ugh. Think
of being alone out there with savages, and that bearded chief coming
with poison bottles and all."

"Shut up, Greg," said Jerry; "you don't understand. There's more in
this than meets the eye, Chris. I didn't get on to this crab salad
business when you read it."

Neither had I; in fact, I hadn't got on to it until Jerry said it in
proper English.

"He's a good sort, poor old dear," I said. "Why do you suppose they
keep him out there?"

"He's there of his own free will, right enough," Jerry said.

But I didn't think so.

We were still confabbing over the letter, and explaining bits to
Greg, who was hopelessly mystified, when Mother came out to
transplant some columbine that had wandered into the lawn. We did a
quick secret consultation and then decided to let her in on the
Castaway. So we bolted after her and took away the trowel and showed
her the letter. She read it through twice, and then said:

"Oh, Ailsa must hear this, and Father!" But what we wanted to know
was whether or not we might write to the Castaway, because we didn't
quite want to without letting her know about it. She laughed some
more and said, "yes, we might," and that he was "a dear," which was
what we thought.

We decided that we would write immediately, so Jerry dashed off to
Father's study and got two sheets of nice thin paper with "17 Luke
Street" at the top in humpy green letters, and I borrowed Aunt
Ailsa's fountain-pen, which turned out to be empty. I might have
known it, for they always are empty when you need them most. Jerry,
like a goose, filled it over the clean paper we were going to use
for the letter, and it slobbered blue ink all over the top sheet.
But the under one wasn't hurt, and we thought one page full would be
all we could write, anyway. We took the things out to the porch
table, and Greg held down the corner of the paper so it wouldn't
flap while I wrote. Jerry sat on the 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