Kitabı oku: «What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise», sayfa 12

XXVIII
RUDOLF DUNBAR’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF

Cal and Larry were right. Both out of a sense of duty to his entertainers and because of a not unnatural impulse to tell of his unusual mode of life, Dunbar began the very next morning to talk freely of his experiences.

“It is proper that I explain to you how I came to be here without the means of getting away again,” he said at breakfast. “Indeed, I was a little troubled in my mind last night when I remembered that I had received your kindly offer of rescue without telling you that. But in my anxiety to get away from your bivouac and let you sleep, I forgot it.

“You see my entire life is spent in the woods or upon the water. I go wherever there is promise of anything to reward the labors of a naturalist, and when I heard of this long-abandoned plantation, where for twenty-five years or so Nature has had things all her own way, I knew a visit would be richly worth while. So I purchased a little rowboat and came over here about three or four weeks ago. I cannot fix the time more definitely because I never can keep accurate account of the days or weeks, living alone in the woods as I do and having no engagements to fulfill. I pulled my boat up on the beach a little way, selected a place in which to live, and proceeded to remove my things from the boat to the place chosen. Unfortunately, just as I had finished doing so, a peculiar moth attracted my attention – a moth not mentioned or described in any of the books, and quite unknown to science, I think. I went at once in chase of it, but it led me a merry dance through the thickets, and it was two hours, I should say – though I carry no timepiece – before I caught the creature. In the meanwhile I had forgotten all about my boat, and when I got back I saw it drifting out to sea with quite a strong breeze to aid the tide in carrying it away. It seems the tide had reached the flood during my absence, setting the boat afloat, and had then begun to ebb, carrying her away.

“There was nothing to be done, of course, but hoist my little flag, union down, and go on with the very interesting task of studying the habits of my new moth, of which I have since found several specimens, besides three cocoons which I am hatching in the hope that they will prove to belong to the species. I’ve been hard at work at that task ever since, and I have made some very interesting discoveries with regard to that moth’s choice of habitat. I made the most important one the night before you arrived. That is why I got no sleep that night.”

“Let us hope,” said Cal, “that the excitement of it did not interfere with your rest last night.”

“Oh, not at all. I am never excited, and I can sleep whenever I choose. I have only to lie down and close my eyes in order to accomplish that.”

“Then you have a shelter or hut up there somewhere – though we saw none?”

“Oh, no. I never sleep under shelter of any kind; I haven’t done so for more than twenty years past. Indeed, that is one of the conditions upon which I live at all. My health is good now, but it would fail me rapidly if I slept anywhere under a roof.”

“But when these heavy subtropical rains come?” asked Dick.

“Ah, I am prepared for them. I have only to spread one rubber cloth on the ground and a much thinner one over my blanket, and I take no harm.”

“Your specialty then is the study of butterflies and moths?” asked Dick.

“No, not at all. Indeed I have no specialty. When I was teaching I held the chair of Natural History, with several specialists as tutors under my general direction. When my health broke down – pray, don’t suppose I am going to weary you with a profitless catalogue of symptoms – I simply had to take to the woods. I had nobody dependent upon me – nobody for whom it was my duty to provide then or later. I had a little money, very little, but living as I do I need very little, and my work yields me a good deal more than I need or want. The little rifle I always have with me provides me with all the food I want, so that I am rarely under expense on that account.”

“But you must have bread or some substitute,” said Tom.

“I do not find it necessary. When I have access to starchy foods – of which there are many in tropical and subtropical forests if one knows how to find and utilize them – I eat them with relish, but when they are not to be had I get on very well without them. You see man is an omnivorous animal, and can live in health upon either starchy or flesh foods. It is best to have both, of course, unless the starchy foods are perverted as they so often are in civilized life, and made ministers to depraved appetites.”

“May I ask just how you mean that?” asked Dick.

“Yes, certainly. The starch we consumed last night in the form of sweet potatoes was altogether good for us; so is that we are taking now in these ship biscuits. But if the flour we are eating had been mixed with lard, sugar, eggs, milk and the like, and made into pastry, we should be greatly the better without it.

“However, I’m not a physician, equipped to deliver a lecture on food stuffs and their preparation. I was betrayed into that by your question. I was explaining the extreme smallness of my personal needs. After food, which costs me nothing, comes clothing, which costs me very little.”

