CHAPTER VII

WE PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

Of course after finding the locket, Andy and I lay awake a long time and talked our discovery over in whispers. But at last weariness won out over excitement and we fell asleep long before either of us meant to drop such a fascinating subject.

In the morning we showed the locket to the rest of the party, and the thing had to be thrashed out all over again.

By using Uncle Joe’s thinnest knife blade we finally pried the pretty trinket open, and found inside a lock of straight, very black hair, which we assumed to be that of Monsieur Carreau, “my dear husband.” Also a stiff and yellowed orange blossom, pressed flat--probably from Rosemary’s bridal bouquet. We wondered whether the blossoms had come from the grove on Sunset Island.

Aunt Mollie thought--and we finally agreed with her--that the cave probably _had_ been the spot marked on the English sailor’s map and that Rosemary had lost the locket while conducting the unsuccessful search party the diary told about.

But since the diary had also stated that they had hunted most thoroughly, we could only come, reluctantly enough, to the same conclusion Rosemary had: that the buccaneer who made the copy of the map, had not been as accurate as he ought to have been, considering all that was at stake; and that the treasure was not here.

Uncle Joe had another theory to account for this which, however, we were none of us willing to accept at present. He held that the buccaneer was much more likely to have made a mistake in copying the sailing directions--the latitude and longitude of the Island--than the actual measurements in regard to the place to dig after the Island was reached.

He explained to us that in all probability the man was an ignorant hand before the mast, with no education, and that while he could have read off and copied understandingly so many feet north, south, east or west, and so many right or left turns from the place of landing, the more complicated directions for setting a course--which must have been on the map, or on a paper attached to it--would be only so much Greek to him. He might easily, then, in his hurry and excitement, (expecting every moment to be caught red-handed, no doubt, by the terrible Morgan himself) have copied wrongly the part he did not comprehend.

But that, we pointed out to Uncle Joe protestingly, would mean that the treasure wasn’t on Sunset Island at all.

In that case the real hiding place of the golden loot might be in a quite different and distant corner of the Caribbean.

We couldn’t subscribe to such a simply devastating theory, and we told Uncle Joe so in no uncertain tones.

He laughed and flung up his hands.

“Sorry, children, to disappoint you all like this,” he said apologetically, though his eyes still twinkled. “However, that’s my honest opinion of how the case actually stands, if you ask me.”

Well, there wasn’t any way of proving him either right or wrong without the map, and that seemed as impossible to locate as the treasure itself.

And after spending the whole morning searching the caves vigorously and with most minute attention to corners and possible obliterated traces of ancient excavations, and finding, of course, nothing at all to reward our hard work, we ate our lunch, packed up our camp kit with reluctance, and as soon as the afternoon grew cooler, set out for Planter’s House.

Much as we had enjoyed our trip around the Island, we decided by common consent, to put off exploring the hill at the north end, and the interior of the Island until another day. We had all discovered a queer sort of homesickness for Planter’s House, and wanted to be back there. We had lived in it less than a month, but, perhaps because we had worked so patiently to make it livable and homelike, it already seemed almost as much home to us as the Braeburn house we had left more than a thousand miles behind us up north.

That evening after supper I called Syd into the library. The Carreaus had evidently liked books, and the shelves were well stocked. I had been so busy up to now I hadn’t had a chance to look them over thoroughly before.

Even if I do care more for outdoor things than indoor, I’ve always loved books. And here I found there was a regular feast spread out waiting for me. Only I’d read them out in the garden, I decided, or on the beach.

“I’ve thought of something I want to talk to you about,” I told Syd solemnly.

He was looking at the shelves hopefully. “Maybe there are some books there on pirates,” he suggested.

“Ah’mm,” I said impatiently, for though usually I was keen enough on that subject, I had my mind on something quite different at the moment. “There are a few--I looked. But see this shelf, Syd.”

He bent over and read several titles, and his face looked awfully puzzled.

