Management Leading and Collaborating

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Chapter 05

Ethics, Corporate Responsibility, and Sustainability

True / False Questions

1. Most people have unconscious biases that favor themselves and their own group.

True False

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2. Values are the rules that govern people's behavior and identify the "goods" that are worth
seeking.

True False

3. The ethical system known as egoism is similar to Adam Smith's concept of the invisible hand
in business.

True False

4. According to virtue ethics, moral individuals can transcend society's rules by applying
personal virtues.

True False

5. Individuals can be ethical leaders if they have a strong moral character, regardless of what
issues actually get most of their attention.

True False

6. Integrity-based ethics programs are primarily concerned with the avoidance of illegality.

True False

7. A good process for ethical decision making begins with considering the legal requirements.

True False

8. A transcendent education involves balancing self-interest with responsibility to others.

True False

9. Profit maximization and corporate social responsibility necessarily lead to opposing corporate
policies.

True False

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10. Sustainable growth refers to economic growth and development that meet the organization's
present needs without harming the ability of future generations to meet their needs.

True False

Multiple Choice Questions

11. Bill, the manager of Just Right Gelato, acts with integrity and honesty because he believes in
a system of rules that governs the ordering of values. The system of rules that directs Bill's
behavior is known as _____.

A. compulsion
B. philosophy
C. law
D. ethics
E. justice

12. A situation, problem, or opportunity in which an individual is obligated to choose among

several actions that must be evaluated as morally right or wrong is a(n) _____ issue.

A. moral
B. legal
C. value
D. relative
E. ethical

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13. What are business ethics?

A. Principles of conduct, such as caring, being honest, pursuing excellence, and showing
loyalty
B. The moral principles and standards that guide behavior in the world of business
C. The system of rules that governs the ordering of economic value
D. A situation, problem, or opportunity in which a political leader must choose among several
actions
E. The principles, rules, and values that people use in deciding what is right or wrong for
themselves

14. When Pam has to decide whether something is right or wrong, she considers the writings of
the ancient teachers Confucius and Marcus Aurelius, whose works she has read many times.
These books form the basis of Pam's _____.

A. moral philosophy
B. value system
C. ethical situation
D. relativism
E. egoism

15. Which ethical system states that the greatest good for the greatest number should be the
overriding concern of decision makers?

A. Universalism
B. Utilitarianism
C. Relativism
D. Egoism
E. Pragmatism

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16. Which ethical system was developed by a group of international executives, including
business leaders from Japan, Europe, and the United States?

A. The Sabanes-Oxley Act

B. The Caux Principles
C. The Peter Principle
D. Kohlberg's Model
E. Corporate Social Responsibility

17. Jarrett believes that ethical behavior is anything that provides the maximum benefit for
himself. What ethical system does Jarrett subscribe to?

A. Universalism
B. Utilitarianism
C. Relativism
D. Egoism
E. Pragmatism

18. Once a year at the annual employee meeting, the president of Federated Finance reminds
everyone of his belief that there are certain values that everyone can agree on, such as
honesty, fairness, and respect for life. Which ethical system does the president believe in?

