Baby Island

  “But they ought to hang together,” said Jean.

  “Now, Mr. Peterkin,” said Mary gently. “You’d better stick to the truth. You know they always say truth is stranger than fiction.”

  “Not in my case, Miss.”

  “Go on and tell us,” said Mary. “It will be good for your soul.”

  Mr. Peterkin covered his face with his hands. “It’s drab, that’s what it is. Drab!”

  “Man the pumps, Captain, man the pumps,” remarked Halfred hoarsely.

  This seemed to put some courage into the old seaman, for he lifted his head and came out with the truth. “I were ’aying in Hengland,” he began.

  “What were he doing?” asked Jean in an earnest whisper.

  “Haying,” whispered Mary. “Don’t interrupt him.”

  “An’ I dropped a pitchfork on my toe. ’Twas as simple as that. I dropped a pitchfork on my toe. ’Twere very sharp an’ it cut my toe off as neat—as neat—”

  “ ‘As neat as your granny could do it with her shears,’ ” chorused Mary and Jean.

  “That’s the truth at any rate!” said Mr. Peterkin with a great sigh, and he was actually smiling with relief.

  “Good!” said Mary. “Now we know, and I’m sure you feel much better, Mr. Peterkin. Now let’s sing Onward, Christian Soldiers!’”

  Mary led off in her clear voice, and Jean joined in. The twins beat time with their hands and made delighted noises. This was better than meat and drink to the gifted parrot, and before they had sung many lines he came bringing up the rear in his hoarse voice. Even Mr. Peterkin, cleansed by his confession, joined in with several lusty “Honwards.”

  Mary had selected “Thou shalt not bear false witness” as the text of her sermon, but Mr. Peterkin was already so chastened that it seemed a pity to rub it in. So she improvised a very cheery little sermon on a number of texts: “Be ye kind,” “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” all of which Mr. Peterkin seemed to need very badly. The last text appeared to Mary most appropriate, and she particularly emphasized the duties of neighbors cast away on desert islands. She hastened the end of it a trifle, because she smelled the bananas, which she had left roasting among the coals, beginning to burn. As she drew her sermon to a hasty close, she thought with pride that it must have benefited Mr. Peterkin very much, but, upon looking more closely at him she discovered that his eyes were closed and that he and the two babies had gone fast asleep.

  “Too bad,” said Mary, shaking her head, “but I guess it can’t be helped. I’ll excuse you from your psalm, Jean.”

  “Whoopeel” said Jean.

  “Well,” said Mary to herself, as she bustled about serving up dinner, “maybe the sleep and holding the babies did him as much good as a sermon. As I’ve often said, there’s a heap of good in just holding a nice clean baby.”

  Indeed, something seemed to have improved Mr. Peter kin’s disposition, for he was quite agreeable all during dinner, and willingly took second helpings without any urging. He even spoke fondly of Belinda.

  “She’s still awaitin’ for me,” he said, “an’ I still love ’er, poor wench.”

  “Why don’t you go back and marry her?” asked Mary.

  “An’ be like me brother ’Enry?” demanded Mr. Peterkin.

  “No,” said Mary. “Belinda doesn’t sound to me like a nagging person. I’m sure she wouldn’t be like ’Enry’s Maggie. And as for the twelve children, if they were your own, you’d love every one of them.”

  Mr. Peterkin shook his head dubiously.

  Today Ann Elizabeth would not drink her milk. All she would do was to gaze enraptured at Mr. Peterkin’s whiskers. Both Jean and Mary tried to make her drink, but their coaxing was in vain.

  “Da-da,” said Ann Elizabeth. “Pitty!”

  “She thinks you’re her daddy,” explained Mary. “I don’t know why she should, because Mr. Arlington shaved every morning. But, I guess, it’s because you’re tall and wear trousers. She says your whiskers are pretty. Maybe you can get her to eat.”

  “Me?” said Mr. Peterkin. “Well, blow me down!”

  But, when he offered her the cup, she dimpled into smiles and drank every drop.

  “There! You see?” cried Mary. “I guess you didn’t know you had a way with babies, did you?”

  “ ’Ey, give ’er some more,” roared Mr. Peterkin.

  “Oh, I can’t,” said Mary. “You see, we only have that one pail of milk a week for four babies. She’ll have to finish off with a banana.”

