’t swim that far.” “Yes, he could, too,” declared Amanda, “and when the tide is out the water is so shallow that you can see the yellow sand shining through. He could swim some and walk some, and he’d get over there all right; then he could walk home and tell father and Captain Enos and they would come right after us.” “Why doesn’t he go then?” questioned Anne. “I do know that my Aunt Martha is sadly 98 worried; it is full two days since we set forth.” “Amos likes to stay here,” said Amanda, lowering her voice to a whisper; “he thinks it is fun to live as Indians do, and he doesn’t want to go home. If he gets enough to eat he’ll stay and stay, and then he can tell Jimmie Starkweather of being wrecked on an island.” “Couldn’t we get across to Long Point?” asked Anne. “No. We can’t swim, and ’twould be foolish to try,” answered Amanda. “We’ll have cooked fish for dinner,” said Amos as they ate beach-plums for breakfast. “I’m sure I can find some punk somewhere on this island, and while I am looking for it you girls gather all the dry twigs you can find, make a good-sized hole in the sand and fill it up with dry stuff that will take fire quickly, and I’ll show you how Indians cook.” “I’d rather have some Indian meal mush,” replied Amanda; “can’t you swim across to Long Point, Amos, and hurry home and send some one after us?” Amos looked at her in astonishment, and then smiled broadly. “I know a better way 99 than that,” he said, and without waiting to answer the girl’s eager questions he ran off toward the thicket of pines. “We’ll dig the hole in the sand, and then find some dry wood,” said Anne; “anything cooked will taste good, won’t it?” “Amos knows some way to get us home,” said Amanda, “and he’s got to tell us what it is, and start just as soon as he cooks his old fish. I wonder what it is!” Now that Amanda saw a prospect of getting home she felt more cheerful and so did Anne; and they gathered dry brush, bits of bark and handfuls of the sunburned beach-grass until the hole in the sand was filled, and there was a good-sized heap of dry brush over it. “Do you suppose Amos can really make a fire?” asked Anne. “I guess he can,” said Amanda. “Amos is real smart at queer things like that, that other boys don’t think about.” “I’ve found some!” shouted Amos, as he leaped down the bank; “just a little bit, in the stump of an old oak tree up here. Now wait till I get the thole-pins, and you’ll see,” and he ran toward the dory and returned with a pair of 100 smooth, round thole-pins, and sat down on the sand in front of the brush heap. The precious piece of punk was carefully wrapped in a piece of the sleeve of his flannel blouse. “I had to tear it off,” he explained, when Amanda pointed to the ragged slit, “for punk must be kept dry or it isn’t a bit of use.” He now spread the bit of flannel on the sand in front of him, and kneeling down beside it began to rub the thole-pins across each other as fast as he could move his hands. Anne and Amanda, kneeling on each side of him, looked on with anxious eyes. “There’s a spark!” at last shouted Amanda. The spark fell on the dry punk, in an instant the punk caught and there were several sparks, then Amos held a wisp of dry grass in front of it and blew vigorously, and the smouldering punk flamed up, the grass caught, Amos thrust it under the dry brush, and in less than a minute the whole mass was burning briskly. The children all jumped about it in delight. “My, I wish we could have had a fire like that last night, when I was so cold,” said Amanda. “We’ll keep it burning now,” said Amos. 101 “I’ve always wanted to start a fire this way. I think it’s better than flint and tinder,” for in those days the wooden splint matches were not known in the settlement, and fires were started by rubbing flint and steel together until a spark caught. “We are going home this afternoon,” said Amanda, so firmly that Amos looked at her in surprise. “What for?” he asked. “I think it’s fine here. We’ve got a house and a fire, and we’ll have fish enough to last——” “We are going home,” interrupted Amanda; “it’s horrid here, and everybody will be afraid we are drowned.” A little smile crept over Amos’s freckled face. “’twill indeed be a tale to tell Jimmie Starkweather,” he said, looking admiringly at the brush-covered shelter, and then at the brisk fire. “’Tis a shipwreck such as no boy in the settlement has had.” Amos asked no more questions, but sent the girls after more dry brush, while he dug another hole in the sand. Then with a long stick he pushed the hot wood and coals from the first hole into the second, and carefully laid the big 102 plaice fish on the hot sand, pushed a thick covering of hot sand over it, and started a new fire on top of it. “’twill be baked to a turn,” he said to his sister and Anne; “’Tis the way the Indians cook fish and mussels and clams. I have seen them.” “We’ll go home as soon as we can eat it,” said Amanda; “’twill be low tide by that