A. Universalism
B. Utilitarianism
C. Relativism
D. Egoism
E. Pragmatism

5-5
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 THERE WAS A CAT-TRACK

Then, as she turned to join the others, her eye fell to the ground at her
feet, and there, plain and distinct, was a cat-track so large that she could
not have covered it with one of her hands, and her hands were not so
very small either. Fascinated, she stared at it. There was no doubt as to
what it was. She glanced around, but could see no others. The ground
chanced to be a little soft in that particular spot. But surely that one was
enough; there was no need of more. What a monster it must have been to
have made that track! Marian drew in a quick breath and then threw up
her head and called casually, “O children, come back now. We won’t go
any farther.”
Delbert, his eyes wide with surprise, came quickly with some
protesting words, but Marian frowned warningly at him and with a tilt of
her chin indicated the track. His gaze found it instantly. Indeed, it seemed
to Marian to be the most conspicuous feature of the landscape.
 He bent his head toward it a moment; then his eyes met hers again. For
a second they looked at each other; there was no need of words. He
turned back to the pitalla to hurry the others back, and Marian saw him
casting surreptitious glances at the cliff above them.
The little girls and Davie were so glad to turn back that they asked no
questions, taking it for granted that the plan was changed because there
were too many thorns.
The two older ones were rather silent on the way back. They went as
quickly as they could, but it was not a thing that could be done so very
quickly, and Marian grew more and more nervous. Supposing the
creature saw them, supposing—she jerked herself up and mentally gave
herself a good scolding, but never was she so glad as when they left the
mountain behind and pushed through to where the raft was tied, waiting
for them.
As they pushed out and paddled back, calmness came to her. There
were hard things in her pathway, dreary things to face, but, compared
with what might be, her life seemed full of rosebuds and sunshine.
Four pair of bright, loving eyes looked at her; four healthy, warm,
breathing little bodies would lie within reach of her touch that night.
Suppose one were ever missing through her fault or carelessness, what
pleasure would life hold then?
Looking back at the face of the mountain, she judged that they had
climbed about a third of the way up.
It was well into the afternoon when they got home, and a hungry lot
they were, too.
That night Delbert waited till he was sure the little ones were asleep
and then he cautiously spoke Marian’s name.
She was awake. “What is it?”
He turned over and raised himself on his elbow.
“Do you—do you suppose—it could swim over?”
“I don’t think so,” said she; “it is probably strong enough, but it seems
to me I have read that they never go into the water unless they are
compelled to. No, I am quite sure it would never do that.”
Delbert drew a long breath of relief.
“I know the house kitty never wanted to get her toes wet,” he said.
“No, we are quite safe from it here.”
“I guess we’d better stay here,” he said.
They did stay there. When the weather turned cold again, they were in
better condition than they had been the year before. They had two rabbit-
skin blankets, or robes, that kept out the chill winds at night, and they
had the brush shelter in front of the Cave so thick and matted and
interwoven with banana leaves and strips of stalk that the wind did not
penetrate that either; so with the bright fire they could be comfortable
through the evenings and cold nights. In the daytime they were always so
active that the cold did not much trouble them. Besides, it soon warmed
up after the sun rose.
One day, while up in the pasture, hunting food and fuel, they noticed
an unusually large mescal or century-plant. These were very common on
the island, and Marian had never thought of any use they could put them
to, but that day it suddenly dawned upon her that very similar plants were
cultivated in some places for the rope fiber in the great sharp-pointed
leaves. Perhaps it would be stronger and better than banana fiber. So they
dug this one up by the roots and dragged it home.
They chopped off the thick leaves and tossed the stump to one side.
Then, with some stones, the hatchet, and the knives, they thumped and
pounded and smashed the leaves and worked and scraped away till they
got the fiber out, and when they finally did get it, it seemed to Marian
that it really was better than banana fiber. That evening they would see
what kind of a rope could be made out of the new material. So after
supper they got at it, sitting before their fire at the Cave.
They did not braid their ropes any more; they had learned better than
that; but they both felt that their method of rope-making could be vastly
improved upon, for it was a very slow process at best, and the rope
finally produced was a very uneven thing.
But ropes they had to have. The raft must always be well lashed
together, and ropes so used soon wore out. Their fences were tied with
ropes in many places. They never went on any excursion without taking
some ropes along, for they were constantly wanting them, chiefly,
perhaps, to tie about their bundles of wood. A very large bundle of heavy
sticks could be quite easily dragged home with a rope.
In the first place they had had only Delbert’s hair rope and had used it
for everything, but now they were trying to be as saving of it as possible,
never using it when another one would suffice, but Delbert always
carried it with him, coiled up and tied at his waist.
When they finished working out the fiber it was clean, straight, and
pretty as it lay in a neat pile.
“Now, how is the best way to do this?” asked Marian in a businesslike
tone.
 “I have been thinking,” said Delbert. “Remember that time I went with
Clarence and his father after a load of corn? Well, at one place where we
stopped there was an old Indian making ropes. I’ve been trying for a long
time to remember how he did it. Dear me!” he exclaimed in disgust,
“why didn’t I pay ’tention? Clarence explained it all to me, but I just let
it go into one ear and out the other. I wasn’t interested in making ropes
then.”
“Can’t you remember anything about it at all?” asked his sister
sympathetically. “If you could just remember a point or two, we could
work it out from that, maybe. Davie, don’t you want to put a stick of
wood on the fire? Not that one, dear; that one won’t burn,” for Davie had
picked up the stump of the mescal plant and heaved it into the center of
the flames.
“Yes, will burn,” asserted he complacently, and returned to his play of
fitting little clamshells together and laying them in a row.
Jennie poked the stump to one side and raked the coals and hot ashes
over it. “We’ll dry it out, and then maybe it’ll burn, Davie dear,” she
said.
“Here,” said Esther, gingerly handing over a piece of particularly
thorny pitalla; “this will make a light.”
“Why, you see,” said Delbert, “they had the fiber—este they call it—
all in a pile, but tangled as if they must have tangled it themselves. They
had that part of it all done when we got there, but I remember Clarence
said they laid it on something—a board, I guess—and hooked one end
over a nail to hold it, and scraped it with an old machete blade fixed in a
crooked stick,—scraped it and scraped it till there wasn’t anything left of
the leaf but the fiber; then, I s’pose, they tangled it all up next; anyway,
the man had a thing he whirled and he backed off across the yard, a-
whirling it and whirling it and spinning a strand of rope out from that pile
of este.”
“Was it a wheel he whirled?”
“No, it wasn’t. It was just a little stick thing he held in one hand,—two
sticks, one of them whirled on the other.”
“Give me your knife,” said Marian, “and, Jennie, hand me that piece
of driftwood there by you; no, the other one. Was the stick he had as long
as that, Delbert?”
“Just about, but it was nice and smooth.”
“This will be nice and smooth when I get through with it. You just
tangle some of that fiber the way the old Indian had his.”
 Delbert began picking it apart and dropping it careless and crisscross.
“You can just bet,” he burst out, “you can just bet your boots, if I ever
have a chance to see anybody else doing anything again, I’ll see what
they are doing; don’t care what it is.”
“That is the best way,” admitted Marian. “There are a whole lot of
