Us and the Bottleman | Page 7

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 the Castaway. Greg didn't
come, and we supposed he'd gone to feed a tame toad he had that year,
or something. The toad lived under the syringa bush beside the gate,
and Greg insisted that it came out when he whistled for it, but it never
would perform when we went on purpose to watch it, so I don't know
whether it did or not.
Under the hemlock is one of the best places in the garden for councils

and such. The branches quite touch the grass, and when you creep
under them you are in a dark, golden sort of tent, crackley and
sweet-smelling. You can slither pine-needles through your fingers as
you discuss, too, and it helps you to think. We thought for quite a long
time, and then I got out the letter and spread it down in one of the wavy
patches of sunlight, and we read it again.
"Did you really think anybody'd find it?" Jerry asked suddenly, and I
told him I hadn't thought so.
"Neither did I," he said; "let alone such a jolly old soul. Why, he'd be
better than Aunt on a picnic."
"I do wonder why he has to stay there," I said.
"Perhaps he's a fugitive from justice," Jerry suggested; "or perhaps he's
a prisoner and the bearded person comes out with Spanish Inquisition
things to make him confess his horrible crime."
"He sounds like a person who'd done a horrible crime, doesn't he!" I
said in scorn.
"Well, then," said Jerry, who really has the most inspired ideas for plots,
"perhaps he's an innocent old man whose wicked nephews want to
frighten him into changing his will, leaving an enormous fortune to
them. And they're keeping him on the island till he'll do it."
"Well, whatever it is," I said, "I don't think he's awfully happy
somehow, and it's nice of him to write such a gorgeous thing."
So we both decided that whether he was staying on the island of his
own free will, or in bondage, in any case it must be frightfully dull for
him and that our letter ought to be interesting and cheerful.
Just then the hemlock branches thrashed apart and Greg crawled under
with pine-needles in his hair. He sat back on his heels and blinked at us,
because he'd just come out of the sunlight.

"I thought _some_body ought to write to the Bottle Man," he said, "so I
did."
"Well, I never!" Jerry said.
Greg fished up a bent piece of paper from inside his jumper and handed
it to me.
"You can see it," he said, "but not Jerry."
"As if I'd want to!" Jerry said; but he did, fearfully.
Greg is the most unexpected person I ever knew. He's always doing
things like that, when everyone else has given up.
I spread his paper out on top of the other letter, and he sprawled down
beside me, all ready to explain with his finger. What with his dreadfully
bad writing and the sunlight moving off the paper all the time as the
branches swayed, it took me ever so long to read the thing. This is what
it was:
Dear Bottle Man:
To-day we got your leter wich surprised us very much. Although I kept
hopeing and hopeing some body would find the bottle. We are not so
distresed now because we were picked up and now have toast and other
things beter than barnicles. I mesured from here to the equater on the
big map and it is an aufuly far way for the bottle to go. Only I thought
it would. I am sorry you are so imprisined on the iland and please dont
let the cheif with the beard poisen you because we would like to hear
from you agan. If there is tresure on that iland I should think you could
look for it and it would be exiting. But prehaps there is none. We hope
there is some on Wecanicut. But it is hard to know sirtainly. Chris and
Jerry are going to do a leter. But I thought I would first. I hope the
saviges will be frendly allways.
Your respecfull