“I almost wish someone would come!” said Peggy. “It would be so exciting to hide away!”
“A bit too exciting!” said Jack. “Remember, there’s a lot to be done as soon as we see anyone coming!”
“Hadn’t we better plan it all out now?” said Mike. “Then we shall each know what to do.”
“Yes,” said Jack. “Well, I’ll manage Daisy the cow, and go straight off to fetch her. Mike, you manage the hens and get them into a sack, and take them straight up to the cave. Peggy, you stamp out the fire and scatter the hot sticks. Also you must put out the empty cigarette packet, the tin, and the cardboard carton that the trippers left, so that it will look as if trippers have been here, and nobody will think it’s funny to find the remains of a fire, or any other odd thing.”
“And what shall I do?” asked Nora.
“You must go to the spring and take the pail of milk from there to the cave,” said Jack. “Before you do that scatter heather over our patches of growing seeds. And Peggy, you might make certain the cave-cupboard is hidden by a curtain of bracken or something.”
“Ay, ay, Captain!” said Peggy. “Now we’ve all got our duties to do - but you’ve got the hardest, Jack! I wouldn’t like to hide Daisy away down that narrow passage! What will you do if she gets stuck?”
“She won’t get stuck,” said Jack. "She’s not as fat as all that! By the way, we’d better put a cup or two in the cave, and some heather, in case we have to hide up for a good many hours. We can drink milk then, and have somewhere soft to lie on.”
“We’d better keep a candle or two in the entrance,” said Peggy. “I don’t feel like sitting in the dark there.”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Jack thoughtfully. “We won’t go in and out of that big inner cave by the narrow passage leading from the outer cave. We’ll go in and out by that tiny cave we can hardly squeeze in by. It leads to the inner cave, as we found out. If we keep using the other cave and the passage to go in, we are sure to leave marks, and give ourselves away. I’ll have to take Daisy that way, but that can’t be helped.”
“Those caves will be cosy to live in the wintertime,” said Peggy. “We could live in the outer one, and store our things in the inner one. We should be quite protected from bad weather.”
“How lucky we are!” said Nora. “A nice house made of trees for the summer - and a cosy cave-home for the winter!”
“Winter’s a long way off yet,” said Jack. “I say! - I’m hungry! What about frying some eggs, Peggy, and sending Mike to get some raspberries?”
“Come on!” shouted Peggy, and raced off down the hillside, glad to leave behind the dark, gloomy caves.
The Summer Goes By
No one came to interfere with the children. They lived together on the island, playing, working, eating, drinking, bathing - doing just as they liked, and yet having to do certain duties in order to keep their farmyard going properly.
Sometimes Jack and Mike went off in the boat at night to get something they needed from either Jack’s farm or Aunt Harriet’s. Mike managed to get into his aunt’s house one night and get some of his and the girls’ clothes - two or three dresses for the girls, and a coat and shorts for himself. Clothes were rather a difficulty, for they got dirty and ragged on the island, and as the girls had none to change into, it was difficult to keep their dresses clean and mended.
Jack got a good deal of fruit and a regular amount of potatoes and turnips from his grandfather’s farm, which still had not been sold. There was always enough to eat, for there were eggs, rabbits, and fish, and Daisy gave them more than enough milk to drink.
Their seeds grew quickly. It was a proud day when Peggy was able to cut the first batch of mustard and cress and the first lettuce and mix it up into a salad to eat with hard-boiled eggs! The radishes, too, tasted very good, and were so hot that even Jack’s eyes watered when he ate them! Things grew amazingly well and quickly on the island.
The runner beans were now well up to the top of the bramble bushes, and Jack nipped the tips off, so that they would flower well below.
“We don’t want to have to make a ladder to climb up and pick the beans,” he said. “My word, there are going to be plenty - look at all the scarlet flowers!”
“They smell nice!” said Nora, sniffing them.
“The beans will taste nicer!” said Jack.
The weather was hot and fine, for it was a wonderful summer. The children all slept out of doors in their “green bedroom,” as they called it, tucked in the shelter of the big gorse bushes. They had to renew their beds of heather and bracken every week, for they became flattened with the weight of their bodies and were uncomfortable. But these jobs were very pleasant, and the children loved them.
“How brown we are!” said Mike one day, as they sat round the fire on the beach, eating radishes, and potatoes cooked in their jackets. They all looked at one another.
“We’re as brown as berries,” said Nora.
“What berries?” said Mike. “I don’t know any brown berries. Most of them are red!”
“Well, we’re as brown as oak-apples!” said Nora. They certainly were. Legs, arms, faces, necks, knees - just as dark as gypsies! The children were fat, too, for although their food was a queer mixture, they had a great deal of creamy milk.
Although life was peaceful on the island, it had its excitements. Each week Jack solemnly led poor Daisy to the cave and made her squeeze through the narrow passage into the cave beyond. The first time she made a terrible fuss. She mooed and bellowed, she struggled and even kicked - but Jack was firm and kind and led her inside. There, in the inner cave, he gave her a juicy turnip, fresh-pulled from his grandfather’s farm the night before. Daisy was pleased. She chewed it all up, and was quite good when she was led back through the passage once more.
The second time she made a fuss again, but did not kick, nor did she bellow quite so loudly. The third time she seemed quite pleased to go, because she knew by now that a fine turnip awaited her in the cave. The fourth time she even went into the cave by herself and made her way solemnly to the passage at the far end.
“It’s an awfully tight squeeze,” said Mike, from the back. “If Daisy grows any fatter she won’t be able to get through, Jack.”
“We won’t meet our troubles half-way,” said Jack cheerfully. “The main thing is, Daisy likes going into the cave now, and won’t make a fuss if ever the time comes when she has to be put there in a hurry.”
July passed into August. The weather was thundery and hot. Two or three thunderstorms came along, and the children slept in Willow House for a few nights. Jack suggested sleeping in the cave, but they all voted it would be too hot and stuffy. So they settled down in Willow House, and felt glad of the thick green roof above them, and the stout, heather-steed walls.
The wild raspberries ripened by the hundred. Wild strawberries began to appear in the shady parts of the island - not tiny ones, such as the children had often found round about the farm, but big, sweet, juicy ones, even nicer than garden ones. They tasted most delicious with cream. The blackberries grew ripe on the bushes that rambled all over the place, and the children’s mouths were always stained with them, for they picked them as they went about their various jobs.
Jack picked them on his way to milk Daisy, and so did Mike. Peggy picked them as she went to get water from the spring. Nora picked them as she went to feed the hens.
Nuts were ripening, too, but were not yet ready. Jack looked at the heavy clusters on the hazel-trees and longed for them to be ripe. He went to have a look at the beans. They were ready to be picked! The runners grew up the brambles, and the long green pods were mixed up with the blackberry flowers and berries.