things, simple things, that would help us a great deal if we only knew
how to do them. Can’t you remember anything more Clarence said about
this?”
Delbert wrinkled his brows. “There was something about a balance-
wheel. What is a balance-wheel?”
“I don’t know that I can explain it, though I know what it is myself.
Maybe I can show you pretty soon. Hand me that little smooth stick
about a foot and a half long, that one with the knob on the end. Yes, I
think that will do nicely.”
She had shaved and whittled the piece of driftwood till it was about a
foot long, an inch thick, and two and one half inches wide at one end and
tapering to a point at the other, which point she whittled into a button-
like knob. Just back of the knob she made a hole big enough to slip the
second stick into. It slipped down, but was prevented from slipping clear
off by the knob on the end of it. Then, grasping this second stick, she
began to whirl it so that the driftwood stick whirled round and round on
it.
“There!” she cried; “does that look anything like it, Delbert?”
“It does! it does! That’s it exactly! How did you guess?”
“I didn’t guess. I have seen one myself somewhere, but didn’t know
what it was for. I think I saw a couple of them down at Doña Luisa’s one
morning when I went down for milk. But the proof of the pudding is in
the eating. Let’s see how this complicated machine will work.”
She twisted a little of the tangled fiber round the knob on the
driftwood stick and began to twirl. Of course it promptly twisted the
fiber into a little strand.
“Here, Delbert,” she said, “you whirl this while I spin out the strand,
or else it will all twist up in bunches.” Sitting down by the little pile of
fibers, she grasped the twisting strand in one hand so that it should spin
out of an even size. “Now, whirl away,” she said, “and back off as fast as
it spins out.”
“This is just the way they did it,” said Delbert. “I remember now, there
were two of them; one whirled the stick, and the other sat down and
pulled the strand out of the pile of fiber just as you are doing it.” And he
backed off, whirling vigorously, until the little pile of tangled fibers was
all used up.
“There,” she said, “that is a lot better than twisting it just with our
fingers, as we have been doing with the banana fiber, and it certainly
beats braiding all hollow. We can twist and twist and twist, and then we
can put as many strands as we want to into the rope.”
They worked that night till they had used up all their fiber, and then
went to bed, agreeing to go next day and gather more mescal plants.
In the morning, when Marian raked open her fire, she raked out the
stump of the mescal plant. It was brown and juicy. She began to examine
it.
“Looks good. Doesn’t it?” she said to the children, who were rolling
out of the Cave.
Esther came suddenly forward and bent over it. “It is good, too,” she
declared. “That is the stuff they had down at Julianita’s one day. They
were eating it, and said for Jennie and me to eat some too, but Jennie
wouldn’t touch it ’cause she was ’fraid it would make us drunk.”
“You didn’t eat any either,” remonstrated Jennie.
“I didn’t ’cause you didn’t.”
Marian was cutting the stump in pieces. They all tried it. It was sweet
and good, though there was a great deal of string and fiber to be
discarded after the sweetness and goodness had been chewed out and
swallowed.
“But it is what they make mescal of; isn’t it?” asked Delbert.
“I presume it is; in fact, it must be, only this wild plant doesn’t grow
just the same as the tame ones, maybe; but it must be that they cook the
centers something like this and mash them and let them ferment and
distill it some way. It seems to me I have heard how it was done, but I
was like you about the ropes; I didn’t pay enough attention to remember.
It certainly never occurred to me that there was anything about it that
was any good to us. I think we owe Davie a vote of thanks.”
“Clarence ought to have told us,” said Esther reproachfully.
So another food was added to their list, and after a little practice they
could turn out mescal fiber ropes that were so smooth and well twisted
that they could be used to lasso with.
The two little girls had learned to lasso burros, but Marian’s aim was
not much better than Davie’s. She did not practice the art as her little
sisters did. She whittled out a big crochet-hook, though, and then twisted
a very fine strand of fiber and crocheted a bag of it that was very useful
to put things into on their travels. Whenever there was a storm, they
would always go to Bonanza Cove afterwards to collect the riches found
there.
These consisted mostly of driftwood, and the small pieces could go
into the bag, while the big ones were tied together and carried or dragged
home. But sometimes other things came, bottles empty but corked,—so
many of them that Marian concluded all sailors must be sad drinkers,—
bits of board, an old leaky bucket, and, best of all, this second year, a
broken oar.
“I hope it didn’t incommode any one much when it broke,” Marian
said, “but we certainly can make good use of it.” It was just barely long
enough to use as a paddle.
When it came nesting-time again, they were right on hand at the bird
islands. They would put the eggs into the bag and the demijohn and a
few young squabs into the barrel, and they were so much better equipped
for the cruise than they were the first time they made the trip that it did
not seem such a big undertaking, and they could go oftener.
Once, while out on one of the sandbars, hunting clams, they saw
something farther out still, something dark on the water. Delbert thought
it was probably only a mass of seaweed, but he wanted to go and see. So,
as the water was very smooth that morning, they paddled the raft out,
though they had never been so near the Gulf before since their arrival.
They found the dark spot to be another log, much smaller and
somewhat shorter than the one in their raft, but they took it in tow just
the same.
They found some turtle-eggs on those sunny sandbars that second
summer. Sometimes they saw the turtles themselves, but they were never
able to catch one, though Delbert was very enthusiastic in the pursuit.
That summer they had vegetables; and how good they were! The
turnips and carrots grew splendidly, and the children devoured them both
cooked and raw. The green peppers, for some reason, did not flourish so
well till the next year, but they were eaten with a relish also. The lettuce,
when transplanted and cared for, set in solid heads that reminded them of
cabbage, and the children ate it like so many hungry little calves eating
clover, and Marian often boiled a head of it with a fowl, and they voted it
fine.
The bananas bore good fruit now, large, well-filled-out bunches.
Marian dried some. Among the edible fruits of the Island was the wild
tomato. They found very few of these, and the fruit was very small,
scarcely larger than the tip of Marian’s little finger, but when the seeds
were planted in their garden they came up and did well, plenty of water
increasing the size and quality of the fruit somewhat. The plants bore
abundantly, and the flavor was good. They put them in soups or stewed
them by themselves sometimes, sweetening them with the juice boiled
from the pitallas, or, at rare intervals, with wild honey. But the greater
portion of them were eaten raw.
There was certainly no lack of food now. Delbert did not set traps any
more. He could shoot so well with his bow and arrow that he did not
need traps to secure a rabbit when one was wanted, and the little girls
could sometimes hit a hopping mark as well as he.
They lost the hook one day, some big fish making off with it, and they
caught their fish entirely with the spear after that.
They were milking two burros. Jacky, being thoroughly weaned, was
turned out of the corral and went where he pleased, and he generally
pleased to go with the children whenever they were going where he
could follow. Jennie was really plump now, strong and healthy, but not so
strong or so healthy as Esther, who, solid little urchin, could follow
Delbert very closely in all his exploits. She could run as far without
getting tired, she could shoot an arrow with almost as accurate an aim,
and she did not always miss the fish she aimed her spear at.
She was a splendid little swimmer, better even than Marian, and it
used to seem to Marian that she was the prettiest little mermaid any one
ever set eyes on.
 CHAPTER VII
THE MUGGYWAH

