He jerked awake and found that he had fallen asleep standing up. Why had he come in here? Something important. Oh, yes! Tanning leather- Leather? Barbara was barefooted, Barbara must have moccasins. Better try the Britannica. Or that Colonial Days volume.
No, thank God, you didn’t have to use salt! Find some oak trees. Better yet, have Barbara find them; it would make her feel useful. Find something that only Joe could do, too; make the poor little bastard feel appreciated. Loved. Remember to- He stumbled back into the main room, looked at the upper bunk and knew that he couldn’t make it. He lay down on the blanket they had played cards on and fell instantly asleep.
Chapter 5
Grace did not get up for breakfast. The girls quietly fed them, then stayed in to clean up. Duke went hunting, carrying a forty-five and a hunting bow. It was his choice; arrows could be recovered or replaced, bullets were gone forever. Duke tried a few flights and decided that his shoulder was okay.
He checked watches and set out, with an understanding that a smoky fire would be built to home on if he was not back by three.
Hugh told the girls to take outdoors any book not bone-dry, then broke out pick and shovel and started leveling their house. Joe tried to join him; Hugh vetoed it.
“Look, Joe, there are a thousand things to do. Do them. But no heavy work.”
“Such as what, Hugh?”
“Uh, correct the inventories. Give Duke a hand by starring everything that can’t be replaced. In the course of that you’ll think of things; write them down. Look up how to make soap and candles. Check both dosimeters. Strap on a gun and keep your eyes open-and see that those girls don’t go outside without guns. Hell, figure out a way to get plumbing and running water, with no pipe and no lead and no water closets and no Portland cement.”
“How in the world could you do that?”
“Somebody did it the first time. And tell this bushy-tailed sidewalk superintendent that I need no help.”
“Okay. Come here, Doc! Come, come, come!”
“And Joe. Speaking of bathrooms, you might offer to stand guard for the girls while they bathe. You don’t have to look.”
“All right, I’ll offer. But I’ll tell them you suggested it. I don’t want them to think-”
“Look, Joe. They are a couple of clean, wholesome, evil-minded American girls. Say what you please, they will still believe you are sneaking a peek. It’s part of their credo that they are so fatally irresistible that a man just has to. So don’t be too convincing; you’ll hurt their feelings.”
“I get it. I guess.” Joe went away, Hugh started digging, while reflecting that he had never missed a chance, given opportunity without loss of face-but that incorrigible Sunday school lad probably would not sneak a peek at Lady Godiva. A good lad-no imagination but utterly dependable. Shame to have been so rough on him last night- Very quickly Hugh knew what his worst oversight had been: no wheelbarrow.
He had dug only a little before reaching this new appreciation. Digging by muscle power was bad but carrying it away in buckets was an affront to good sense. So he carried and thought about how to build a wheel- with no metal, no heating tools, no machine shop, no foundry, no- Now wait! He had steel bottles. There was strap iron in the bunks and soft iron in the periscope housing. Charcoal he could make and a bellows was simply an animal skin and some branches. Whittle a nozzle. Any damfool who couldn’t own a wheel with all that at his disposal deserved to lift and carry.
He had ten thousand trees, didn’t he? Finland didn’t have a damn thing but trees. Yet Finland was the finest little country in the world.
“Doc, get out from under my feet!” If Finland was still there- Wherever the world was- Maybe the girls would like a Finnish bath. Down where they could plunge in afterwards and squeal and feel good. Poor kids, they would never see a beauty parlor; maybe a sauna would be a “moral equivalent.” Grace might like it. Sweat off that blubber, get her slender again. What a beauty she had been!