  “I say!” roared Mr. Peterkin. “I’ve three goats that give milk every day! The little beggar sha’n’t starve!”

  “She’s not starving,” said Mary, “but we could use some more milk. Only, you see, it’s so far around the beach to your house—even if you gave us more milk, it would be pretty hard to get it oftener than once a week.”

  “If we had a path through the jungle, it wouldn’t be so far,” put in Jean eagerly.

  “A path through the jungle?” repeated Mr. Peterkin.

  But just then Prince Charley pulled Blue’s ear, and Blue began to howl at the top of his voice. In an instant the other babies, who were sleepy and cross, joined in, and the charming dinner party ended in an uproar.

  Mr. Peterkin, who had so surely seemed a reformed character, put his hands over his ears and arose in anger.

  “There you go!” he cried, “abotherin’ of, me! You’re all like peas in a pod! Meddlesome young ’uns! Meddlesome young ’uns!” And, without a “thank you” for his dinner, he clumped angrily away.

  “Well, did you ever!” cried Mary. “Just because they cried!”

  Halfred, who was enjoying himself with hardtack and singing, made no move to follow his master.

  But just before the outraged seaman disappeared from sight, he turned around and shouted, “Halfred, come ’ome!”

  “Oh, you would, would you?” grumbled Halfred. Then he rolled his yellow eye around at the girls as if to apologize for his master’s manners. As he flew away, he sang, and the song was not “Oh, Bedelia,” but “Honward, Christian Soldiers!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Several Surprises

  “WELL, I guess you reformed Halfred anyway,” said Jean cheerfully.

  “Oh, Jeannie, what a pity!” wailed Mary. “That’s the end of Mr. Peterkin, I suppose. Why couldn’t the babies have put off crying?”

  “ ‘There’s nothing like a nice clean baby to hold,’ ” mocked Jean, who was in a particularly impish mood, after having had to sit still for so long listening to Mary’s sermon.

  “That naughty Charley started the whole trouble!” cried Mary. “He ought to be punished!”

  But Charley was already on Jean’s shoulder with his skinny arms around her neck, and he knew that he was safe.

  Whether they admitted it or not, they were both much disappointed at the outcome of the party. Mr. Peterkin had seemed so much reformed, and had even been on the point of giving them more milk—perhaps even of cutting a pathway for them through the jungle. Now all was lost.

  They gradually quieted the howling babies and put them down for their naps. Mary lay down also, tired from her combined duties as cook, hostess, and saver of souls. Jean and Charley went up to the vine swing in the edge of the woods, and as Jean swung back and forth, back and forth, she made up one of her songs.

  “Oh, ’e were ’aying long ago,

  A-’aying gay, were ’e.

  ’E dropped a pitchfork on ’is toe,

  An’ then ‘e went to sea.

  Oh, Mr. Peterkin!

  Jolly Mr. Peterkin!

  Dear old Mr. Peterkin!

  An’ then ’e went to sea-o!

  Oh, Mary preached a sermon fine,

  A sermon fine, a sermon fine,

  While Jean was swinging on a vine.

  Oh, lovely Jean! Oh, beautiful Jean!

  Prince Charley’s fond deligh
t-o!

  She really was a sight-o!

  ’E couldn’t bear a baby’s cry,

  It nearly made the pirate ’die.

  ‘I wonder what is in his chest,

  Until I know I’ll never rest!’

  Says beautiful Jean, says lovely Jean,

  A-swinging on her vine-o!”

  The next morning there was trouble with Jonah again. He had appeared to be thriving on the goats’ milk and had had fewer and fewer attacks of colic. He was really developing into a beautiful bouncing boy, and his outing on the desert island had given him a much better color and rounder cheeks than he had had when under the care of his fond mother. Mary was quite proud of him. But on the day after the party, he awoke screaming and screwing up his face, kicking his legs, and clawing the air with his hands.

  “Whazza mazza? Whazza mazza?” begged Mary, tenderly hanging over him.

  “Baby talk!” scoffed Jean. “If his name is Jonah, ours ought to be Job. We’ve got so many troubles. Jean Job! That would be rather nice for a change, wouldn’t it? Or maybe it should be Job Jean.”

