"Oh, I'll tell you what let's do. Let's play we're shipwrecked. You get some luncheon, Edna, lots of it, and we'll have a very exciting time."
"You always want to _play_ something," said Edna, who couldn't quite understand how Cricket could always change the aspect of everything--even of things she had to do, that she didn't like--by the magic formula, "Let's play."
"It's so much more fun to play things, than just plain _do_ them," Cricket contented herself with saying now.
"I'll run the boat down, Eunice, if you'll go with Edna, and get all the things, cushions and books and luncheon, and _don't_ forget your precious work, Edna," and Cricket skipped off to the dock, while the girls went to the house.
"Shall we be the 'Swiss Family Robinson,' or 'The Young Crusoes,' or shall we be a new set altogether?" asked Cricket, when they were all afloat.
"A new set, I say," answered Eunice. "We've played 'Swiss Family' so much I'm tired of it. Let us be two boys, and Edna our sister."
"No, our grandmother," said Cricket, soberly. "It's more appropriate. She likes to knit so much."
"I won't be a grandmother," said Edna, decidedly. "If I can't be a sister, I won't play."
"I was only in fun. I'd just as soon that you'd be a sister," said Cricket, pacifically. "I was only joking. We've escaped from a burning vessel, you know, and every one else is either burned or drowned. We've provisions for a month, if we don't eat too much, and we're in the South Sea Islands. South Sea Islands sound nice and shipwrecky, don't you think so?"
"Splendid. No sail is in sight," went on Eunice, striking in, "and a wild waste of waters stretch on every side," quoting freely, as she swept her hand around the expanse of the wide, calm bay, dotted with white sails and rowboats.
"A savage, rock-bound coast appears before us," she added, as Cricket's muscular little arms sent the light boat along towards the small island ahead of them. It consisted of little more than a mass of rocks, with a bit of shelving beach on the west side, and, here and there, a scrubby pine.
But it was a picturesque spot, and the children were very fond of coming over there, since no one else ever seemed to think of it, and they had it to themselves.