T time came when Marian had to face the problem of clothing.

Every bathing-suit was worn to rags, and everything else was so near it
that there was no trusting anything. When the weather was cold they had
their wraps, and these covered a multitude of tattered sins, and none of
the tribe save Marian herself ever wore anything into the water any more,
but even with such economy there was no dodging the issue any longer.
Unless she were willing that her flock should revert to extreme savagery
in costumes, something had to be done.
Her first attempt was to crochet clothing out of fiber, but it took so
long to make a garment that way that she was always eagerly on the alert
for other modes. She remembered that soaking skins in wet ashes would
remove the hair. Old Mr. Faston had said so once. So she tried it with
some rabbit-skins. It worked very well. After being packed in a little
hollow of the rock with ashes and water all night, the fur was easily
pulled off. Then, when the ashes were washed off and the skin was
nearly dry, it could be rubbed and worked till it was soft and pliable and
Marian could begin dressmaking.
Rabbits were getting scarce in their immediate vicinity, however, and
the search for better hunting-grounds took them back to the mainland
again. They did not cross the harbor and go to climbing mountains this
time, however. They took the raft down the bay and followed one of the
winding esteros that led between mango bushes, off and off, farther and
farther, twisting and turning and growing narrower and more and more
shallow till they came out into a comparatively level country, with no
hills near at hand, but great stretches of mud flats and sandbanks and
miles and miles of pitalla and scrubby brush.
They took the raft as far as they could and tied it to some bushes and
proceeded afoot. They wandered several miles, taking care not to lose
their bearings. They found wagon-loads of fine pitalla and some other
wood, rabbits galore, and a few stone or flint arrowheads, but no sign
whatever of human habitation.
 Delbert shot eight big jack rabbits, Esther got three, and Jennie two,
thirteen in all. They decided that the unluckiness of the number was for
the rabbits, not for them. They took only the skins home with them, for
they did not need the meat, and they had plenty of other things to carry
back to the raft.
They loaded it with all the good dry pitalla they could pile up and tie
on. Down close by the water, half buried in the salty mud, Delbert found
a stone hatchet. Once before he had found a broken one, but this was
perfect. He held it in his hand with a dreamy look on his face. “How long
ago do you s’pose it was, Marian, when they made ’em and used ’em like
this one?”
“Mercy! I have no idea; hundreds of years at the least and like as not a
million.”
“Well, anyway, it’s mine now,” he said decidedly, as he dropped it into
the fiber bag.
“Yes, I think you can keep it with a clear conscience. Now, get on
here, all of you. Never mind that crab, Davie; you don’t need it,
anyway.”
They did not get home till the moon was well up.
There was probably stuff growing at her hand that would have given
those skins a good tan, if Marian had only known what it was and how to
use it, but she did not. The soaking in ashes did fairly well; only if the
skin got well wet afterwards, it would dry stiff unless it was worked and
kept pliable while drying. Of course there was no strength in the rabbit-
skins. They tore easily, but they were, nevertheless, a material of which
Marian could make simple clothes, so that they should not be entirely
naked if any one ever did come along. She made dresses for the little
girls first, the simplest style she could think of, eliminating sleeves
altogether and not continuing the skirts below the knees.
She crocheted belts of fiber, and used it also to sew with, for her
supply of thread was very low indeed. There was no need of buttons; the
little girls just slipped the dresses over their heads, slipped their arms
through the generous armholes, belted the slight fullness at the waist, and
there you were—pretty as pictures, too.
The only foreign articles in the construction of those robes were the
belt-buckles, which Marian had contrived out of the fasteners of their old
stocking-supporters. Of course the elastic and the stockings had worn out
long ago. Every one was barefoot now except Marian, who was near
enough to it, but the soles of her shoes had been very thick and good, and
though the tops were worn out she still managed to use the bottoms as
sandals and thus had some protection to her feet, which somehow she
could never get toughened as the children’s were.
After several more trips up the estero and more or less success in
hunting, they had enough rabbit-skins to make Marian a dress too. She
made it just as she had the other two, belting it with her red leather belt,
which she had worn for several years, but which was still as strong as
new. Her dress came a little below her knees.
The rabbit-skins were not at all satisfactory for Delbert. He was in and
out of the water so constantly, and climbed and scrambled over the rocks
so much, that a garment that must not be wet and that would not stand
strain was not at all what he needed.
He told Marian that all he wanted was a loin-cloth such as other
Indians wore, but Marian was not at all sure how loin-cloths were made
or worn. She thought about cutting off an end of one of the blankets, but
rather hated to do that; so she worked away with her hook and the banana
fiber till she had evolved what satisfied him. And when he donned it and
strode along, shirtless and barelegged, his hair stringing over his
shoulders and kept out of his eyes by a red rag tied around his forehead,
and the rag stuck full of feathers, he certainly looked not unlike an
aborigine of some sort.
Davie declined even a loin-cloth; simple nature unadorned suited him
to a T.
Thus, between the bananas and the rabbits, Marian managed to keep
her family clothed.
They took many trips to the mainland. There were several esteros that
led far inland, and they explored them all. They became accustomed to
going without water. They always had some with them, but it was such a
bother to take a lot of bottles along every time they stirred out from home
that they trained themselves not to want a drink every little while. They
would take a big drink before they left the Island in the morning, and
often no one would take another till noon. Also they learned to go
without much food in the middle of the day and to eat that little raw.
Children are children the world over, I fancy. These had their little
games and plays, which Marian was always ready to foster. The little
girls and Davie used to put their dolls to bed every night, tucking them in
as carefully as they did themselves. Also the dolls were usually carried
with them, if they were making a trip of any great length, lest they should
get lonesome and frightened if left too long alone. They traveled in a
little fiber bag Jennie crocheted, and were generally hung up on the mast
where they were well out of the way of the water, and if they went inland
Jennie would wear the bag hung about her neck.
When they went in swimming, the children would play they were
fishes and other water creatures and would imitate the different
characteristics as well as they could. Davie’s favorite characterization
was that of the crab. He would run sideways on all fours and pinch the
other children’s toes. He played this so strenuously that he often made
himself something of a nuisance and had to be tactfully guided into other
channels of thought.
They were all perfectly delighted when Marian taught them how to
stay under water as long as they pleased. On one of their inland trips they
had found some large hollow weed-stalks. They played with them at first
by simply blowing bubbles in the water and drawing up mouthfuls of
water which they blew out at each other, but when Marian showed them
that by holding one of the hollow tubes in the mouth one could stay
under water as long as he remembered to breathe always through the
mouth and to keep the top of the tube above the water, they invented all
kinds of games that the new trick could be used in.
Delbert could do it best. He declared he could lie under the water and
go to sleep, it was so easy. Marian did not advise him to try it. “You
might get to snoring and drown before you could wake up,” she told him.
Their novel clothing gave new impetus to their Indian play. There was
some discussion at first as to which tribe they belonged to. They could
not seem to recognize themselves as belonging to any they had yet heard
of and they finally invented a new one and called themselves the tribe of
the Hawks. Marian had been calling Delbert that for some time, he was
always so keenly on the alert for anything to eat. And when he perched
himself on a rock and fished patiently,—that was before they lost the
hook,—he reminded her of nothing so much as a fish hawk ready to
swoop.
They spent more and more time on the trips inland. They began to
skirt the hills a little. Davie was so big now that he did not seem to tire
out any quicker than Jennie, and the little feet were all so tough that hard
roads did not daunt them.
They saw no more cat-tracks, but Marian never forgot that one, and
because of it kept the tribe away from the high rocky hills and the thick
growth.
 The country beyond the largest estero became familiar to them for
several miles. There was a certain lagoon there that they liked to go to in
the rainy season,—and there was no lagoon there except in the rainy
season. There were beautiful blue pond-lilies in it. Marian dug up some
roots and planted them on the home Island.
They frequently found arrowheads and sometimes other stones,
broken, but showing the work of human hands upon them, all of which
spoke with certainty of bygone people, but never anything of modern
times. Near the lagoon were several low hills, and on these they found
the cotton-tree. This tree in its season produces big pods full of silky
white cotton, and though the yield is not so very abundant, nor the
quality so very fine, yet they saved every pod they could find, Delbert
and Esther often climbing up for those that could not be reached from the
ground with a pole.
“Some day I will invent a spinning-wheel and a loom,” said Marian,
“and we will make cloth.” And the children, remembering the rope-
making machine she had made, never doubted her ability.
Once, when they were about two miles from the end of the estero, they
found a good-sized tree that had blown down some years before on the
side of a little hill. It was larger than any tree growing there now and
seemed to have been alone among its dwarfish neighbors. It was too
heavy to be dragged all that distance, but if they could manage to chop
off the few limbs and the roots that stuck up so high, they could roll it
down to the estero and float it home.
It was a big task, but because they had plenty of time on their hands
and no pressing social duties, and also because they needed that log in
their business, they made trip after trip, starting at daylight and not
getting home till nearly dark, chopped and chopped with the hatchet until
they had the log smooth enough to roll, and then rolled it over and over
all that distance and floated it home in triumph.
Then they set about improving the raft. The new log was a little
crooked, but otherwise was about the equal of the one they had captured
out in the bay. The three logs together would be much better than the raft
as it was. Delbert’s idea was to lash them together as they had been
doing, but Marian had thought of an improvement, though it almost
seemed as if it could not be done with their limited facilities. They had
already accomplished so many tasks that seemed hard, however, and
Delbert was such a bright and willing helper, and the little girls were
always so willing to contribute their share to any labor, that she told
Delbert that at any rate they would have a try at shipbuilding.
 CHOPPED AND CHOPPED UNTIL THEY HAD THE LOG SMOOTH
ENOUGH TO ROLL

