What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

A stretch of water, more than half a dozen miles in width, lay before them, and the tide was strong against them. But they pluckily plied the oars and the heavy boat slowly but surely overcame the distance.

They had found no fresh water on the island, and there was very little in the water kegs when they left it for their far-away destination. The hard work of rowing against the tide in a hot atmosphere, made them all thirsty, so that long before they reached their chosen landing place, the last drop of the water was gone, with at least two more hours of rowing in prospect.

“There’s a spring where I propose to land,” said Cal, by way of reassuring his companions. “As I remember it, the water’s a bit brackish, but it is drinkable at any rate.”

“Are you sure you can find the spot in the dark, Cal?” asked Larry, with some anxiety in his voice. “For it’ll be pitch dark before we get there.”

“Oh, yes, I can find it,” his brother answered.

“There’s a deep indentation in the coast there – an inlet, in fact, which runs several miles up through the woods. We’ll run in toward the shore presently and skirt along till we come to the mouth of the creek. I’ll find it easily enough.”

But in spite of his assurances, the boys, now severely suffering with thirst, had doubts, and to make sure, they approached the shore and insisted that Cal should place himself on the bow, where he could see the land as the boat skirted it.

This left three of them to handle four oars. One of them used a pair, in the stern rowlocks, where the width of the boat was not too great for sculls, while the other two plied each an oar amidships.

In their impatience, and tortured by thirst as they were, the three oarsmen put their backs into the rowing and maintained a stroke that sent the boat along at a greater speed than she had ever before made with the oars alone. Still it seemed to them that their progress was insufferably slow.

Presently Cal called to them: “Port – more to port – steady! there! we’re in the creek and have only to round one bend of it. Starboard! Steady! Way enough.”

A moment later the dory slid easily up a little sloping beach and rested there.

“Where’s your spring, Cal?” the whole company cried in chorus, leaping ashore.

“This way – here it is.”

The spring was a small pool, badly choked, but the boys threw themselves down and drank of it greedily. It was not until their thirst was considerably quenched that they began to observe how brackish the water was. When the matter was mentioned at last, Cal dismissed it with one of his profound discourses.

“I’ve drunk better water than that, I’ll admit; but I never drank any water that I enjoyed more.” Then he added:

“You fellows are ungrateful, illogical, unfair, altogether unreasonable. That water is so good that you never found out its badness till after it had done you a better service than any other water in the world ever did. Yet now you ungratefully revile its lately discovered badness, while omitting to remember its previously enjoyed and surpassing goodness. I am so ashamed of you that I’m going to start a fire and get supper going. I for one want some coffee, and it is going to be made of water from that spring, too. Those who object to brackish coffee will simply have to go without.”

VII

AN ENEMY IN CAMP

No sooner was the camp fire started than Cal went to the boat and brought away a piece of tarpaulin, used to protect things against rain. With this and a lighted lantern he started off through the thicket toward the mouth of the little estuary, leaving Dick to make coffee and fry fish, while Larry mixed a paste of corn meal, water and a little salt, which he meant presently to spread into thin sheets and bake in the hot embers, as soon as the fire should burn down sufficiently to make a bed of coals.

As Cal was setting out, Tom, who had no particular duty to do at the moment, asked:

“Where are you off to, Cal?”

“Come along with me and see,” Cal responded without answering the direct question. “I may need your help. Suppose you bring the big bait bucket with you. Empty the shrimps somewhere. They’re all too dead to eat, but we may need ’em for bait.”

Tom accepted the invitation and the two were quickly beyond the bend in the creek and well out of sight of the camp. As they neared the open water, Cal stopped, held the lantern high above his head, and looked about him as if in search of something. Presently he lowered the lantern, cried out, “Ah, there it is,” and strode on rapidly through the dense undergrowth.

Tom had no time to ask questions. He had enough to do to follow his long-legged companion.

After a brief struggle with vines and undergrowths of every kind, the pair came out upon a little sandy beach with a large oyster bank behind it, and Tom had no further need to ask questions, for Cal spread the tarpaulin out flat upon the sands, and both boys began gathering oysters, not from the solid bank where thousands of them had their shells tightly welded together, but from the water’s edge, and even from the water itself wherever it did not exceed a foot or so in depth. Cal explained that these submerged oysters, being nearly all the time under salt water, and growing singly, or nearly so, were far fatter and better than those in the bank or near its foot.

