cast away here. There wasn't so much necessary work to do, besides getting food and making shelter when the storms came, but I made up things to do. It was better than going crazy."
"My brave boy," and Sally bent over and kissed him. Then, with that pardonable vanity in women, the most beautiful of all vanities in the world, she asked:
"And did thinking of me help, Ben?"
She received the answer she wanted. It made her own cup of happiness overflow.
"Well—I just guess—if it hadn't been for you!"
A little later she asked:
"Ben, whatever are those nicks in that circle of palms?"
"Can't you guess? There are twelve of 'em— Count the nicks."
The girl rose and with her pretty finger reckoned their number.
"Thirty, thirty-one—why that's your calendar."
"Yes, they're my date-palms—though they're really cocoas. Gee, I've forgotten today's."
He cut in the thirteenth palm, then asked her:
"Want to see where I live?"
"Oh, Ben, let's." At the little girlish nod of assent he smiled tenderly—it was so like old times—the stout-hearted woman whom God had given back to him was still, and always would be, partly a child, whom he must care for and protect.
"Why this is a beautiful house, how ever did you build it?" she cried.
