The Secret Island - Blyton Enid (читать лучшие читаемые книги .TXT) 📗

Nora didn’t like it. She didn’t like feeding the hens in the rain. She asked Peggy to do it for her. But Jack heard her and was cross.

“You’re not to be a fair-weather person,” he told her. “It’s all very well to go about happily when the sun is shining and do your jobs with a smile - but just you be the same when we get bad weather!”

“Ay, ay, Captain!” said Nora, who was learning not to be such a baby as she had been. And after that she went cheerfully out to feed the hens, even though the rain trickled down her neck and ran in a cold stream down her brown back.

They were rather bored when they had to keep indoors in Willow House when it rained. They had read all their books and papers by that time, and although it was fun to play games for a while, they couldn’t do it all day long. Peggy didn’t mind - she had always plenty of mending to do.

She showed the boys and Nora how to weave baskets. They needed a great many, for the baskets did not last very long, and there were always raspberries, strawberries, or blackberries to pick. Mike, Jack, and Nora thought it was fun to weave all kinds and shapes of baskets, and soon they had a fine selection of them ready for sunny weather.

Then the sun came back again and the children lay about in it and basked in the hot rays to get themselves warm once more. The hens fluffed out their wet feathers and clucked happily. Daisy came out from under the tree which gave her shelter, and gave soft moos of pleasure. The world was full of colour again and the children shouted for joy.

The beans, radishes, lettuces, and mustard and cress grew enormously in the rain. Jack and Mike picked a good crop, and everyone said that never had anything tasted so delicious before as the rain-swollen lettuces, so crisp, juicy, and sweet.

All sorts of little things happened. The hole in the boat grew so big that one day, when Mike went to fetch the boat from its hiding-place, it had disappeared! It had sunk into the water! Then Jack and Mike had to use all their brains and all their strength to get it up again and to mend it so that it would not leak quite so badly.

The corn for the hens came to an end, and Jack had to go and see if he could find some more. There was none at his grandfather’s farm, so he went to Mike’s farm - and there he found some in a shed, but was nearly bitten by a new dog that had been bought for the farm. The dog bit a hole in his trousers, and Peggy had to spend a whole morning mending them.

Another time there was a great alarm, because Nora said she had heard the splashing of oars. Jack rushed off to get Daisy, and Mike bundled the hens into a sack - but, as nothing more seemed to happen, Peggy ran to the top of the hill and looked down the lake.

No boat was in sight - only four big white swans, quarrelling among themselves, and slashing the water with their feet and wings!

“It’s all right, boys!” she shouted. “It’s only the swans! It isn’t a boat!”

So Daisy was left in peace and the hens were emptied out of the sack again. Nora was teased, and made up her mind that she would make quite certain it was a boat next time she gave the alarm!

One day Jack slipped down the hillside when he was reaching for raspberries and twisted his ankle. Mike had to help him back to the camp on the beach. Jack was very pale, for it was a bad twist.

Peggy ran to get some clean rags and soaked them in the cold spring water. She bound them tightly round Jack’s foot and ankle.

“You mustn’t use it for a while,” she said. "You must keen quiet. Mike will do your jobs.”

So Jack had to lie about quietly for a day or two, and he found this very strange. But he was a sensible boy, and he knew that it was the quickest way to get better. Soon he found that he could hop about quite well with a stout hazel stick Mike cut for him from the hedges - and after a week or so his foot was quite all right.

Another time poor Peggy overbalanced and fell into a gorse bush below her on the hill. She was dreadfully scratched, but she didn’t even cry. She went to the lake and washed her scratches and cuts, and then got the supper just as usual. Jack said he was very proud of her. “Anybody else would have yelled the place down!” he said, looking at the scratches all over her arms and legs.

“It’s nothing much,” said Peggy, boiling some milk. “I’m lucky not to have broken my leg or something!”

So, with these little adventures, joys, and sorrows, the summer passed by. No one came to the island, and gradually the children forgot their fears of being found, and thought no more of it.

Jack Does Some Shopping

The summer passed away. The days grew gradually shorter. The children found that it was not always warm enough to sit by the camp-fire in the evenings, and they went to Willow House, where they could light the lantern and play games. Willow House was always cosy.

They had had to stuff the walls again with heather and bracken, for some of it crumbled away and then the wind blew in. All the willow stakes they had used in the making of the walls had put out roots, and now little tufts of green, pointed leaves jutted out here and there up the sticks! The children were pleased. It was fun to have walls and roof that grew!

One day Mike got a shock. He went to get another candle for the lantern - and found that there was only one left! There were very few matches left, too, for although the children were careful with these, and only used one when the fire had gone out, they had to use them sometimes.

“I say, Jack, we’ve only got one candle left,” said Mike.

“We’ll have to get some more, then,” said Jack.

“How?” asked Mike. “They don’t grow on trees!”

“Jack means he’ll go and get some from somewhere,” said Peggy, who was mending a hole in Jack’s shirt. She was so glad she had been sensible enough to bring her work-basket with her to the secret island. She could stop their clothes from falling to pieces by keeping an eye on them, and stitching them as soon as they were torn.

“But where could he get candles except in a shop?” said Mike.

“Well, I’ve been thinking,” said Jack seriously. “I’ve been thinking very hard. The autumn is coming, when we shall need a better light in the evenings. We shall need another blanket, too. And there are all sorts of little things we want.”

“I badly want some more mending wool and some black cotton,” said Peggy. “I had to mend your grey trousers with blue wool yesterday, Jack.”

“And I’ll have to have some more corn for the hens soon,” said Nora.

“And it would be nice if we could get some flour,” said Peggy. “Because if I had a bag of flour I could make you little rolls of bread sometimes - I just long for bread, don’t you!”

“It would be nice,” said Jack. “Well, listen, everyone. Don’t you think it would be a good idea if I took the boat and went to the village at the other end of the lake and bought some of the things we badly need?”

The others all cried out in surprise.

“You’d be caught!”

“You haven’t any money to buy things with!”

“Oh, don’t go, Jack!”

“I shouldn’t be caught,” said Jack. "I’d be very careful. No one knows me at that village. Anyway, if you’re afraid, I’ll go on to the next village - only it’s five miles away and I’d be jolly tired carrying back all the things we want.”

“But what about money, Jack?” said Peggy.

“I’d thought of that,” said Jack. “If Mike will help me to pick a sackful of mushrooms early one morning, I could bring them back here, arrange them in the willow baskets we make, and then take them to the village to sell. With the money I get I’ll buy the things we want.”

“Oh, that is a good idea, Jack,” said Peggy. “If only you don’t get caught!”

“Don’t worry about that, silly,” said Jack. “Now we’d better make out a list of things we want, and I’ll try and get them when I go.”