“Why certainly you are expensively dressed for woodland wandering,” said Dick. Then instantly he began an apology for the reference to so purely personal a matter, but Rudolf Dunbar interrupted him.

“No apology is due. I was voluntarily talking of my own personal affairs, and your remark was entirely pertinent. My garments are made of very costly fabrics, but as such materials endure all sorts of hard usage and last for a very long time, I find it cheaper in the end to buy only such; more important still is the convenience of it, to one leading the sort of life I do. Instead of having to visit a tailor three or four times a year, I have need of his services only at long intervals. The garments I now have on were made for me in London three years or so ago, and I have worn no others since. In the meanwhile I have been up the Amazon for thousands of miles, besides visiting Labrador and the southern coast of Greenland.

“That brings me to my principal item of expense, which is the passage money I must pay in order to get to the regions I wish to explore. That costs me a good deal at each considerable removal, but in the meanwhile I have earned greatly more by my work.

“But pardon me for prosing so about myself. I’ll say not another word now, so that you young gentlemen may be free to make whatever use you wish of this superb day. I shall spend the greater part of it in figuring some specimens with my colored crayons. Good morning!”

XXIX
TOM FINDS THINGS

As soon as the visitor disappeared through a tangled growth of bushes, Larry began marking out the duties of the day.

“First of all we must make ourselves comfortable,” he said, as if reflecting.

“That means a bush shelter of some sort,” interrupted Tom.

“No, it doesn’t either,” Larry answered, in a tone of playfulness like Tom’s own.

“What does it mean, then?”

“It means a shelter – not ‘of some sort’ as you say, but of a good sort. The wind blows hard here sometimes as the place is so exposed to a broad passage leading to the sea outside. So we must build something that isn’t easily carried away by a squall.”

“It would mean a good many other things,” said Cal, “if I were the architect selected to make designs, with front elevations, floor plans, estimates and all the other things they do before beginning to put up a building.”

“Why, of course, Cal, you are to direct the work,” answered Larry. “You know more about such things than all the rest of us combined.”

“Well, then, first of all, our palatial country residence must face directly away from the sea,” said Cal. “If it had its wide open side in any other direction we’d be drenched inside of it every time a rain came in from the sea, and that is where nearly all the hard rains come from here. Then, again, if the hovel faced the wrong way it would be filled full of smoke every time a sea breeze blew, and in this exposed place that is nearly all the time. There are seventeen other good and sufficient reasons for fronting the structure in the way I have decreed, but the two I have mentioned are sufficient to occupy and divert your young minds as we go on with the work. Now let all hands except Larry busy themselves chopping crotched poles of the several dimensions that I’ll mark here in the sand, for lack of other and more civilized stationery.”

With a sharpened stick Cal began writing in the sand.

“Four poles, 12 feet long, and three or four inches thick.”

“But what do you want me to do, Cal?” asked Larry.

“Go fishing,” said Cal. “We must have some dinner after awhile. See if you can’t bring in a sheepshead or some other fish weighing five or six pounds and fit for roasting.”

In an instant Larry was off with cast net, shrimp bucket and some fish lines.

Cal resumed his sand writing, cataloguing the various sorts and sizes of poles wanted. Presently he stopped short, muttering:

“But then we’re not lumbermen, and the only tool we have to chop with is our one poor little hand ax. It won’t take three of us to wield that toy. Say, Tom, suppose you take your gun and see if you can’t get us some game. We’ll do well enough with fish for dinner, but we must have some meat for to-night. So go and get some. I know you’re half crazy to be off in the woods shooting. Dick and I will work at the poles and palmetes – that’s apt alliteration, but it was quite accidental, I assure you. One can use the ax and the other cut palmete leaves with his jackknife, exchanging jobs now and then. We’ll need a great stack of the palmetes with which to cover the roof and three sides of our mansion.”

“Yes, of course, and fortunately they grow very thick just out there in the woods,” said Dick. “I saw them early this morning.”

“Yes, I know. I saw them yesterday when I picked out a place for the camp. Our need of them was one of the considerations I had in mind. By the way, Dick” – the two were busily at work now – “what do you think of the professor’s plan of sleeping?”

“It saves him a lot of trouble,” Dick answered.

