Us and the Bottleman | Page 6

my frame upon two sticks, I beheld your bottle cast up on the sands? Now, thought I, I can unburden myself to these three unfortunate men, obviously in even greater distress than my own, and we can, perhaps, ease each other's monotonous maroonity. Scholars, too, I perceive you to be,--witness the Latin following your signatures. Ah well, Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora, as the poet so truly says, and I cannot express to you how eager, how happy I am, in the thought of communicating with some one other than the natives of this desolate isle. These inhabitants, though friendly on the whole, are uncouth and barbaric. They spend their entire time fishing from boats which they build themselves, or squatting beside their huts mending their fishing implements.
The good soul with whom I am lodging is calling me to my scanty repast. In the rude language of the place she tells me that there is "Krabss al ad an dunny." How can I live long, I ask, on such fare?
Hopefully, your
CASTAWAY COMRADE.
P.S. My address--mail reaches me from time to time, by aforesaid vessel--is P.O. Box 14, Blue Harbor, Me. ME stands for Mid Equator, but the abbreviation is sufficient. Blue Harbor is my own literal translation of the native Bluar Boor. Box 14 refers to the native system of delivering messages. P.O. has, I think, something to do with the P. & O. steamers, which, however, do not very often touch here.

"I told you it would go around the world!" Greg said, when I had finished, and Jerry and I were staring at each other.
"_Well!_" Jerry said at last. "What luck!"
"I should rather say so," I said; "suppose a fisherman had found it, or no one at all."
"Bless his old heart," said Jerry, taking the letter.
I wanted to know why "old."
"He must be ancient if he has to totter along on two sticks," Jerry said. "Besides, he has a stately, professorish sort of style. Do you suppose he really does want us to write to him?"
"Of course he does," Greg said; "he tells us to often enough. Think of being alone out there with savages, and that bearded chief coming with poison bottles and all."
"Shut up, Greg," said Jerry; "you don't understand. There's more in this than meets the eye, Chris. I didn't get on to this crab salad business when you read it."
Neither had I; in fact, I hadn't got on to it until Jerry said it in proper English.
"He's a good sort, poor old dear," I said. "Why do you suppose they keep him out there?"
"He's there of his own free will, right enough," Jerry said.
But I didn't think so.
We were still confabbing over the letter, and explaining bits to Greg, who was hopelessly mystified, when Mother came out to transplant some columbine that had wandered into the lawn. We did a quick secret consultation and then decided to let her in on the Castaway. So we bolted after her and took away the trowel and showed her the letter. She read it through twice, and then said:
"Oh, Ailsa must hear this, and Father!" But what we wanted to know was whether or not we might write to the Castaway, because we didn't quite want to without letting her know about it. She laughed some more and said, "yes, we might," and that he was "a dear," which was what we thought.
We decided that we would write immediately, so Jerry dashed off to Father's study and got two sheets of nice thin paper with "17 Luke Street" at the top in humpy green letters, and I borrowed Aunt Ailsa's fountain-pen, which turned out to be empty. I might have known it, for they always are empty when you need them most. Jerry, like a goose, filled it over the clean paper we were going to use for the letter, and it slobbered blue ink all over the top sheet. But the under one wasn't hurt, and we thought one page full would be all we could write, anyway. We took the things out to the porch table, and Greg held down the corner of the paper so it wouldn't flap while I wrote. Jerry sat on the arm of my chair and thought so excitedly that it jiggled me.
But minutes went on, and the fountain pen began to ooze from being too full, and none of us could think of a single thing to say.
"If we just write to him ourselves,--in our own form, I mean," Jerry said, "it'll be stupid. And I don't feel maroonish here on the porch. We'll have to wait till we go to Wecanicut again, and write from there."
I felt somehow the way Jerry did, so we put away the things again and went out under the hemlock tree to talk about