 Chapter 10 of The Cave Twins This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Cave Twins by Lucy Pitch Perkins. Chapter 10. The Voyage After Limba Lake had had a ride, the twins took a turn while their mother washed them from the shore. It's almost more fun than our logs. When he set fire top when he took his first ride, they played with the boat and tried all sorts of experiments with it and were so happy and excited that it grew dark and the moon came out before one of them so much as thought of anything to eat. For days and days after that, Hawkeye worked on his boat. He found out all his tricks. He even found out that he could go in deep water if he paddled. He found it out first by using his hands for ores. Then he chopped out a clumsy flat paddle. All this took him some time but by mid-summer he had become quite expert with his clumsy craft. He could keep a right side up and make it go where he wanted it to at any rate. Sometimes he ventured out into the deep water around the gulf's rocks. One day he even rowed all around them. He could look down in the water and see shoals of fish swimming about but he could not catch them. When he went back to the cave that day, he said to Limba Lake, I have an idea. Why can't you weave a kind of net out of the leather tongs? I can fasten it in the water out by the rocks and catch fish in it. The water gods may like us very much as you say but they haven't been throwing any fish up on land for us since the earthquake so I'm going to try to catch some. To be sure, said Limba Lake, we snare rabbits, why shouldn't we snare fish? They had made hooks out of bone and had caught river fish sometimes when they lived back in the forest but they had not brought any hooks with them on their journey. They had always been more used to hunting game than to fishing anyway. Now with a sea full of fish right at hand waiting to be caught they began to think more about it. If we could catch fish we should have more food right at hand than we could possibly eat without ever hunting at all. If we didn't want to, said Hawkeye. After that Limba Lake spent days and days tying leather tongs together in a coarse net while Hawkeye made bone fish hooks for himself and Limba Lake and the twins and fastened them to long fine strings of leather. By August Hawkeye had taught the twins how to fish the strings for trout and he himself had learned how to fasten his net between two of the gull rocks and catch the fish that swam in deep water. There was nothing Hawkeye liked so much as going out in his boat. He went up and down the coast for miles and it was not long before he knew every little creek and inlet and bay on the eastern end of the island. At last one day in August he said to Limba Lake I'm going to load the boat with food to last a few days and see if I can get over to the mainland. It is only a short distance across to the nearest point. I've been farther than that in my boat already. But I'm afraid you'll be drowned cried Limba Lake and then what shall we do? You can take care of yourselves said Hawkeye. The children can already fish in the streams and there are the rabbits and the clams. You will not want for anything while I'm away. But we shall be lonesome cried Limba Lake and suppose you should never come back. But I shall come back said Hawkeye. You'll see. Limba Lake knew it was useless to say anymore and the very next day she and the twins helped him load his boat with deer meat and wild plums and acorns and then Hawkeye put in his spear and his stone axe and hooks in line and got in himself. The three of them stood on the beach and watched him push off from their island and start across the channel toward the mainland. They watched him until the boat was a mere black speck in the distance. Then they trudged slowly back to their lonely cave. There followed many anxious days and nights. Limba Lake went back to hunting again. She took the twins with her and began to teach them to hunt like men. If anything should happen to me you could take care of yourself if you knew how to hunt and trap as well as fish. She said beside getting food for their daily needs they began to store it for the winter. They gathered nuts by the bushel and piled them in heaps in the corner of the cave. Whenever they were not sleeping or doing anything else they were always gathering wood for the fire. In this way four long weeks went by. At last came a day when the wind was sharp and it seemed as if summer were nearly over. Limba Lake and the twins had gone down to the cave behind their block to get clams for supper. They had one of Limba Lake's baskets with them and had nearly folded with clams. They were out some distance from the beach line for the tide was low. Suddenly the water began to rise. The returning tide came in such a flood that they had to run as fast as they could carry them to get safely ashore. They had reached the bank and were just beginning to climb slowly up the bluff when they heard a shout behind them. Limba Lake was so startled that her knees gave way under her and she sat right down in the basket of clams. They looked across the cove and there coming in with the tide was their own boat with brave Hawkeye in it waving his hands to them. They could see three other heads beside Hawkeyes but neither Limba Lake nor the twins could tell whose heads they were. They saw a basket of clams on the side of the bluff and tore down to the water's edge. As they came near the shore they saw Granny looking scared to death, sitting in the bottom of the boat and holding on to each side with all her might. Behind her were Blackbird and Squaretoes. The moment the boat came near shore the two boys tumbled out at the back end of it nearly upsetting Granny and splashed through the shallow water to the shore. They buttered firetop in the stomach of the sand to show how glad they were to see them. When at last the prowl of the boat grated on the sand and Granny and Hawkeye got out the four children ran round them in circles like puppies screaming with joy. Even Limba Lake danced. Granny clapped her hands over her ears. When the noise had calmed down a little she seized firetop and firepla and shook them soundly. You little red-headed wretches she cried. Here you are alive and well and fast as rabbits and all this time I worried the heart nearly out of me wondering what had become of you. It had been such a long time since the spring morning when the twins had stolen away out to the cave that at first they did not know what