Explore "The Island of Desire" by Robert Dean Frisbie on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Tea this morning at half-past four, ship's biscuits, and three dozen wide-awake eggs between the five of us; then we went to work in earnest on the tree-house. Jakey worked as steadily as a boy can, salvaging galvanized nails from the wreckage of the trading post; Johnny plaited roofing sheets from green coconut fronds; Elaine and Nga bossed the job when they were not minding their babies--that is, their long, slim, undeveloped coconuts wrapped in rags and tags.
Now that Hurry Home has left there has been no excuse for delaying the work. The sun had scarcely risen before I had cut a score or two of green nonu saplings, strong, tough, and flexible. These made window sills, rafters, and ridgepole. By noon the framework was complete; then Johnny and I cooked a pot of rice, opened a tin of bully beef, and we made a meal of it, polishing off with a couple of green coconuts each. This afternoon I helped Johnny with the roofing sheets while Jakey went to the reef with his spear.