“They’re all about orange-growing, Sis,” he objected. “What do you want with them?”

I tried to speak slowly, and not let my enthusiasm run away with me this time, so he’d take me seriously.

“Well, we have a big orange grove to be looked after on Sunset Island, haven’t we?” I asked significantly. “Uncle Joe and I walked over part of it the first week we were here, but it’s fearfully rank with weeds, and the jungly growth is creeping in on all sides. You can see, though, it’s been a beautiful well cared-for plantation once, and we oughtn’t to deliberately waste the--the real gold we might be able to take out of a good orange grove, in our efforts to find old Morgan’s, that mayn’t ever have been near the Island. Now, ought we?”

Syd caught my idea at once.

“You mean in--in case the _Myra_ doesn’t--we’d be building up a--a sort of business against the time a vessel _will_ touch here some day in the future. Is that it, Gay? Because, of course, if we’re only going to be here six weeks or so longer, it wouldn’t be worth while.”

“Perhaps Uncle Joe won’t give up the Island even if the _Myra_ does come,” I said firmly. “He might decide it was a good proposition to leave a manager here, and some men to work the plantation. If he does, I--I wish we could all stay on in Planter’s House, and help build the Island up again. I love it here, Syd. I don’t ever want to go back to Braeburn, at least not to live. But of course, I want ships to call at the Island at intervals, to bring letters, and keep us in touch with the world.”

He stared at the floor as if he were thinking hard.

“It’s funny, your saying that, Sis,” he said then, looking up at me. “I couldn’t feel half as badly about the _Myra_ maybe not coming back as I--I know I ought. ’Course I’d hate for anything to have happened to her, but I don’t want to go back to Braeburn to live, any more than you do. We’re all lots happier and busier here, seems to me, and Father’s certainly better. He’s stronger and more hopeful and interested every day. Say, Sissie, that’s sure some swell plan of yours about the orange grove. Let’s study up on it a bit; find out a few of the simple things that ought to be done in caring for the trees first. Then, p’raps we could get the others interested, too, later.”

“It’s worth trying,” I agreed eagerly, feeling tremendously relieved because Syd was back of me in the new plan. “Suppose we each choose one of these books now, and read a few pages whenever we get a chance and there’s no one round to ask questions.”

We had a wide choice, for a twelve-foot shelf was completely filled with hand books of all descriptions on the single subject of orange-growing. After looking through a number of them, we picked out the two we thought looked least dry reading, and took them up to our rooms, promising each other to make a start that very night.

Thinking it over in bed afterward, I was surprised to realize what a lot of brand new subjects we’d become interested in learning more about, in the short time we’d been on the Island. Study had always seemed, before, a thing to be rushed through as quickly as possible, in order to get at something more interesting. But the kind of learning we were doing on Sunset Island sort of teased you on to wanting to know more about it.

Take our interest in astronomy; we hadn’t stopped with that one lesson, and I’d already been through the shelves in the library to hunt for some books on the subject. I found half a dozen, too. That was how I happened to come on the orange-books.

And there was our History Course on the Spanish Main, that Uncle Joe had promised to enlarge to a “Sailor’s History of the Seven Seas,” as he put it. We were planning to study that every evening after supper.

And our course on shells and the animals that live in them. We learned a new lesson in that every time we walked on the beach.

And now our latest--orange culture.

Life on Sunset Island was most awfully interesting. There was something to do every minute of the day and evening, and all of it worth doing. You never had to stop and wonder what would come next--it was always ready and waiting before you’d quite finished the last one.

The best part of it was that it didn’t wear off with the passing of the first novelty of our island life.

In making that list of our interests and studies, I find I’ve forgotten to include the most important of all, as far as Syd and I were concerned: our garden-making.