Granny was talking about. They had never thought how she Mr. Felve and she found out they were gone. Hawkeye laughed. I brought Granny back with me on purpose to give you what you deserve, he said. She told me she was going to take a stick to you as soon as she saw you were playing such a trick on her. Just you wait until I get a stick! cried Granny. She looked fierce as she said it but the twins knew very well she was just as glad to see them as they were to see her. He seized her hands one on each side and began to pull her up the hill Blackbird and Squirtle's push from behind. Go along with you! Granny holding back with all her might! I can't run so fast! I'm all out of breath! We'll run you then! screamed the children and they pulled and pushed until they got her panting and breathless to the top of the hill. Hawkeye had drawn his precious boat high up on the beach out of the reach of the tide and he and Lumber Lake followed more slowly with the basket of clams. At the top of the hill the twins with Blackbird and Squirtle's ducked led to the cave just like Mice diving down a mouse hole. Granny was left standing alone on the hilltop. She couldn't see what had become of the children. She could hear their voices and down the bluff she could see a thin column of smoke rising. She knew the cave must be there but she didn't know how to get to it. When Hawkeye and Lumber Lake came up they took her with them through the little green alley that led to the cave. When they reached it the children had flung a great pile of sticks on the fire and the flames were leaping high in the air to welcome them. See! cried Lumber Lake even the fire dances with joy at your coming. She took Granny into the cave and showed her the piles of warm skins and the heaps of nuts and then she showed Granny how to cook clams. The twins had taken Blackbird and Squirtle the very first thing to see the rabbits. They then came back for Granny and made her go and see them too and when everyone had seen everything there was to see it was dark and Lumber Lake had a real feast ready for them to eat. She had killed a deer the day before and so they had broiled venison seasoned with sea salt. They had clams steamed with seaweed and they had nuts and vile plums. When they had all stopped themselves full Lumber Lake said to Hawkeye Now tell us all about your journey when you went away we watched you from the hilltop until you were a mere speck on the water. We knew nothing more than you until we heard your shock today there were many very days between they were not very to me said Hawkeye. I reached the other shore in safety and then turned my boat toward the sunset. I kept in the shallow water near the shore and followed the coast around the end of the point of land where we crossed when we came here I knew our river must empty into the big water not far away and so I paddled up the first stream I found I slept in the boat at night the first night I was awakened by the howling wolves but I had only to push my boat out into the stream they would not follow me there. For two days I paddled upstream the second day I bagged on to see things that I knew and on the morning of the third I reached the river path just as Grannie was coming down for water. Yes! Yes! cried Grannie. I thought I was dreaming the boat frightened me. I thought Hawkeye was dead and that I saw his spirit and I started to run to the cave. Did you think we were all dead? Has the number like? Yes! said Grannie. I thought some cave bearer or tiger had got you. You were always so bold and venturesome and as for these worthless ones she added padding part up on the head I didn't know whether they had gone with you or had stolen a vein to the woods and been eaten by an old sabotooth. Well, you see cried Limberlake laughing. It pays to be bold and brave. When she said bold and brave she looked right at Hawkeye. She thought he was the boldest and bravest man in the world. There aren't any sabertooth tigers on this island and there's plenty to eat every day. Didn't the others want to come do when you told them about it? She said to Hawkeye. They all wanted to come, Hawkeye answered that they would not hold so many so I stayed to show them how to make boats for themselves. Longarm and Bigger and Grey Wolf are all at work on them now and they will come in the spring or summer if they get them done. How will they know the way? asked Firetop. I told them just how to follow the river and the coast and where to cross said Hawkeye. They can't help finding the island and if they find the island they can't help finding us. I told them we were on the side where the sun rises out of the water. It had grown very dark as they talked. There was only firelight in the cave but just then Slimberleg saw a bright streak on the edge of the water toward the east. Look Granny, look! She cried pointing to it. We have discovered the secret of the sun and the moon. They both sleep in the water. The children and Granny and Hawkeye and Slimberleg all watched together until the white streak grew brighter and stretched in a silver path across the water to the beach below. They saw the pale dusk of the moon slowly rising to the deep blue of the night sky and the stars winged down at them. I suppose no one else in the whole world knows the secret, said Slimberleg solemnly. You see, this is the end of the world. You can't go any further. Except in my boat, said Hawkeye. The spirits of the water have been good to us, said Slimberleg. We will not tempt them too far. If there are more secrets we will not try to find them out. Someday, said Hawkeye, Someday I mean to go, but Slimberleg would not let him finish. No, she said putting her hand over his mouth. No, you're not going anywhere at all. Ever again. You're going to stay right here with us and be happy. Lennwa. Long, long ago when the earth was young and time was not yet old, you're all the stars in the sky where hung or the silver moon grown cold. When the clouds that sailed between the worlds were fanned with fluttering wings and over all the land there curled the fronds of growing things. When fishes swarmed in all the seas and on the wooded shore they roamed among the forest trees a million beasts or more. Then in the early morning of time, called from the formless clod came man to start the very climb from wild beasts up to God. Oh, bravely did he dare and do and bravely fight and die or you today could not be you and I could not be I. End of chapter 9 End of the Cave to Inspire Lucy Fitch Perkins