“Oh, Nyoda, may we?” cried the girls, delighted at the prospect.
“Why, yes,” answered Nyoda. “I think that will be a delightful way to spend the afternoon. I have always wanted to explore Randall’s Island; it looks so interesting from the steamer. We accept your invitation with pleasure, Captain McMichael.”
“Glad to have you,” responded the tug master heartily, as he set the powerful engine throbbing.
“Don’t fall overboard,” he yelled above the steam exhaust a minute later as Katherine hung over the stern and trailed her hands in the water. Nyoda clung to her dress and the rest sang in chorus:
“Sailing, sailing, Over to Randall’s I, And dear Sister K would fall into the bay If Nyoda weren’t nigh!”
The run to Randall’s Island took just fifteen minutes and Katherine managed to get there without accident, other than upsetting an oil can into her lap. The wild strawberries were as abundant and as delicious as Captain McMichael had promised, and it was with sighs of regret that they finally admitted they could hold no more. Then they scrambled around in the abandoned limestone quarries until Nyoda, coming face to face with Katherine, announced it was time to play something else. Katherine had torn her dress on sharp points until it was nearly a wreck; she had stepped into a puddle up to her shoetops, her hat brim hung down in a discouraged loop and her hands and face were scratched with briers.
“If one more thing happens to you, Katherine Adams,” said Nyoda sternly, “you’ll have to spend the rest of your life on this island, for you won’t be respectable enough to take home.”
“Then I’ll be Miss Robinson Crusoe,” said Katherine, “and eat up all the strawberries on the island, and not have to write the class paper. I believe I’ll consider your offer. Our literary member, Migwan, can write a book about it—_Living on Limestone_, or _The Queen of the Quarry_. Wouldn’t that be a fine sounding title!”
“What is that long stone building way over there?” asked Hinpoha, as they promenaded decorously over the island beyond the quarries, two of them arm-in-arm with Katherine, to keep her in the straight and narrow path.
“Looks like a fort,” said Sahwah, with immediate interest. “Is it a fort, Nyoda?”