Long and longingly she looked at the old canoe, but in the end left it
where it was in the corral fence. She could think of no way to combine it
with the logs to make a more serviceable craft.
The new log was rolled up on the beach beside the one they had found
out on the water, and then the raft was taken to pieces, and the log in the
middle of it was also rolled up on the beach. After they were all fixed in
just the right position, they were kept in place by stakes driven into the
ground.
The next thing was to make a new tool. Among the scraps of iron
found on the little egg island was one about an inch in diameter and
nearly three feet long when straightened out. It was round, an immense
bolt maybe, but rusted and bent and twisted. What Marian did first was
to heat it to straighten it out.
It was very hard to handle it when it was hot. She had an assortment of
green sticks and matted-fiber holders for this purpose. As when they
were making the fish-spear, they used a flat rock for an anvil and the
hatchet for a hammer, and after many heatings and hammerings they got
the iron straight with a blunt point on one end.
But straightening the bar was only the beginning of the work. She kept
the fire hot and heated the bar time after time, and burned three holes
entirely through the two outside logs and corresponding ones well into
the middle log. Then they took six of the toughest stakes they could find,
whittled them straight and smooth to the right size, and drove them in
through the burned holes like huge nails. Next they burned and whittled a
big hole down into the center log as a socket for the mast. Then they
picked out the best of the poles that had been in the raft and set it in place
and drove in wedges to hold it solid. This got rid of the clumsy lashings
and proppings, besides giving them a straight instead of a crooked mast,
and it was not difficult then to rig up a sail that could be easily raised and
lowered, using, of course, one of the blankets for a sail as before.
The platform that they burned their pitalla on when spearing next
demanded their attention. It was too clumsy and was always needing
repairs. Once out on the salt reef they had found a dead sea turtle half
buried in the sand. They had fished it out and fastened it with stakes
where it would not be washed away, though every tide would cover it,
and the elements combined with the scavengers of the sea to clean the
shell for them. With rocks and the hatchet they broke away the under part
of the shell, and the top part, about two and a half feet in diameter,
curved and dished, would hold the pitalla nicely.
Two stout, widespread crotches were cut and driven tightly into
burned holes at one end of the projecting middle log, so that they
supported the inverted turtle-shell. It did not, however, rest firmly
enough till Marian had wired it to the crotches by means of the bail from
the old wooden bucket, which was passed through little holes burned in
the shell.
Away off up in the pasture they had found a place where the soil
partook of the nature of clay. They brought some from there, mixed it to
the right consistency and spread a coating all over the inside of the turtle-
shell. It dried without much cracking, and the fire would harden it. This
was a vast improvement over the old platform, which, in spite of their
best efforts had always been a trifle wobbly and evinced a tendency to
spill the fuel off into the water at the slightest provocation.
Delbert thought they had their task about finished now, but Marian had
a great deal more to do to it still. She wanted to build on the other end a
platform of some sort, where they could put things and have them stay
dry. By burning holes and driving in stakes and then weaving in with
small, tough green sticks, she succeeded in making that end of the raft
look not unlike a huge basket. Then by filling that same basket with dried
seaweed and such material, which was bulky but light, she had a place
where things could be carried out of reach of the waves and where a little
girl could lie down if she was tired. Of course, the waves slopped up and
soaked through the seaweed to some extent when the raft was in use, but
when it was moored quietly to the beach the hot sun dried it out pretty
well.
When the raft was finished, their third rainy season on the island was
past. Marian was learning, and the others along with her, something of
the eternal patience of the universe. So long as she was accomplishing
her purpose, she did not count much on the time it took to do it.
They all thought the new raft was such a beauty that it deserved a
name. Marian suggested everything she could think of from “Fleet
Wings” to “Annabel Lee,” but they finally decided on Jennie’s choice,
which was “Muggywah.” She said it was Indian and meant something
very safe and strong that nobody could conquer. Where she got the name
or the notion Marian could not imagine, and she herself could not tell,
but the Muggywah became one of the family forthwith.
Out where the center log projected, at the turtle-shell end, Marian
burned the name. “Oh, we are getting wonderfully aristocratic,” she told
the children. “It is not every family that can have their own private
yacht.”
They went on a big spearing expedition when the Muggywah was
finished. The tide was just right, and the fish were plentiful. They got
three enormous red snappers and a lot of smaller fry, and it was the most
satisfactory trip they had ever made.
Marian sat Turk-fashion on the seaweed deck and steered with the
broken oar, which had been spliced to make it better to handle, and Davie
was in front of her, dry and warm. When he went to sleep, it was the
easiest thing in the world to tie him safely, for some of the stakes of the
basketwork had been left high for that especial purpose, and then he did
not have to be watched.
Jennie took the spear first, and when, after a while, she grew tired and
gave the spear to Esther, who had been teasing for it, she too crept back
and crawled in with Davie under the shawls and lay on her back,
watching the bright stars above and the mango bushes, weird and
grotesque with the flare of the pitalla fire and the backward swirl of the
smoke. When the game became an old story to Esther, she yielded the
spear to Delbert, and, after replenishing the fire from the fuel in the
barrel, she too curled down on the deck at Jennie’s feet.
Delbert and Marian then took turns at steering and spearing, and only
turned the Muggywah back toward the pier when the fuel was all gone.
Along with their feathers the children took up other modes of Indian
decoration of their persons. They did not quite come to war paint, but
they wore long strings of beads, principally of the guaymuchel seeds.
These are flat black seeds that grow embedded in a thick sweetish pith
enclosed in a pod which grows on a big tree. The pithy part is highly
prized by the Indians for eating, and the Island Hawks gathered them for
that, and saved the seeds, which, when soft, are easily strung.
Then there were the tiny many-colored clamshells that they found so
plentiful on the beaches of the bird islands. They bored holes in these
with Marian’s big fat darning-needle and strung them into valuable
wampum belts. There were other seeds and beans that they strung, but
these were the staples.
One Christmas, Marian gave Jennie a string of bone beads. She had
found a number of the bones of some big bird, long, smooth, and hollow,
and she whittled them into little sections and strung them on a string of
her own hair. That same year her gift to Esther was a headdress of pink
feathers taken from a dead bird that Delbert had found washed up on the
beach one morning. To Delbert she gave a gay feather-trimmed quiver
for his arrows and two new arrow-points of bone, and to Davie a number
of little toys whittled out of driftwood. The children had remembered
their kindergarten lore that year, and each one made Marian a little
basket. They were rather loose and ill-shapen, but they were the
forerunners of better ones.
With the Muggywah their food problem was still further simplified.
They had lived so long on the Island now that they knew the tides, when
they would be high and when low, and always took these into
consideration along with the wind. With their gay striped blanket for a
sail and a paddle of some sort in the hands of each, with their trips
planned to have the tide in their favor as much as possible, they could
accomplish much more business than formerly. They could take a
dishpanful of boiled-down sea-water out to the salt reef, put it into the
rock-hollows there, where the sun finished the evaporation for them, and
maybe gather up a dish of dry and quite passably clean salt to take back
with them; go on to some other place and gather a lot of clams for dinner,
or perhaps oysters; go back again to Smugglers’, put up the salt and
attend to the clams, and strike off across the bay toward some distant
estero, which would lead back into good pitalla country, or perhaps to a
panal which they had seen some days before and been too busy to gather
in; and by night they would have accomplished several times as much as
when they had crept over the water on the old log with only driftwood
and poles for paddles, or else had had to stay on land because the water
was a little rough. With the new firm mast which was in no danger of
falling down, they could utilize a wind that had been much too strong for
them to tamper with before, and with the children able to swim like little
fishes, they could brave a possible capsize or tumble overboard. Of
course Marian was not going to risk the great waves outside in the Gulf,
and when the wind blew the water into breakers on the Island, white and
thunderous, she kept her tribe busy in the pasture or the garden.
Some time during each day they took their bath and swim. If the water
was too rough on the seaward side, they took it in the harbor, where it
was quieter, but there were not so very many days when it was too rough.
Marian would keep her eye on Davie if they were out very far, but she
had little anxiety about the others. Sometimes they took the Muggywah
out into deep water and anchored her with a stone, and had their swim
from there.
They had had no storm yet equal to the one on the night of their arrival
