“Yes; why? Can I help you in any way?”
“Indeed you can, if you will. I have to go over to Black Island for some goldenrod. It doesn’t grow anywhere else as early, at least I can’t find any. I’ve hunted all over for somebody to send, but the boys are all so busy, and so I’m just going myself. I wish you’d come along and help me row. It’s ever so much quicker to go across in a boat and get it there, than to drive out into the country for it.”
“Of course I will,” said Bertha, “but will there be time?”
“Yes, if we scoot right along.”
The girls flew down to the dock, jumped into a small rowboat and began to row briskly over to Black Island. It was not very far, and they soon reached it. They scrambled out, pulled the boat well up onto the beach, and went after the flowers.
Sure enough, as Patty had said, there was a luxuriant growth of goldenrod in many parts of the island. Patty had brought a pair of garden shears, and by setting to work vigorously, they soon had as much as they could carry.
“There,” said Patty, triumphantly, as she tied up two great sheaves, “I believe we gathered that quicker than if we had brought some boys along to help. Now let’s skip for home.”
The island was not very large, but in their search for the flowers they had wandered farther than they thought.
“It’s nearly one o’clock,” said Patty, looking at her watch, and carrying their heavy cargo of golden flowers, they hastened back to where they had left their boat.
But no boat was there.
“Oh, Bertha,” cried Patty, “the boat has drifted away!”
“Oh, pshaw,” said Bertha, “I don’t believe it. We pulled it ever so far up on the sand.”
“Well, then, where is it?”
“Why, I believe Winthrop or Kenneth or somebody came over and pulled it away, just to tease us. I believe they’re around the corner waiting for us now.”
Patty tried to take this view of it, but she felt a strange sinking of her heart, for it wasn’t like Kenneth to play a practical joke, and she didn’t think Winthrop would, either.
Laying down her bundle of flowers, Bertha ran around the end of the island, fully expecting to see her brother’s laughing face.
But there was no one to be seen, and no sign of the boat.
Then Bertha became alarmed, and the two girls looked at each other in dismay.
“Look off there,” cried Patty, suddenly, pointing out on the water.
Far away they saw an empty boat dancing along in the sunlight!
Bertha began to cry, and though Patty felt like it, it seemed really too babyish, and she said, “Don’t be a goose, Bertha, we’re not lost on a desert island, and of course somebody will come after us, anyway.”
But Patty was worried more than she would admit. For no one knew where they had gone, and the empty boat was drifting away from Sandy Cove instead of toward it.
At first, the girls were buoyed up by the excitement of the situation, and felt that somebody must find them shortly. But no other boat was in sight, and as Patty said, everybody was getting ready for the fair and no one was likely to go out rowing that day.
One o’clock came, and then half-past one, and though the girls had tried to invent some way out of their difficulty they couldn’t think of a thing to do, but sit still and wait. They had tied their handkerchiefs on the highest bushes of the island, there being no trees, but they well knew that these tiny white signals were not likely to attract anybody’s attention.
They had shouted until they were hoarse, and they had talked over all the possibilities of the case.
“Of course they have missed us by this time,” said Patty, “and of course they are looking for us.”
“I don’t believe they are,” said Bertha disconsolately, “because all the people at the house will think we’re down at the fair grounds, and all the people there will think we’re up at the house.”
“That’s so,” Patty admitted, for she well knew how everybody was concerned with his or her own work for the fair, and how little thought they would be giving to one another at this particular time.
And yet, though Patty would not mention it, and would scarcely admit the thought to herself, she couldn’t help feeling sure that Mr. Hepworth would be wondering where she was.
“The only hope is,” she said to Bertha, “if somebody should want to see me especially, about some of the work, and should try to hunt me up.”
“Well,” said Bertha, “even if they did, it never would occur to them that we are over here.”
“No, they’d never think of that; even if they do miss us, and try to hunt for us. They’ll only telephone to different houses, or something like that. It will never occur to them that we’re over here, and why should it?”
“I’m glad I came with you,” said Bertha, affectionately. “I should hate to think of you over here all alone.”
“If I were here alone,” said Patty, laughing, “you wouldn’t be thinking of me as here alone. You’d just be wondering where I was.”
“So I would,” said Bertha, laughing, too; “but oh, Patty, do let’s do something! It’s fearful to sit here helpless like this.”
“I know it,” said Patty, “but what can we do? We’re just like Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, except that we haven’t any goat.”
“No, and we haven’t any raft, from which to select that array of useful articles that he had at his disposal. Do you remember the little bag, that always held everything that could possibly be required?”
“Oh, that was in ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’” said Patty; “your early education is getting mixed up. I hope being cast on a desert island hasn’t affected your brain. I don’t want to be over here with a lunatic.”
“You will be, if this keeps up much longer,” said poor Bertha, who was of an emotional nature, and was bravely trying hard not to cry.
“We might make a fire,” said Patty, “if we only had some paper and matches.”
“I don’t know what good a fire would do. Nobody would think that meant anything especial. I wish we could put up a bigger signal of some sort.”
“We haven’t any bigger signal, and if we had, we haven’t any way of raising it any higher than these silly low bushes. I never saw an island so poorly furnished for the accommodation of two young lady Crusoes.”
“I never did, either. I’m going to shout again.”
“Do, if it amuses you, but truly they can’t hear you. It’s too far.”
“What do you think will happen, Patty? Do you suppose we’ll have to stay here all night?”
“I don’t know,” said Patty, slowly. “Of course when it’s time for the fair to open, and we’re not there, they’ll miss us; and of course papa will begin a search at once. But the trouble is, Bertha, they’ll never think of searching over here. They’ll look in every other direction, but they’ll never dream that we came out in the boat.”
So the girls sat and waited, growing more and more down-hearted, with that peculiar despondency which accompanies enforced idleness in a desperate situation.
“Look!” cried Patty, suddenly, and startled, Bertha looked where Patty pointed.
Yes, surely, a boat had put out from the shore, and was coming toward them. At least it was headed for the island, though