“Yes, in one way. But if he had anything with him that water would spoil, it would make more trouble than it saves. As he has nothing of the kind – ”

“How about his reserve ammunition? A man who depends upon his gun for all his food must have a lot of cartridges somewhere.”

“That’s so, but his rifle is probably of very small calibre, so that a good many cartridges can be packed in a small space. Of course we can’t ask him.”

At that moment “the professor,” as Cal had called him, appeared, with profuse apologies.

“It was really inexcusable,” he protested, “for me to go away as I did when you young gentlemen had a shelter to build. I should have stayed to help in the work, as I am to share in its advantages. But I am so unused to providing shelter for myself that I quite forgot your larger necessities. Fortunately I heard the blows of your ax and was reminded of my duty. I have come at once to assist you.”

“Oh, you mustn’t think of that, Professor,” answered Cal. “We really need no assistance. My brother and Tom have gone off for supplies of meat and fish, but they’ll be back presently, and meanwhile we two can use the only tools we have for this kind of work. Besides, you have something of your own to do.”

“Nothing that may not be as well done at another time. I must insist upon bearing my share of the work of constructing a camp which you have been courteous enough to invite me to share.”

“But you don’t sleep under a roof – even a flimsy one of palmete leaves,” objected Dick. “We invited you to join us here only because we like good company.”

“Thank you for the compliment. No, I do not sleep under a roof, but your roof will be a great convenience and comfort to me in other ways.”

“I don’t see – ” Cal began, but Dunbar broke in.

“You don’t see how? No, of course not. How should you? But that is only because you know so little of my tasks. I must write my scientific reports and articles carefully and voluminously, and I must make accurate color drawings of my specimens to accompany my text. I am badly behind with my work in these ways, and the very best time to bring up the arrears is of long, rainy days, when the living things I must study – all of them except the fishes – are hidden away in such shelters as they can find. But I cannot sit in the rain and write or draw. That would only be to spoil materials of which I have all too little already. So the rainy days are lost to me, or have been, hitherto. Now that I am to enjoy your hospitality, I shall sit in your shelter when it rains, and get a world of writing and drawing done.”

“Well, at any rate, we shall not need your help in this work, and we have no tool for you to work with if we did. As to our little hospitality, it mustn’t and doesn’t involve any obligation on your part. If it did it wouldn’t be hospitality at all, but something very different. Why not put in your time on your own work?”

“I would, if my head didn’t object,” the man of science answered rather dejectedly, Cal thought, but with a smile.

“Have you a headache, then?” the youth asked, putting as much sympathy into his tone as was possible to a robust specimen of young manhood who had never had a headache in his life. “It must be very distressing.”

“No, I haven’t a headache,” the professor answered. “I wish it was only that. No, my head isn’t clear to-day, and when I try to work it gets things jumbled up a bit. I tried this morning to write a scientific account of the habits of a certain fish that these waters bear, and somehow I got him out into the bushes using wings that I had never observed before. Now I must go and catch another specimen of that fish and examine it carefully to see if the wings are really there or not. You see in cases of doubt a scientist dares not trust anything to conjecture or memory. He must examine and make sure.”

So saying, the professor started off to catch the fish he wanted. He had spoken in a half jocular tone and with a mischievous smile playing about his lips, though his words were serious enough.

“What do you think, Dick?” Cal asked as soon as the man was well beyond earshot; “is he a trifle ‘off’? has he lost some of his buttons?”

“Possibly, but I doubt it.”

“But what nonsense he talked!”

“Yes, I know. But did you observe his smile? He was only doing in his way what you so often do in yours. Your smile often contradicts your words – making its bow, as it were, to the nonsense you are uttering. Yet we don’t suspect you of having slipped your cable.”

“I suppose that’s it,” said Cal, “but allow me to suggest that our chatter cuts no palmetes, and we’re in need of a great number.”

By the time the needed poles and crotch sticks were cut and sharpened for driving into the ground, Larry returned, bringing with him one huge fish and a bucket full of croakers and whiting, all of which he had dressed on the shore.

He wrapped the large fish in a mass of wet sea weed and buried it in the hot ashes and coals to bake. After setting such other things to cook as he thought necessary, he joined the others in the work of setting up the poles and fastening their ends securely together with vines as flexible as hempen rope. The wetter parts of the woodlands yielded such vines in abundance, and as somewhat experienced sailors the boys all knew how to tie knots that no strain could loosen.