on the Island, but during the fall after the Muggywah was finished they
had one which came nearer to it than any in the three years. It lasted two
days and two nights and certainly gave them a miserable time. They
turned the little burros out with their mothers to save feeding and
milking, and they collected vegetables and bananas in the Cave, which
they ate raw, not being able to have a fire to cook by. Indeed, their
precious embers were all put out, so that they had to start anew with the
fire-sticks when the storm was over.
They snuggled up in the Cave, not going out except when it seemed
absolutely necessary, and Marian sang over all the songs she knew and
which she had sung to them on rainy days a hundred times before,—or at
least it seemed so to her,—and told over all the stories they called for and
racked her brains for new ones.
The Cave had never been a roomy chamber, and now it reminded
Marian of a nest that is filled to overflowing with nestlings which are
ready to fly. Neither of the little girls could stand up in it now, not even
in the widest part, and Davie, fast growing up into a big, strong boy, had
to be very careful.
The first day dragged, the second crawled, and in the afternoon Marian
delivered herself of the emphatic remark, “We are not going to live in
this Cave through another rainy season; we will build us a house!”
The children were all struck dumb for a second and then fired volleys
of comments and questions.
“You see,” said Marian when quiet reigned again, “this Cave was all
right in the first place. You were all little then, and it was the best we
could do, but now,—why, see! Delbert is stretching up nearly as tall as I
am; Jennie and Esther take up as much room as all four of you did then;
we spread out so we can’t keep ourselves covered from the mosquitoes;
and I am sick and tired of camping out forever; I want a home.”
“But, Marian,” said Jennie, “don’t you think some one will find us
now before long?”
“I think,” said Marian, “that there is no likelihood of any one but
Indians coming into San Moros. There is nothing to bring any one else
here, and, as you know, we have seen very few canoes in all the time we
have been here. I don’t understand it; it seems as if they would all know
about there being bananas and good water here and be coming all the
time, but evidently there are no settlements anywhere near, and the poor
Indian is not going very far from home in his canoe. Clarence must have
found out about the place from some old Indian who, I suppose, had
happened to stumble on to it somehow, and, as far as I know, Clarence
was the only white person who ever came here, but”—she paused and
looked impressively at the children—“some day, when we can sail the
Muggywah a great deal better than we do now, when Davie is big and
strong enough so that I dare risk him out there on the Gulf waves, and
when the rest of you are bigger and stronger than you are now, we’ll
stock the Muggywah up with provisions and we’ll go back to the Port
ourselves. I don’t dare risk it overland and I shall not try it by water so
long as there is any risk in it, but if no one comes for us before then, the
time will come when you children will be so big that we can go in safety,
and then we’ll go.”
“I’d be willing to take some risk,” said Delbert moodily.
“I’m not,” said Marian. “Four children mother left in my care when
she went to Guaymas that time, four I shall return to her. Your lives are
safe here. If I lost one of you in trying to get back, I should never be
happy again.”
“How well shall we have to swim?” asked Esther.
“Better than any of us do now,” said Marian. “We must be able to
swim so well that if the Muggywah should swamp or turn turtle out
there, we could all get to shore if we had to. It is a good deal, but we can
do it in time. Clarence could have done it, but it may take us several
years yet. We don’t dare go out of the bay yet, and we all get tired out if
we have much hard paddling to do; but to go to the Port in the
Muggywah would take several days. Unfortunately, she doesn’t go as
swiftly as the launch did.”
“If Clarence was here, he’d make her go better than she does,” said
Delbert.
“I think he would,” returned Marian; “but what we don’t know about
sailing her we must learn; and meantime, I am tired of living in this little
hole in the rocks, and the next job on hand is to build a house. We can do
it.”
The first thing to do usually is to select a site. Esther thought a good
place to put the new dwelling in would be down by the pier, where the
smugglers had had their house. It would be close to the water and the
garden. But that took them out of sight of the bay and the distant Gulf,
and mosquitoes and gnats were apt to be plentiful there at night, and so it
was not to be thought of. Jennie, too, still retained her fear of the water
during storms, and the higher they could get the better it would suit her.
One thing about the Cave which they meant to improve upon in their
new habitation was the fact that their view was cut off by the big rock in
front. To see what might be out on the water they had to go clear past it,
out of the house, as one might say. Of course, it sheltered them from
wind and rain to a great extent, but Marian wanted to be sheltered from
the elements and still be able to see out on the water.
From the mound that had been the smugglers’ house projected a
crotched timber, and Marian suggested that they dig it out for their new
dwelling, though she had not yet decided where to build nor what
material to use.
They made some wooden rakes and shovels,—that is, they called them
that,—and these did a little better for the work than the old dig-spoon and
the little spade. As they dug and scraped, Marian told them of the ancient
cities which lay buried for centuries and then were sometimes discovered
and excavated and of the wonderful things found in them. The children
were very much interested, and straightway they ceased to be Indians and
became a band of eminent scientists who had discovered an ancient, oh, a
very ancient, city. It was very interesting indeed, for, when you came to
think of it, there was really no knowing what you might or might not
find.
 They finally got the timber out. It was shorter than Marian had hoped,
but then the children wanted to go on and dig the whole mound over.
They had found a few bits of broken pottery, which they seemed to think
very wonderful, and they hoped for more riches.
So, as it seemed a pity to veto anything so exciting, Marian consented
to go on with the work. It seemed almost strange that they did not find
more things than they did. There were a number of other timbers
unearthed, but all but one of them were too rotten to be of use. There was
the half of a metate stone[5] which they made a great deal of use of
afterwards, and a broken pitcher and more pieces of pottery, but none of
it big enough to be of any use. There were some very small fragments of
glass and quite a number of bricks; also a few rusty scraps of iron, one of
which had been an oarlock and one a knife. The bricks were mixed in
with a number of stones, all bearing the marks of fire,—a cooking-place
of some sort evidently.
[5]
A stone used for grinding Indian corn.
The children were most excited over the pitcher. It had a gay flower on
one side of it, and they watched eagerly for other fragments. They found
a few and fitted them together, but when all was done there was still a
hole in it as big as Delbert’s fist and a piece gone from the nose, but they
took as much pride in that old fragment as if it had been really something
valuable.
But to Marian the bricks appealed the most. She meant to have a real
fireplace in the new house, and they would aid very much. The crotched
timber, short though it was, would also come in very handy, and the
ground they had dug over so industriously was in fine condition for a
garden.
Every day they took their swimming-lesson. Now they began to
practice on long swims. They would take the Muggywah out, and while
Marian or Delbert paddled it along, or tended the sail if there was a
breeze, the rest would swim by the side. As soon as one got tired, all he
had to do was to climb in and take his turn with the paddle. Even Davie
was learning a little about paddling, and Jennie and Esther, now eleven
and nine years old, could manage very nicely.
Out on the blue water they made a pretty picture,—the Muggywah
dancing along with her gay striped sail, Marian in a garment constructed
of her old brown petticoat which reached to her knees but left neck and
arms bare, Davie’s old straw hat tied under her chin, her long braids
falling to her waist as she steered with the oar; the four children, their
slender bodies gleaming white in the water, splashing each other,
laughing, calling, now and again climbing on the seaweed deck to rest a
few minutes before plunging down again into the salty waves.
And when they had been out long enough, they would turn the
Muggywah and run for Smugglers’, pretending they were fleeing from
their enemies,—smugglers escaping from the government revenue men
maybe, or Indians returning from striking some decisive blow at their
tribal foes.
Always there were the little burros to be tended, a little gardening to
be done each day, fresh water to be carried up to the Cave, and wood to
be gathered. Marian had learned that as long as she worked with them
her tribe did very well, but it was not well to leave them at separate tasks.
She still felt, too, the desire to have them within her reach, to know for a
certainty where each one was and that he or she was safe. So they fished
together, gathered wood together, worked together in the garden.
Delbert sometimes went to the pasture alone when Marian was busy
with something else, yet as a rule he took Esther with him even there.
Jennie was more apt to stay with Marian, to help with the cooking, or
maybe just to sit on the rocks gazing out over the sea. As for Davie, he
stayed with Marian too. Delbert never wanted him along when he was
after game, for the little fellow was sure to make some sort of a noise at
the wrong time, which Delbert always found hard to forgive, while
Esther, on the other hand, would follow at his heels like a well-trained
dog, moving silently, stealthily, and her aim was nearly equal to his own.
 CHAPTER VIII
THE BUILDING OF THE WICKIUP

