That week the children made all their plans for passing the winter in the cave.
Already all their stores were safely placed in the inner cave. It was just a question of getting the outer cave comfortable and home-like. Peggy was wonderful at this sort of thing.
“You two boys must make a few shelves to put round the cave,” she said. “You can weave them out of stout twigs, and put them up somehow. We will keep our books and games there, and any odd things we want. You must somehow manage to hang the lantern from the middle of the roof. Then, in the corner over here we will have our beds of heather and bracken. You boys can bring that in, too. If it’s wet we’ll dry it by the fire. The bracken is getting old and dry now - it should make a fine bed.”
Peggy swept up the floor of the cave with a brush made of heather twigs, and then she and Nora threw fine sand on it which they had brought from the beach. It looked very nice. The boys brought in the heather and bracken for the beds. Peggy arranged them comfortably, and then threw a blanket over each bed but one. There were only three blankets - two new ones and one old one - so it looked as if someone must go without.
“What’s the fourth bed going to have for a blanket?” asked Jack.
And then Peggy brought out a great surprise! It was a fur rug, made of rabbit skins that she had carefully cleaned, dried, and sewn together! How the others stared!
“But how lovely, Peggy!” said Jack. “It’s a most beautiful fur rug, and will be as warm as toast. We’ll take it in turns to have it on at night.”
“Yes, that’s what I thought,” said Peggy, pleased to find the others admired her rabbit rug so much. “It was very hard to sew the skins together, but I did it at last. I thought it would be a nice surprise for when the cold weather came!”
Soon the cave began to look very homely indeed. The shelves were weighed down with the books and games. The lantern swung in the middle, and they all knocked their heads against it before they became used to it there! The beds lay neatly in the corners at the back, covered with blankets and the rabbit rug. In another corner stood the household things that Peggy was always using - the kettle, the saucepans, and so on.
And then Jack brought out a surprise - a nice little table he had made by himself!
He had found the old plank the children had brought with them months ago when they first came to the island, and had managed, by means of a saw he had bought during his marketing, to make a good little table for Peggy!
It was a bit wobbly. The four legs were made of tree branches, the straightest Jack could find, but it was difficult to get them just right. He had sawn the plank into pieces, and nailed them together to make a square top to the table, and this was very good. Peggy was delighted!
“Now we can have meals on the table!” she cried. “Oh, that will be nice! And I can do my mending on the table, too - it will be much easier than crouching on the floor!”
“But what about chairs?” asked Nora. “You can’t sit up to the table without chairs!”
“I’m making stools,” said Jack - and so he was! He had found an old tree broken in two by the wind on the other side of the hill. With his saw he was sawing up the trunk, and each piece he sawed out was like a solid stool - just a piece of the tree-trunk, but nice and smooth to sit on!
The days passed very happily as they made the cave into a home. It was fun to sit on their little stools beside Jack’s table and eat their meals properly there. It was fun to watch the fire burning at the entrance of the cave, getting brighter and brighter as night came on. It was lovely to lie on a soft heathery bed at the back of the cave, covered by a warm blanket or rabbit rug, and watch the fire gradually die down to a few glowing embers.
It was very cosy in the cave when the wind howled round the hillside. The light from the lantern shone down, and sometimes Peggy had an extra candle beside her when she sewed. The boys scraped at a bit of wood, carving something, or played a game with Nora. Sometimes they read out loud. The fire burnt brightly and lighted up the cave brilliantly every now and again when extra big flames shot up. It was great fun.
There was always plenty to do. Daisy still had to be milked each morning and evening. She seemed quite happy living in the grassy field, and the boys had built her a sort of shelter where she went at night. There were the hens to feed and look after. They were in a yard near the cave now. They were not laying so many eggs, but the children had plenty of stores and did not worry about eggs.
There was the usual cooking, washing, and clearing-up to do. There was water to be got from the spring. There was firewood to hunt for and pile up. Peggy liked to find pine-cones because they burnt up beautifully and made such a nice smell.
November passed by. Sometimes there was lovely fine days when the children could sit out on the hillside and bask in the sun. Sometimes there were windswept days when the rain pelted down and the clouds raced across the sky, black and ragged. Then the lake was tossed into white-topped waves.
Mike and Jack had got the boat up again and mended it. They had pulled it up the beach as far as they could to be out of reach of the waves.
When December came, the children began to think of Christmas. It would be strange to have Christmas on the island!
“We’ll have to decorate the cave with holly,” said Jack. “There are two holly-trees on the island, and one has red berries on. But there is no mistletoe.”
“Christmas will be funny with only just ourselves,” said Peggy. “I don’t know if I will like it. I like hearing carols sung, and seeing the shops all full of lovely things, and looking forward to Christmas stockings and crackers, and things like that.”
“Before our Daddy and Mummy flew off in their aeroplane and got lost, we used to have Christmas with them,” Nora said to Jack. “It was lovely then. I remember it all!”
“I wish Daddy and Mummy hadn’t gone away and got lost for ever,” said Mike. “I did love them - they were so jolly and happy.”
Jack listened as the three children told him all they had done at Christmas-time when their father and mother had been with them. He had always lived with with his old grandfather, who had never bothered about Christmas. To Jack this all seemed wonderful. How Mike, and Nora, and Peggy must miss all the gay and lovely things they used to do when they had their father and mother with them!
The boy listened and made up his mind about something. He would take the boat and row off to the end of the lake just before Christmas. He still had some money - and with that he would buy crackers, a doll for Nora, a new work-box for Peggy, something for Mike, and some oranges and sweets! They should have a fine Christmas!
He said nothing to the others about it. He knew that they would be terribly afraid that he might be caught again. But he did not mean to go to the same village as before. He meant to walk to the one five miles away, where he would not be known, and buy what he wanted there. He was sure he would be safe, for he meant to be very careful indeed!
December crept on. The days were dull and dreary. Jack planned to go off in the boat one morning. He would tell the others he was just going for a row to get himself warm. He would not tell them about his great surprise for them!
A good day came when the pale wintry sun shone down, and the sky was a watery blue.
Peggy was busy clearing up after breakfast. Mike meant to rebuild Daisy’s shelter, which had been rather blown about by the wind. Nora was going to look for pine-cones.
“What are you going to do, Jack?” asked Peggy.
“Oh,” said Jack, “I think I’ll take the old boat out and go for a row to get myself warm. I haven’t rowed for ages!”
“I’ll come with you, Jack,” said Nora.
But Jack didn't want anyone with him! “No, Nora,” he said, “you go out and look for cones. I shall be gone a good while. Peggy,