By the time that the dinner was cooked the framework of the shelter was more than half done.

“We’ll knock off for dinner now,” Larry suggested, “and after dinner the whole force will set to work finishing the framework and covering it. There are bunks to be made, too, and filled with long gray moss, so we’ll have a very full afternoon.”

“By the way, Professor,” asked Cal, as the man of science rejoined the group, “are you quite sure you won’t let us make a bunk for you?”

“Oh, yes – quite sure.”

“Did you catch the fish you wanted to examine, or did he take to his wings and fly away?”

“Oh, that was only my poor little jest. You didn’t take it seriously, did you?”

Then, interrupting the reply that Cal had begun to make, he said rapidly:

“But I did want to make another examination of the fish in question. You see, when I examined a specimen a few days ago, my attention was concentrated upon certain definite points, and when I casually observed something that suggested the possibility of its having a sense of taste, I went on with the other questions in my mind and quite forgot to satisfy myself on this point. But when I sat down this morning to write notes of my observations, the point came back to my mind, and I saw that I must examine another specimen before writing at all. That is what I meant by saying, in figurative speech, that my fish went flying away among the bushes, or whatever else it was that I said.”

“But, Professor,” said Larry, “something you said about a fish’s sense of taste just now awakens my curiosity. May I ask you – ”

“Not now,” said Dick. “Let’s reserve all that for this evening after supper. You see Tom isn’t here now, and he will want to hear it all. Maybe the professor will let us turn loose our tongues to-night and ask him the dozen questions we have in our minds.”

“Yes – a thousand, if you wish,” Dunbar answered. “I have studied fish with more interest, perhaps, than I ever felt in investigating any other subject, and naturally I like to air the results of my inquiries.”

Larry busied himself taking the dinner from the fire, and as he did so Tom returned.

“Hello, Tom!” called out Cal as the boy was struggling through the bushes back of the camp. “Just in time for dinner. Did you get anything worth while?”

“Judge for yourself,” he replied, entering the open space and dropping a huge turkey gobbler on the ground. “Isn’t that a beauty? Got him on the wing, too. But I forgot, Cal, you don’t approve of post-mortem chatter over game. One thing I must tell you, anyhow. I found a patch of these and brought home some samples in my pockets to see if it’s worth while to go after more.”

As he spoke he drew out a number of sweet potatoes and cast them down.

“Are there more to be had?” Larry asked eagerly.

“Yes, bushels of them – growing wild.”

“Good! Tom, you’ve a positive genius for finding precisely what we want. Our supply of bread and bread substitutes is very scant, or was before you made this discovery, and with all due respect for your opinion, Professor, I am satisfied that we need a considerable proportion of starchy foods to go with our meat.”

“Oh, I agree with you as to that,” quickly answered the professor. “I have never doubted it. I only said that man, being an omnivorous animal, can live upon an exclusive diet of meat just as he can live on the starchy foods alone. I think I stated distinctly that he is better off with both than with either alone.”

“You certainly did say that, Professor,” said Dick; “it is only that Larry was inattentive at the time of your lecture. But I say, Tom, is it far to your potato patch?”

“Only about half a mile or a little less.”

They were all busily eating dinner now, and for a minute there was nothing more said. Presently Tom spoke:

“I say, Larry, which of you fellows can best be spared to go with me after dinner, and help me bring in the deer?”

“What deer?” asked all in a breath.

“Why, the one I shot an hour or so ago. I managed to hang him up in a tree out of reach of other animals, I think, but I suppose he ought to be brought to camp pretty soon.”

Cal rose threateningly.

“I am strongly tempted to throw things at you, Tom Garnett,” he began. “But there isn’t anything to throw except the ax, and if I threw that I might incapacitate you for walking, and without your assistance we might not be able to find that deer. What do you mean, sir, by interrupting us at dinner with a surprise like that? Don’t you realize that it is bad for the digestion? In plain language that even your intelligence can perhaps grasp, why in the name of all that is sensible, didn’t you tell us about the thing when you first came?”

“I’ve associated with you, Cal, too long and too intimately to retain a just appreciation of what is sensible. Anyhow, I wanted the fun of springing the thing on you in that way. If you’ve finished your dinner, we’ll be off after the venison. It isn’t half a mile away.”