D came laughing to his breakfast one morning. “I’ve found the

ideal spot for a house,” he said.
“Good for you!” said Marian, as she carefully raked out from the
embers the red snapper which had been stuffed with green peppers,
wrapped in green banana leaves, and buried in the hot coals and ashes
overnight. “All right, tell us about it as we eat.”
“It can’t be told. It will have to be seen to be appreciated,” he said.
“In that case we will go and see right after breakfast.”
Which they did, and he led them to the highest, rockiest point of that
end of the Island, facing the long, sandy point where the watermelons
were and where one could see both the bay and the harbor.
“Now,” said he, seating himself on a big boulder, “you observe the
lovely view we have. Nowhere on the whole Island can you get a better
one. With a little clearing there is a fair chance of a path down to the pier.
We are not so very far from the Cave either. And then, too, you see, this
nice high cliff would save our making more than three sides to the house,
and those big rocks there would be handy to brace against.”
“Where would be our floor?” asked Jennie. “It’s all rocks here.”
But Marian was looking. The cliff, as Delbert called it, would save
making one side of the house, and several of the big rocks Jennie was so
scornful of were in a direct line for working into the walls, while the
others could be moved by means of crude levers that they could work.
The floor could then be leveled by building up with rocks from the lower
side. It would be impossible to dig holes to set posts in, but, if one were
not too particular about having the house symmetrical, there were several
fissures in the rocks where posts could be put, and braced solid with
other stones packed in about them. The face of the big rock, or cliff, back
of them was very irregular, and there were several good places to set
roof-timbers in.
The ground sloped rather steeply down to the sandy point and was
covered with brush, but a path, as Delbert said, could be cleared down to
the pier, and it would be a better one really than the one they were using,
too. Also a little tossing of the rocks to one side would clear the way
back to the Cave, where they could use the old path to the beach. The
heavy task would be bringing all the material up the hill, but that would
have to be done in any case; only, of course, if they built at the Cave, for
instance, they would not have to carry things so far.
“Delbert,” she said, “what we are going to need, and need badly, is
lime.”
“Lime? What for?”
“To mix with sand and fresh water to make mortar to pack around the
roof-timbers, where we set them into the cliff there, and around the posts,
where we put them into this crevice below. Good mortar would set and
keep them solid.”
“They dig lime out of the ground, don’t they?”
“No; they dig a certain kind of rock out and burn it, and it turns into
lime; and they burn shells, and that makes lime too.”
“Shells? Well, we can get plenty of shells.”
“Yes, but I don’t know how to burn lime,—how long it takes or how it
ought to look when it is right,—and I don’t know exactly how to work it
afterwards either.”
“Can’t we experiment and find out? Burn just a few at first and see
how they work?”
“I guess we’d better, for I don’t want this house falling down on us in
a storm, and if I can get the frame of it absolutely solid, I’ll risk but what
we can manage the rest of it all right.”
“What will you make the roof of?” asked Jennie.
“Thatch,” promptly responded Marian. “Don’t you remember all that
tall thatch grass out beyond the lagoon? The Mexicans at the Port
sometimes make their whole houses of it. And, Delbert, there is another
big job ahead of us. We are going to need every pole that is in the corral
fence; we must build a good brush fence to hold in the burros, so that we
can have every stick and pole there, every piece of driftwood. I guess
we’d better clear that patch of brush beyond the garden. It will be nicer
cleared away, and we can pile it all on to the fence.”
They gathered a lot of shells that day, and, after a few experiments in
their cooking-fire, made a little pile of alternate shells and wood and
started it burning. Marian thought the shells ought probably to burn
slowly; her idea was to rake out a few every now and then and see how
things were going. Her only safe way was to mix a little mortar and see if
it set hard.
Between times they worked on the brush fence. They had not
progressed very far before they wished they had got at it at least two
years sooner, for in the midst of the tangled growth of bushes, choked
and stunted but still struggling to keep alive, they found a goodly number
of cotton plants.
These must have been, along with the palms and the bananas, a part of
the smugglers’ garden. There were three straggling rows, and most of the
bushes had a few sickly-looking cotton bolls on them. They are never
very large on that particular variety of plant, but none of these were
larger than a small hen’s egg; indeed, most of them more closely
resembled marbles. But they contained actual cotton, and with care and
some cultivation the plants would produce more and larger bolls. They
gathered them—what few there were—and put them with the cotton-tree
pods.
“As soon as the house is done, I shall have to see about a spinning-
wheel and loom,” said Marian, “and oh! if we had only found them
before!”
They cut out the brush systematically, clearing out, as thoroughly as
they could, each bush as they came to it. Delbert and the little girls would
take sticks and bend back the bushes, so that Marian could get at them to
chop them off near the ground with the hatchet; then with ropes they
would drag them to the corral and pile them on the fence. They were
trying to make it very solid and compact, also a little larger than before.
In this way they managed to release every pole that had been in the
fence, and they piled them at one side to await the time when they should
be ready for them at the new house.
They were not so very successful with the lime. They burned a good
many shells before they produced what was at all satisfactory.
They found that there were not enough shells near by, but off across
the bay, at the mouth of one of the esteros, was a bank that had seemed to
be composed almost entirely of shells; so they took the Muggywah and
made several trips there, coming back loaded down with all the shells
they could carry. These shells were very old and broken, but Marian
thought they would probably make as good lime as fresh ones would.
There were other places, too, where shells were more plentiful than near
home, and they made trips after them.
 While they were gathering the shells they cut a good many pitalla
poles, peeled the green bark off them, and left them to dry before taking
them home. Delbert used his stone hatchet for that work; he had made a
handle for it, as Marian said probably the first owner had, by splitting a
stick down and tying it above and below where the hatchet was inserted,
and while he could not, of course, chop wood with it, the soft green
pitalla bark yielded to it very well. To be sure, it was no better, even for
this purpose, than the other hatchet, but think how much more romantic it
is to work with an ancient stone hatchet than with an ordinary little
modern steel one!
Delbert thought so much of that hatchet that Marian said he had better
give it a name, and told him about King Arthur’s sword Excalibur; but
when Delbert asked her if she thought that would be a good name for the
hatchet, she said she thought they had better modify it a little and call it
the “Exscalper” instead, because, though it might once have been used to
scalp with, it was not in that business now.
These pitalla poles are hollow, but durable and comparatively straight,
and are much used in building the humbler homes of western Mexico.