time, and if you have no better plan for us, Amos, Anne and I will wade to Long Point.” “Wade!” repeated Amos scornfully; “you’d be drowned.” “Then tell us your plan,” urged Amanda, while Anne looked at him pleadingly. She had thought much about her father as she lay awake under the roof of pine boughs, and wondered if some word from him might not have reached the settlement. She thought, too, about the scarlet stockings, and wished herself back in the little brown house on the hill. So she said, “We must go home, Amos.” “I wish you girls had stayed home,” muttered Amos; “if some of the boys had come we’d have had a good time here; but girls always want to go home. Well, I’ll get you to Long Point without swimming,” and again Amos smiled, for he 103 had a secret of his own that he knew would greatly surprise Amanda and Anne. It was not long before he began scraping the hot embers from the sand under which the fish was cooking. Then he poked the hot sand away, and there lay the plaice, steaming and smoking, and sending out an appetizing odor. “There!” said Amos proudly, as he managed to cut off a piece with his jack-knife for each of the girls, “that’s as good fish as you ever tasted.” “It’s the best,” said Anne, and Amanda ate hungrily. Indeed the children were all so hungry that they devoured the entire fish. “If you’ll stay till to-morrow I’ll cook the cod,” said Amos, but both Amanda and Anne said they wanted to go home. So Amos with their help pushed and dragged the dory into the water, and then telling the girls to stay right by the boat until he returned, started off up the beach to where he had found the mussels. In a few minutes they saw him running back. “Look, Amanda!” exclaimed Anne, “he’s found an oar!” The little girls could hardly believe it possible; but Amos was smiling and seemed to think it was a great joke. 104 “I found it yesterday morning, the very first thing, when you were off after beach-plums,” he explained, “and I hid it, because I knew if I told you I’d found an oar you’d want to start for home right off; and as long as we were here I wanted some fun out of it. Now jump in, and I’ll scull you over to Long Point in no time.” The girls were too glad at the idea of really starting for home to blame Amos for keeping them on the island so long, but Anne thought to herself that she was sure that none of the Starkweather boys would have hidden the oar. “Amos is smart, but he’s selfish,” she decided, as the boy bent to the big oar and sent the clumsy boat toward Long Point. “’Tis a good oar, better than the one I lost,” said Amos, “and I do think ’twas lost from one of the English ships. There’s a big ‘S’ burned into the handle. Mayhap it belonged to the ‘Somerset.’ If so I’m glad they lost it.” “’twas the ‘Somerset’ ran down my father’s boat and nigh drowned him,” said Anne, “and the sailors lent him no help, but laughed to see him struggle till he reached near enough their ship to clamber up.” 105 “I wish I could be a soldier like your father,” said Amos, and at this Anne looked upon him more kindly. “Scull faster, Amos,” urged Amanda; “the sun is not two hours high, and ’Tis a long walk through the sand before we can get home. I do hope we’ll get there before milking time that I may have a drink of warm milk.” When the boat touched the sandy shore of Long Point, Anne and Amanda scrambled over the bow and urged Amos to hurry. “I must make the boat safe,” he said; “’twould be a sad loss to have the tide take her out. And I’ll hide this good oar, too. To-morrow Jimmie Starkweather and I will sail down and tow her back, and maybe take a look at the island,” and Amos looked back regretfully to the shores they had just left. The dory was drawn up beyond reach of the tide, the oar hidden under the sand, and the children started on their walk toward home. The distance was but two miles, but walking through the loose sand was hard and tiresome. “I slip back a step every step I take,” said Anne; “look, the sun is nearly out of sight now.” 106 “The milk will be strained and set ere this,” said Amanda mournfully; “there’s not even a beach-plum grows on this point, and the long grass cuts my feet whenever I come near it.” “You could have had another baked fish by this time if you would have stayed on the island,” said Amos complainingly. After this the children plodded on in silence for a long time. The harvest moon rose beyond the harbor and smiled down upon them. There was a silvery glint all over the water, and as they came round one of the big piles of sand, which are so often seen along the coast of Cape Cod, they all stopped and looked out across the harbor. It was Amos who pointed toward a big ship riding at anchor, perhaps a mile from the shore. “There’s the ‘Somerset’ back again,” he said. “I wonder if there’s any harm done at the settlement?” <hr class='major' /> 107 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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