The next morning the children slept very late indeed. The sun was high in the sky before anyone stirred, and even then they might not have awakened if Daisy the cow hadn’t decided that it was more than time for her to be milked. She stood in the hen-yard and bellowed for all she was worth.
Jack sat up, his heart thumping loudly. Whatever was that awful noise? Of course - it was Daisy! She wanted to be milked!
“Hi, you others!” he shouted. “Wake up! It must be about nine o’clock! Look at the sun, it’s very high! And Daisy wants to be milked!”
Mike grunted and opened his eyes. He felt very sleepy after his late night. The girls sat up and rubbed their eyes. Daisy bellowed again, and the hens clucked in fright.
“Our farmyard wants its breakfast,” grinned Jack. “Come on, lazy-bones, come and help. We’ll have to see to them before we get our own meal.”
They scrambled up. They were so very sleepy that they simply had to run down to the lake and dip their heads into the water before they could do anything!
Then they all went to gloat over their cow. How pretty she was in her brown and white coat! How soft and brown her eyes were! A cow of their own! How lovely!
“And what a voice she has!” said Jack, as the cow mooed again. “I must milk her.”
“But I say - we haven’t a pail!” said Mike.
The children stared at one another in dismay. It was true - they had no pail.
“Well, we must use the saucepans,” said Jack firmly. “And we can all do with a cup or two of milk to start the day. I’ll use the biggest saucepan, and when it’s full I’ll have to pour it into the bowls and jugs we’ve got - and the kettle, too. We must certainly get a pail. What a pity I didn’t think of it last night!”
There was more than enough milk to fill every bowl and jug and saucepan. The children drank cupful after cupful. It was lovely to have milk after drinking nothing but tea and cocoa made with water. They could not have enough of it!
“I say! Daisy has trodden on a hen’s egg and smashed it,” said Nora, looking into the hen-yard. “What a pity!”
“Never mind,” said Jack. “We won’t keep her here after to-day. She shall go and live on that nice grassy piece, the other side of the island. Nora, feed the hens. They are clucking as if they’d never stop. They are hungry.”
Nora fed them. Then they all sat down to their breakfast of boiled eggs and creamy milk. Daisy the cow looked at them as they ate, and mooed softly. She was hungry, too.
Jack and Mike took her to the other side of the island after they had finished their meal. She was delighted to see the juicy green grass there and set to work at once, pulling mouthfuls of it as she wandered over the field.
“She can’t get off the island, so we don’t need to fence her in,” said Jack. “We must milk her twice a day, Mike. We must certainly get a pail from somewhere.”
“There’s an old milking-pail in the barn at Aunt Harriet’s farm,” said Peggy. “I’ve seen it hanging there often.”
“Has it got a hole in it?” asked Jack. “If it has it’s no use to us. We’ll have to stand our milk in it all day and we don’t want it to leak away.”
“No, it doesn’t leak,” said Peggy. “I filled it with water one day to take to the hens. It’s only just a very old one not used now.”
“I’ll go and get it to-night,” said Mike.
“No, I’ll go,” said Jack. “You might be caught.”
"Well, so might you,” said Mike. “We’ll go together.”
“Can’t we come, too?” asked the girls.
"Certainly not,” said Jack, at once. “There’s no use the whole lot of us running into danger.”
“How shall we keep the milk cool?” wondered Peggy. “It’s jolly hot on this island.”
“I’ll make a little round place to fit the milk-pail into, just by one of the springs,” said Jack, at once. “Then, with the cool spring water running round the milk-pail all day, the milk will keep beautifully fresh and cool.”
“How clever you are, Jack!” said Nora.
“No, I’m not,” said Jack. “It’s just common sense, that’s all. Anyone can think of things like that.”
“I do feel tired and stiff to-day,” said Mike, stretching out his arms. “It was pretty hard work pulling old Daisy along last night!”
“We’d better have a restful day,” said Jack, who was also feeling tired. “For once in a way we won’t do anything. We’ll just lie about and read and talk.”
The children had a lovely day. They bathed three times, for it was very hot. Nora washed the two big roller towels in the lake, and made them clean. They soon dried in the hot sun, and then the two boys took one for themselves and the two girls had the other. How nice it was to dry themselves on towels instead of on rough sacks!
“Fish for dinner,” said Jack, going down to look at his lines.
“And custard!” said Nora, who had been doing some cooking with eggs and milk.
“Well, I feel just as hungry as if I’d been hard at work building all morning!” said Mike.
The afternoon passed by lazily. The boys slept. Nora read a book. Peggy got out her work-basket and began on the long, long task of mending up the old clothes Jack had brought back the night before. She thought they would be very useful indeed when the cold weather came. She wished she and Nora and Mike could get some of their clothes, too.
The hens clucked in the hen-yard. Daisy the cow mooed once or twice, feeling rather strange and lonely - but she seemed to be settling down very well.