We were pretty successful with it, and had a splendidly assorted crop of vegetables coming along, some of which were almost ready for picking. And as for our flowers--well, words aren’t equal to describing the gorgeous color and brilliance of them. I’d have to have a huge palette splashed over with a mass of the vividest colors known to an artist, to give just the faintest idea of what we saw every time we went out to work in those flower beds.

At the end of ten days of really concentrated reading up on oranges--it was exactly the kind of thing Syd and I’d both done to cram for school exams--we felt so simply _stuffed_ with facts on the subject, not to mention theories of our own, galore, that we took Uncle Joe aside and explained the plan to him in great detail.

He seemed quite struck by it, and nodded very emphatic approval as we went along. He only made one comment, but that hit what Syd called the crux of the whole situation.

“The _Myra’s_ due back here in another month, or six weeks allowing for head winds. This is a several years’ proposition, youngsters, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said softly, and Syd added, “It wouldn’t hurt, would it, Uncle Joe, to be prepared in case--in case something happened and she _didn’t_?”

Uncle Joe looked at us both keenly.

“You saw those pieces of wreckage,” he stated, rather than asked. “I thought so at the time. And you’ve never worried Mollie, or even spoken of it to Dan. Good children!” His tone was so hearty and yet so moved that silly tears came into my eyes, and I couldn’t see him for a second or two.

“Yes,” we said quickly, together. And Syd went on, “What is _your_ opinion, Uncle Joe? Do you think she’ll--come?”

“I don’t know, Sydney,” was his reply. “We can only wait and see. And it’s a good thing to say a bit of a prayer about it, once in a while,” he added gravely.

We said nothing more on the subject then, but instead went back to making plans for rescuing our oranges.

“And maybe,” I said hesitatingly, “maybe, Uncle Joe, you might want to put a manager and some workmen on the Island sometime, and make the grove pay you a nice fat income so you can retire from being a sea captain, when you get old, and live in luxury. Wouldn’t that be worth while?”

“Of course it would,” he agreed cheerfully, “and I seem to have a niece with a very wise little business head on her young shoulders. Let’s start work on the grove tomorrow, and see what we can accomplish in the next few weeks. And you might pick out one of those orange-books of yours for me to read, while you’re about it.”

So, with our new work at the grove, and our old work in the house and the gardens, another month slipped by before any of us realized it, and still no _Myra_ showed her white gulls’ wings over the blue horizon to the south.

We hadn’t paid much attention to calendars since our arrival, except to mark off weeks in a vague sort of way. And I was so surprised I couldn’t do anything but gasp stupidly when Aunt Mollie asked us one evening at supper, how many of us realized that Christmas was just _three days_ off.

“But it’s summer!” Reddy protested, looking out the open window at a vine, that flung big golden trumpet-flowers over the sill. “Christmas comes in winter--when it snows,” he explained carefully, as if he were afraid we wouldn’t understand.

We all laughed except Uncle Charles who went into the reason for this mix-up in seasons with great thoroughness for Reddy’s benefit, until at last the little fellow was convinced, but somewhat wistful over the missing snow.

“Will there be any Christmas tree?” he asked finally, his blue eyes wide.

“Not the kind you’ve been used to, I’m afraid, Reddy-boy,” Uncle Joe said. “But there’ll be a tree, I promise you that. And we can make it as jolly a holiday season as ever.”

“Oh, Uncle Joe, let’s cut down one of the small orange trees and use it in place of an evergreen,” I begged eagerly.

“An’ maybe the _Myra_’ll be here by Christmas,” Reddy exclaimed, “an’ Martin can see the tree. Let’s hang up a stocking for Martin, too, Mother.”

I felt a big, hard lump suddenly in my throat, and I sat there staring at the table, not daring to meet Uncle Joe’s pitying eyes, or Syd’s.

Where was Martin right now, was the thought in their minds, as well as in mine, I knew. Would he ever see our Christmas tree, or poke exploring fingers into the stuffed and bulging Christmas stocking we’d hang up for him?