EXSCALPER

The poor little overworked hatchet had to be sharpened many, many

times. There was no need now to put the whetstone beyond Davie’s
reach. He was too sensible to want to hide it, realizing as well as any of
them that what the whole community needs should not be selfishly
regarded as private property.
Delbert’s jack-knife had been worked and overworked till it was about
used up. One blade was broken, and the other leaned backward in a most
heartrending fashion. He did not use it much, but always had the butcher-
knife tucked into his belt beside the Exscalper.
 The two case-knives had been sharpened, and the two little girls
carried them. Davie never felt at home without the dig-spoon. With much
use its edge had become as sharp as a knife, and he used it for that right
along. And he, like all the others, except Marian, always had his bow and
arrows slung at his back.
They did not take much time off the work till the season for “duck”
eggs came again; then they dropped everything and sailed for the little
white islands. It took only a part of a day to make the trip, and they could
get eggs enough for several days. They almost lived on them through the
season, and when it was over dropped back to their vegetarian diet,
varied only by an occasional meal of fish from a night’s spearing.
When, after much time and labor expended, and many, many
experiments, Marian decided that there was enough lime to make the
mortar to set the posts and roof-timbers, they began the task of getting
their timbers up the hill.
They had thought that they could utilize Jackie for that, but he soon
undeceived them. He was not averse to carrying small loads of wood, but
when it came to pulling anything really heavy, Jackie called a halt, and,
moreover, remained halted till the load was removed.
They found no means of coaxing or persuasion that availed in the
least. It made not an iota of difference to Jackie whether those poles
remained at the top or the bottom of the hill, and if the children wanted
them at the top, why, let them take them there, that was all. In the end
they had to drag them up themselves. They tied ropes to them and used
main force. It was not a very long job when they once got over trying to
make Jackie do it for them. As for him, he skipped along beside them,
gay and carefree.
Then they debated long and earnestly as to just which crotched timber
should be placed in this place and which pole in that. They tried each one
in all the places to see where it would fit best, and everybody expressed
his opinion. They planned where to put the doors and the window, and
where was the best place for the fireplace.
When they had these momentous questions settled, Marian mixed her
mortar. Each upright was made solid by being packed tightly with big
rocks and all set in mortar; each roof-pole was set in the same way where
it rested on the cliff. At the same time Marian tried not to be too prodigal
with her mortar, for she wanted to have enough left to lay up the
chimney, at least where it would come above the roof and be exposed to
the wind and weather. And her supply of lime was not at all large, for it
took so long to gather up the shells, and often they had not got them well
burned after they were gathered.
After her timbers and poles were well set, she began on the fireplace.
For this they brought up the bricks and the blackened stones from the
smugglers’ old house; for some kinds of stones will crack and split with
heat, or even go so far as to pop into little pieces which fly in all
directions, and Marian wanted that fireplace built of tested stones that
would be up to no mischief. The stones she had cooked over at the Cave
were brought, and two nice, smooth, large ones from the cooking-place
at the beach. She used clay from the pasture as mortar for the fireplace
and the lower part of the chimney.
Once, on a trip up an estero that wound past a little hill, they had
noticed a big flat rock that Delbert thought would make a fine
hearthstone. They could find other flat rocks, of course, but this one had
especially appealed to the boy, because it was much larger and smoother
than any other they had seen, and he thought it would be nice to have the
hearth of one big stone. Marian thought so, too, but was afraid it was too
big for them to manage. However, she finally consented to try it. If they
could get it on board the Muggywah at all, they could find some way of
getting it off again and up the hill and into place.
After all, thought Marian, if her flock learned to achieve things, to
overcome difficulties, to persist in spite of obstacles, was that not of
itself a fair education? And to bring that great rock home would certainly
be a lesson in achievement.
So they went after it. They took plenty of ropes along and several
round pieces of driftwood to serve as rollers under the stone. They found
it readily. One side was so flat and smooth that it seemed as if it must
some time have been worked upon by human hands; the other was rough
and irregular, being much thicker at one end than at the other. It was all
Marian and Delbert could do to lift it alone, and even with Jennie’s and
Esther’s help it was none too easy. Fortunately it was not far from the
water’s edge. They got it on their two largest rollers, and, by smoothing
the way and prying the rollers along, they got it down to the Muggywah.
Then it developed that it would be more easily got aboard at low than
at high tide. At low tide the Muggywah could be placed under a bank and
the big stone swung off on to her; at high tide it would have to be lifted
up to get it aboard.
So they made their preparations. They tied the Muggywah fore and aft,
and rigged up a tripod to assist in swinging the hearthstone over on to her
just where they wanted it. They pushed and pried the rollers, and tugged
and twisted till they had the big stone in position on the edge of the bank,
and then retired to the shade of a scrubby mesquite to eat their lunch of
turnips and carrots and drink Island water from the bottles, while they
waited for the tide to go out.
And when the lunch was finished, they sallied forth and hunted for
panales, clams, oysters, and, incidentally, arrowheads and more hatchets.
When the Muggywah dropped below the bank, they rallied again to
the task in hand. The tripod was a big help; they had the hair rope for
that. Carefully they worked. It was not merely the getting of the big stone
that Marian had in mind; she wanted to be quite sure no one was going to
get hurt in the process.
“Delbert, don’t lift on that till you really strain yourself,” she said.
“Davie, you stand by that pole and see that it doesn’t lift up; I don’t want
your little fingers mashed under this. Esther, poke that stick under there
where Jennie’s fingers are. There, that’s right; that holds it instead. Now,
Jennie, you stand there where Delbert is. Delbert, you and I will have to
swing round below here now. Davie, hold that pole down tight.”
Davie held valiantly with all his might. There was no danger of that
particular pole budging, but Marian wanted him out of the way, and
knew that the only way to be sure he would not slip in at the wrong
minute, and maybe get a finger jammed before she could help him, was
to keep him busy elsewhere.
“There, now, you see, part of the weight comes on the tripod.
Carefully now, Esther. Jennie can do that alone now; you jump down and
be ready to help here.”
In the midst of it all she began to laugh. “Delbert, if it takes all this
fuss to get it aboard, how in the world are we ever going to get it off
again? We may have to dump it into the harbor yet.”
“Not much we don’t,” muttered Delbert between his teeth.
“Well, all steady now! Gently there, Jennie! That’s right! Now jump
down and help Esther. There, there she is, neat as a whistle. Look how it
pushes the Muggywah down, but it’s all right. Knock up that tripod pole
there, Delbert. We’ll have the rope off. Where did you put your oysters,
Jennie? Oh, I see. Well, drop ’em in here; we must be starting back. It
will take us all day to-morrow to get this hearthstone off the deck, and
two more to get it up the hill, as like as not.”
As a matter of fact, it took a great deal longer than that, but they did
not work at it all the time. They rigged up another tripod to help them
swing it off the Muggywah, and by aid of rollers got it to the foot of the
hill safely. There they tied it to something to make sure it would not slip
and roll down on them, and little by little, as they felt inclined, they
pushed it up the hill. Sometimes a day or two would go by without its
being touched, and then, some morning when they felt vigorous, they
would get at it with levers and rollers and work it up the hill a little
farther. Davie got quite expert in slipping the stones in back of it to block
it up while they rested.
In the course of time it was taken into the frame of the new house and
settled into place, being blocked with stones till it did not wiggle in the
least; and as they stood back surveying it, they all felt that it was worth
all the trouble it had been to get it. The fireplace itself was built up waist-
high when the hearthstone was put in place.
Marian was planning a good handy place to cook over, and several of
the scraps of iron were used with that idea. The old twisted, rusty
oarlock, for instance, was converted into a hook to hang the kettle on at
one side, and there were various little places made, to put things on to
keep hot or to go on slowly cooking. At the proper height a mantel-shelf
was put in, too, a smooth piece of driftwood. It had once been a board
about a foot wide by three or three and a half long, but it had been tossed
and beaten till the edges were thin and ragged. Marian fitted it across and
surveyed it with pride.
It seemed as if the longest and most tiresome part of the work was the
building of the chimney. Massive was the word for it. It was continued
up pretty high. Marian climbed up on the roof-timbers and had the
children hand her the stones and mortar.
They got well tired of the job before it was finished. At the last,
Marian herself would help gather a pile of stones, and then, after mixing
the mortar, would climb up on the roof and work away, and Delbert
would hand up the rocks one by one and the mortar in the little wooden
pail. She used the dig-spoon and the little spade for trowels, assisted by a
piece of old board she had whittled into shape.
Yet, after all, considering how tiresome it must have been, the children
were pretty good about it. Delbert never complained of the monotony,
and though the little girls were quite sure Marian was building that
chimney higher and thicker than was at all necessary, they did their work
cheerfully.
They stopped when their good lime gave out, but Marian was sure that
she had it high enough to draw well at all times, and so big and solid that