Black Bartlemy's Treasure Part 40

"True!" says I, growing gloomy. "Table and chairs would be easy had I but a saw! I could make you shelves and a cupboard had I but fortuned to find a saw instead of this hatchet."

"Nay, Martin," says she, smiling at my doleful visage. "Why this despond? If you can make me so wondrous a spoon with nought but your knife and a piece of driftwood, I know you will make me chairs and table of sorts, saw or no, aye, if our table be but a board laid across stones, and our chairs the same."

"What more do we need?" says I, sighing and scowling at my hatchet that it was not a saw.

"Well, Martin, if there be many goats in the island, and if you could take two or three alive, I have been thinking we might use their milk in many ways if we had pans to put the milk in, as b.u.t.ter and cheese if you could make me a press. Here be a-plenty of ifs, Martin, and I should not waste breath with so many if you were not the man you are!"

"As how?" I questioned, beginning to grind the hatchet on a stone.

"A man strong to overcome difficulty! And with such clever hands!"

Here I ground my hatchet harder than before, but scowled at it no longer.

"And what more would you have?" I questioned.

"If you could make our front door to open and shut?"

"That is easily done! And what else beside?"

"Nay, here is enough for the present. We are like to be very busy people, Martin."

"Why, 'twill pa.s.s the time!" says I.

"And work is a very good thing!" quoth she thoughtfully.

"It is!" says I, grinding away at my hatchet again.

"O Martin!" sighs she after awhile, "I grow impatient to explore our island!"

"And so you shall so soon as you are strong enough."

"And that will be very soon!" says she. "The sea-water is life to me, and what with this sweet air, I grow stronger every day."

"Meantime there is much to be done and here sit I in idleness."

"Nay, you are sharpening your axe and I am talking to you and wondering what you will make next?"

"A lamp!" says I.

"How, Martin?"

"With a sh.e.l.l, the fat of our goat rendered down, and cotton from my shirt."

"Nay, if you so yearn for a lamp I can do this much."

"Good!" says I, rising. "Meantime I'll turn carpenter and to begin with, try my hand at a stool for you."

"But if you have no saw, Martin--?"

"I will make me a chisel instead." Crossing to the fire I found my iron red-hot, and taking it betwixt two flat pieces of wood that served me for tongs I laid it upon my stone anvil, and fell forthwith to beating and shaping it with the hammer-back of my hatchet until I had beaten out a blade some two inches wide. Having cooled my chisel in the brook I betook me to sharpening it on a stone moistened with water, and soon had wrought it to a good edge. I now selected from my timber a board sufficiently wide, and laying this on my anvil-stone began to cut a piece from the plank with hammer and chisel, the which I found a work requiring great care, lest I split my wood, and patience, since my chisel, being of iron, needed much and repeated grinding. Howbeit it was done at last, and the result of my labour a piece of wood about two feet square, and behold the seat of my stool!

Now was my companion idle for, while all this is a-doing, she sets the turtle-sh.e.l.l on the fire with water and collops of meat cut with my knife, and, soon as it simmers, breaks into it divers herbs she had dried in the sun; and so comes to watch and question me at my work, yet turning, ever and anon, to stir at the stew with her new spoon, whereby I soon began to snuff a savour methought right appetising. As time pa.s.sed, this savour grew ever more inviting and my hunger with it, my mouth a-watering so that I might scarce endure, as I told her to her no small pleasure.

"Had I but a handful of salt, Martin!" sighs she.

"Why, comrade," says I, pausing 'twixt two hammer-strokes, "Wherefore this despond? If you can make stew so savoury and with nought but flesh of an old goat and a few dried herbs, what matter for salt?" At this she laughed and bent to stir at her stew again.

"There's plenty of salt in the sea yonder," says she presently.

"True, but how to come at it?"

"How if we boiled sea-water, Martin?"

"'Tis method unknown to me," says I, whittling at a leg of my stool, "but we can try."

And now in the seat of my stool I burned three good-sized holes or sockets, and having trimmed three lengths of wood, I fitted these into my socket-holes, and there was my stool complete. This done, I must needs call her from her cooking to behold it; and though it was no more than a square of roughish wood set upon three pegs, she praised and viewed it as it had been a great elbow chair and cushioned at that!

Hereupon, puffed up with my success, I must immediately begin to think upon building us a table and chairs, but being summoned to dinner I obeyed her gladly enough. And she seated on her stool with me on the ground beside her and our turtle-sh.e.l.l dish before us, we ate with hearty good-will until, our hunger appeased, we fell to talk:

She: 'Tis marvellous how well I eat.

Myself: 'Tis the open air.

She: And the work, Martin. I have swept and dusted our cottage every hole and corner.

Myself: And found nothing left by its last tenant?

She: Nothing.

Myself: Had he but thought to leave us a saw our chairs and table would have been the better.

She: Then you will make them, Martin?

Myself: Aye--with time.

She: O 'tis bravely determined.

And here, for a moment, I felt the light touch of her hand on my shoulder.

Myself: They will be very unlovely things--very rough--

She: And very wonderful, Martin.

Myself: As to these goats now, 'tis an excellent thought to catch some alive and rear them.

She: I could make you excellent cheese and b.u.t.ter.

Myself: If I cannot run them down, I must contrive to wound one or two with arrows.

She: Why then, Martin, why not head your arrows with pebbles in place of iron points?