The only historic memento of Minerva Skybrow's lawn party to be found upon the island now was the refreshment board, quite empty. It is true that an explorer, delving among the rocks and crevices, might have found some fugitive stuffed olive or perchance a lost nut or raisin here and there. But the feast of Dessert Isle was now a part of history. Minerva's little tent had been delivered to her (for Pee-wee could not eat that) and only the makeshift table which had supported the absconding repast remained.
This was now made into two long benches, supported by sticks driven into the ground. It was intended that the overflow from this grandstand should sit on the grass. These preparations completed, our hero, accompanied by Brownie and Billy, went ashore on Friday afternoon and edified the people on Main Street with an imposing display.
[Illustration: Pee-wee becomes a sandwich man.]
They paraded up and down the sidewalk wearing large placards, the most striking of which was the one that almost completely obscured the diminutive form of our hero. It was appropriately in the form of a sandwich of which he himself was the center, his head and legs protruding from it like the head and legs of a turtle. Its glaring announcement seemed to suggest the literary style of Townsend Ripley.
ENJOY A SEA VOYAGE IN THE PALATIAL ROWBOAT ALLIGATOR
On Friday night it rained and the Alligators were driven into their tent. It rained all night and was still raining when the momentous Saturday dawned. They were compelled to eat breakfast in their tent, the top of which was plastered with apple blossoms so that the khaki-colored fabric looked not unlike a brown wall paper with a floral design.
The tide being out, the rain pattered down on the surrounding mud and shallow places, and the members of the patrol sat in the open doorway of their cozy little shelter wistfully gazing at the downpour, and watching the little holes that the raindrops made in the mud.
Each drop, like a bullet, drove a little hole in the oozy bottom, which slowly closed up again. Schools of darting killies hurried this way and that frantically seeking an avenue into the deeper places where puddles would afford them a haven during the lowest ebb. Rain, rain, rain.