It began with Jerry’s finishing off all theolives that were left, “like a pig woulddo,” as Greg said. His finishing the olivesleft us the bottle, of course, and there isonly one natural thing to do with an emptyolive-bottle when you’re on a water picnic.That is, to write a message as though youwere a shipwrecked mariner, and seal it upin the bottle and chuck it as far out as everyou can.
We’d all gone over to Wecanicut on theferry,—Mother and Aunt Ailsa and Jerryand Greg and I,—and we were picnickingbeside the big fallen-over slab thatlooks just like the entrance to a piratecave. We had a fire, of course, and a lotof things to eat, including the olives, whichwere a fancy addition bought by AuntAilsa as we were running for the ferry.
When we asked her if she had any paper,she tore a perfectly nice leaf out of hersketch-book, and gave me her 3 B drawing-pencilto write with. It was very soft, andthe paper was the roughish kind thatcomes in sketch-books, so that the writingwas smeary and looked quite as if shipwreckedmariners had written it withcharred twigs out of the fire. We’ddone lots of messages when we were onother water picnics, but we’d never heardfrom any of them, although one reasonfor that was that we never put our addresson them. We decided we would this time,because Jerry had just been reading abouta fisherman in Newfoundland picking upa message that somebody had chuckedfrom a yacht in the Gulf of Mexico monthsand months before.
I wrote the date at the top, near the raggedyplace where the leaf was torn outof Aunt Ailsa’s sketch-book, and then Iput, “We be Three Poore Mariners,” likethe song in “Pan-Pipes.”
Jerry and Greg kept telling me things towrite, till the page was quite full and wentsomething like this:
“We be Three Poore Mariners, cast away upon the lone anddesolate shore of Wecanicut, an island in the Atlantic Ocean, lat.and long. unknown. Our position is very perilous, as we haveexhausted all our supplies, including large stores of olives, andare now forced to exist on beach-peas, barnacles,and—and—”
“Eiligugs’ eggs,” said Greg, dreamily.
Jerry pounced on him and said they onlygrew on the Irish coast, but I said:“All right! Beach-peas, barnacles, andeiligugs’ eggs, of which only a small supplyis to be had on this bleak and dismalcoast. Our ship, the good ferry-boatWecanicut, left us marooned, and there isno hope of our being picked up for the nexttwo hours. Any person finding this message,please come to our assistance bydropping us a line,” (I must honestly saythat this was Jerry’s, and much better thanusual) “as the surf is