It did not take long to gather quite as many of the fat bivalves as the two could conveniently carry in the tarpaulin and the bait pail, and as Cal was tying up the corners of the cloth Tom began scrutinizing the sandy beach at a point which the ordinary tides did not reach. As he did so he observed a queer depression in the sand and asked Cal to come and see what it meant.

After a single glance at it, Cal exclaimed gleefully:

“Good for you, Tom. This is the luckiest find yet.”

With that he placed the lantern in a favorable position, emptied the bait pail, hurriedly knelt down, and with his hands began digging away the sand.

“But what is it, Cal? What are you digging for?”

“I’ll show you in half a minute,” said the other, continuing to dig diligently. Less than the half minute later he began drawing out of the sand a multitude of snow-white eggs about the size of a walnut. As Tom looked on in open-mouthed wonder, he thought there must be no end to the supply.

“What are they, Cal?” the boy asked.

“Turtle’s eggs, and there’s a bait bucket full of them. You’ve made the luckiest find of all, Tom,” he said again in congratulation.

“Are they good to eat?”

“Good to eat? Is anything you ever tasted good to eat? Why, Tom, they’re about the rarest delicacy known to civilized man. In Charleston they sell at fabulous prices, when there happen to be any there to sell. Now we must hurry back to the fire, for the ash cakes must be about done and the coffee made.”

After a moment or two of silence, Tom asked:

“Why did you think there was an oyster bank down there, Cal?”

“I noticed it as we came into the creek and I took pains to remember its location. But here we are. See, fellows, what Tom has found! Now bring on your coffee and your ash cakes and your fish, and we’ll feast like a company of Homer’s warriors. It won’t take long to boil the eggs in salt water – ten minutes is the allotted time, I believe, in the case of turtle’s eggs, and during that time we can be eating the other things and filling up with fire-opened oysters.”

With that he threw three or four oysters upon the coals, removing them as soon as they opened and swallowing them from the shell. The others followed his example.

Of course it really was an excellent supper the boys were eating out there under the stars, but sharp-set hunger made it seem even better than it was, and the contrast between it and the supper of bologna sausages and hardtack of the night before, added greatly to the zest of their feasting. They rejoiced, too, in being free, out there in the woodlands, with no dismal rain to depress their spirits and no restraint of any kind upon their liberty.

But they were all very tired after their sleepless night before and their hard-working day, and without argument or discussion, one by one of them stretched himself before the fire not long after supper, and fell asleep. Cal remained awake longer than the rest, though he, too, was lying flat upon his back, ready to welcome sleep as soon as it should come to his eyelids.

Before it came he was moved by jealousy or mischief to disturb the others with an admonition.

“You fellows are recklessly trifling with your health, every one of you, and it is my duty to warn you of the consequences. In allowing so brief a time to elapse between the consumption of food in generous quantities, and your retirement to your couches, you are inviting indigestion, courting bad dreams and recklessly risking the permanent organic and functional impairment of your constitutions – to say nothing of your by-laws, orders of business, rules of procedure and other things that should be equally precious to you.”

“Will you shut up, Cal?” muttered Dick, half awake. Tom remained unconscious and Larry responded only with a snore.

Presently even Cal’s wakefulness yielded, his thoughts wandered, and he fell into a sound slumber.

The woodlands were as still as woodlands at night ever are; the stars shone brilliantly in a perfectly clear sky; the brush wood fire died down to a mass of glowing coals and gray ashes, and still the weary ship’s company slept on without waking or even moving.

Then something happened, and Larry, who was always alert, even in his sleep, suddenly sat up, at the same time silently grasping the gun that lay by his side. He was sure he had heard a noise in his sleep, but now that he was wide awake, everything seemed profoundly still. Nevertheless he waited and watched. Then suddenly he brought his gun to his shoulder, and in sharp, ringing tones cried out:

“Drop that!”

Instantly all the boys were standing with their guns in hand, not knowing what had happened, but ready to meet whatever might come. A second or two later Larry, still sitting and aiming his gun over his bent knees, called out again:

“Drop that, I say! Drop it instantly or I’ll shoot. I’ve got a bead on you. Now throw up your hands! Quick, and no fooling.”