“I hope she won’t moo too much,” thought Peggy, her needle flying in and out busily. “She might give us away with her mooing if anyone came up the lake in a boat. But thank goodness no one ever does'”
Everyone felt very fresh after their rest. They decided to have a walk round the island. Nora fed the hens and then they set off.
It was a fine little island. Trees grew thickly down to the water-side all round. The steep hill that rose in the middle was a warm, sunny place, covered with rabbit runs and burrows. The grassy piece beyond the hill was full of little wild flowers, and birds sang in the bushes around. The children peeped into the dark caves that ran into the hillside, but did not feel like exploring them just then, for they had no candles with them.
“I’ll take you to the place where wild raspberries grow,” said Jack. He led them round the hill to the west side, and there, in the blazing sun, the children saw scores of raspberry canes, tangled and thick.
“Jack! There are some getting ripe already!” cried Nora, in delight. She pointed to where spots of bright red dotted the canes. The children squeezed their way through and began to pick the raspberries. How sweet and juicy they were!
“We’ll have some of these with cream each day,” said Peggy. “I can skim the cream off the cow’s milk, and we will have raspberries and cream for suppers. Oooh!”
“Oooh!” said everyone, eating as fast as they could.
“Are there any wild strawberries on the island, too?” asked Nora.
“Yes,” said Jack, “but they don’t come till later. “We’ll look for those in August and September.”
“I do think this is a lovely island,” said Peggy happily. “We’ve a splendid house of our own - hens - a cow, wild fruit growing - fresh water each day!”
“It’s all right now it’s warm weather,” said Jack. “It won’t be quite so glorious when the cold winds begin to blow! But winter is a long way off yet.”
They climbed up the west side of the hill, which was very rocky. They came to a big rock right on the very top, and sat there. The rock was so warm that it almost burnt them. From far down below the blue spire of smoke rose up from their fire.
“Let’s play a game,” said Jack. “Let’s play...”
But what game Jack wanted the others never knew - for Jack suddenly stopped, sat up very straight, and stared fixedly down the blue, sparkling lake. The others sat up and stared, too. And what they saw gave them a dreadful shock!
“Some people in a boat!” said Jack. “Do you see them? Away down there!”
“Yes,” said Mike, going pale. “Are they after us, do you think?”
“No,” said Jack, after a while. “I think I can hear a gramophone - and if it was anyone after us they surely wouldn’t bring that! They are probably just trippers, from the village at the other end of the lake.”
“Do you think they’ll come to the island?” asked Peggy.
“I don’t know,” said Jack. “They may - but anyway it would only be for a little while. If we can hide all traces of our being here they won’t know a thing about us.”
“Come on, then,” said Mike, slipping off the rock. “We’d better hurry. It won’t be long before they’re here.”
The children hurried down to the beach. Jack and Mike stamped out the fire, and carried the charred wood to the bushes. They scattered clean sand over the place where they had the fire. They picked up all their belongings and hid them.
“I don’t think anyone would find Willow House,” said Jack. “The trees really are too thick all round it for any tripper to bother to squeeze through.”
“What about the hens?” said Peggy.
“We’ll catch them and pop them into a sack just for now,” said Jack. “The hen-yard will have to stay. I don’t think anyone will find it - it’s well hidden. But we certainly couldn’t have the hens clucking away there!”
“And Daisy the cow?” said Peggy, looking worried.
“We’ll watch and see which side of the island the trippers come,” said Jack. “As far as I know, there is only one landing-place, and that is our beach. As Daisy is right on the other side of the island, they are not likely to see her unless they go exploring. And let’s hope they don’t do that!”
“Where shall we hide?” said Nora.
“We’ll keep a look-out from the hill, hidden in the bracken,” said Jack. “If the trippers begin to wander about, we must just creep about in the bracken and trust to luck they won’t see us. There’s one thing - they won’t be looking for us, if they are trippers. They won’t guess there is anyone else here at all!”
“Will they find the things in the cave-larder?” asked Nora, helping to catch the squawking hens.
“Peggy, get some heather and bracken and stuff up the opening to the cave-larder,” said Jack. Peggy ran off at once. Jack put the hens gently into the sack one by one and ran up the hill with them. He went to the other side of the hill and came to one of the caves he knew. He called to Nora, who was just behind him.
“Nora! Sit at the little opening here and see that the hens don’t get out! I’m going to empty them out of the sack into the cave!”
With much squawking and scuffing and clucking the scared hens hopped out of the sack and ran into the little cave. Nora sat down at the entrance, hidden by the bracken that grew there. No hen could get out whilst she was there.
“The boat is going round the island,” whispered Jack as he parted the bracken at the top of the hill and looked down to the lake below. “They can’t find a place to land. They’re going round to our little beach! Well - Daisy the cow is safe, if they don’t go exploring! Hope she doesn’t moo!”