  “It doesn’t sound like colic,” murmured Mary, running through all her little tricks for appeasing crying babies. But none of them did Jonah any good. “Do you suppose he could have caught anything from Mr. Peterkin yesterday?”

  “Mr. Peterkin looks healthy to me,” remarked Jean. “Only the good die young.”

  That remark did not serve to comfort Mary at all, for naturally she considered Jonah one of the good, and the idea that he might be going to die young filled her with even greater alarm.

  It was at this tense moment that they noticed the first crashing noise from the jungle! At first it sounded like the reverberation of distant thunder, and then—Crash! CRASH! This was followed by more thunder and another crash.

  “what is it?” gasped Mary.

  For a few moments Jonah was frightened out of his howls, and the four babies looked at Mary with round questioning eyes.

  “It sounds like one of those dinosaur things we had in our geography, coming through the woods and switching its tail,” offered Jean.

  “But the dinosaurs have all been dead these thousands of years, Jean.”

  “Well, I’ve told you my idea. Now you tell me yours.”

  Bang! bang! bang! Crash! CRASH!

  “I don’t know,” gasped Mary. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Jonah began to howl again, and one by one the other babies joined him. Chattering wildly, Prince Charley hid his head under Jean’s arm.

  But at that moment a familiar face appeared. With a graceful swoop of red and green feathers, Halfred flew out of the jungle, and his horny old beak veritably seemed to smile at them.

  “Man the pumps, Mary, man the pumps,” croaked Halfred cheerily.

  “He never called me Mary before! He’s come to warn us, Jean.” She began to scratch his head in the place he liked and beg him to tell them of the danger.

  But Halfred only winked one eye at her and remarked hoarsely, ‘Oh, you would, would you?”

  “Mary!” cried Jean. “I know exactly what it is! It’s Mr. Peterkin cutting a pathway for us through the jungle!”

  “No!” said Mary, sitting down flatly on a baked banana. “But I thought we’d never see him again.”

  “Listen!” commanded Jean. “It’s his ax that goes bang! bang! bang! and then a tree comes down Crash! CRASH! Halfred came ahead to tell us.”

  “I knew that Mr. Peterkin had a heart of gold!” cried Mary happily. “It just goes to show that you should never judge a heart by the kind of face it wears.”

  “But what about the babies, Mary? After all his work, it would be a pity for him to arrive here and find them all howling just the way they were when he clumped off and left them yesterday.”

  “Yes, it would be discouraging,” admitted Mary. “I’ll hand out the hardtack, and you do a highland fling for them.”

  Hardtack and the highland fling did wonders for the twins and Ann Elizabeth. In a moment they were smiling again, and Mary had wiped their eyes and noses. But the nearer Mr. Peterkin came with his ax, the more dismally Jonah roared.

  “I’ll have to take him down to the beach, poor suffering angel! where the sound of the waves will drown out his cries,” said Mary. “You stay here, Jean, and welcome Mr. Peterkin when he comes.”

  Jean was glad enough to be left at the tepee, for, while she was just as fond of smiling babies as her sister, she sometimes shared Mr. Peterkin’s sentiments about crying ones.

  Halfred flew back and forth from the tepee to the scene of the crashing sounds, and Charley, who had lost all his fear, swung through the branches by hand, foot, and tail.

  It was well after noon before Mr. Peterkin chopped his way out of the jungle. Poor Mary had not yet returned, so Jean knew that Jonah must still be crying. There was a final and most terrific crash, and then Mr. Peterkin put in his appearance. He was wet with sweat and looked more annoyed than usual.

  “Well, there it is!” he said. “A path through the jungle! I didn’t want it! It weren’t my hidea! But there it is for them as can use it. Troublesome, I calls it.”

  “Oh, thank you, Mr. Peterkin!” cried Jean.

  “Don’t thank me,” said the honest seaman crossly. “It’s for me little Lizzie.”

  “For who?” Jean was puzzled.

  “I mean ’er,” said Mr. Peterkin, pointing at Ann Elizabeth. Ann Elizabeth, smiling engagingly, crawled to Mr. Peterkin’s feet and stretched up her arms to be taken.

  “Pitty,” she said happily. “Pitty-pitty!”

  “Was they trying to starve me little Lizzie?” cooed Mr. Peterkin, taking the delighted baby into his arms. “Was they tryin’ to starve ’er, an’ ’er old Huncle ’Arvey with all the milk she could ’old right around on t’other side of the hi’land? Bless ’er little gizzard!”

  Jean stared at them as hard as she could. Then she let out a howl of delight and started to run for the beach.

  “Baby talk! Mary, Mr. Peterkin’s talking baby talk! Come quick!”

  Mary was walking slowly up the beach with Jonah in her arms, when Jean called to her. Jonah was cooing happily, and Mary wore a rapturous smile on her tired face. But Jean saw with irritation that Mary’s angelic smile had nothing whatever to do with the wonderful new path through the jungle, nor with the highly amusing fact that Mr. Peterkin was talking baby talk. She tried again.

  “Mary, he’s talking silly to Ann Elizabeth just the way you do! Baby talk, Mary!”

  “Well, of course, that was bound to happen sooner or later, dear,” said Mary. “I’m glad it’s come so soon. But, oh, Jean, something most remarkable has happened to Jonah! Wonderful, Jean!”

  Jean’s mouth fell open again in surprise. If Mary could accept a path through the jungle and Mr. Peterkin’s baby talk so calmly, whatever in the world had happened to Jonah to make her say “remarkable” and “wonderful”?

  “Come here and look, Jeannie,” she went on, “and tell me if you ever saw a more beautiful sight.”

  Filled with awe, Jeannie drew near and gazed into Jonah’s round, pink face.

  “Open up, dovey darling,” begged Mary. “Open the itsy, bitsy mouthey for its ownest Mary. That’s a lamb!”

  Jonah gave them a wan smile, and Jean had a brief glimpse of something white showing against his red gum.

  “It’s just like a pearl, isn’t it?” said Mary proudly.

  “What?” asked Jean, still mystified.

  “Why, his first tooth! Didn’t you see it? That’s why he was crying so this morning, poor cherub. It hurt when it was coming through. But now it’s all right, and Mary’s so proud of her gweat big baby boy!”

  “Oh, you and Mr. Peterkin and your baby talk!” said Jean in disgust. “I’m going to see the trail through the jungle!” And away she went, whistling to Halfred and Charley to join her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Mr. Peterkin Has His Ups and Downs

  AFTER the path was cut through the ju
ngle, Mr. Peterkin became a more and more frequent visitor at the tepee. He had decided to deliver the babies’ milk himself. But the girls knew now that it was not entirely because of the milk that he came. They knew that Mr. Peterkin liked their cooking better than his own, and even more he liked to have Ann Elizabeth tell him that his beard was pretty. He insisted that Ann Elizabeth should have the freshest and richest milk, and he nearly always brought some trinket for her which he himself had carved.

  Once Mr. Peterkin’s hard heart had started to soften, it was just like ice cream in the sun. He began to carry the twins pickaback or ride them cockhorse on his knee, and Jonah was allowed to chew his gold watch chain. Even Mary and Jean came in for a good share of his kindliness. Naturally he still grumbled a good deal and pretended to be angry with them all, but after all one can’t throw off the habits of years in a moment.

  As the girls often remarked, Ann Elizabeth was probably the cutest baby ever seen. She was plump and dimpled, with shiny curls that stood up all the wrong way on the back of her head, and big blue eyes. But it very much looked as if her fatal beauty had made her lazy. She only had to smile or point or whimper a little to have people running to bring her a drink or a banana or to lift her up and carry her about. So it had never seemed necessary to her to learn to walk. When she wanted to do a bit of exploring by herself, she went on all fours like Prince Charley.

  This had begun to worry Mary. Here was Jonah with new teeth, and Ann Elizabeth still could not walk.

  “Do you think possibly she’s weak in the knees?” she asked Mr. Peterkin one day when he was calling.

  “Not ’er! Not my Lizzie!” said that gentleman indignantly.

  “She’s so contented!” sighed Mary.

  “Look ’ere,” said Mr. Peterkin. “You need some kind of contraption for ’er. A baby walker! That’s what it is.”

  “A baby walker?”

  “That’s what it is,” repeated the honest seaman. “Maggie an’ ’Enry ’ad one for their twelve. Bly’me, I’ll make ye one!”