Molly of Tortuga

Chapter Four

The Cave

Life settled into a routine. Mr. Birdsong and grandmother would spend the days in acrimonious dialog, their nights jousting on the beach. She would take Henry and me out in the twilight, morning and evening, to forage for plants. She taught me which plants had value, and for what, and how to winnow the useless parts from them. Both she and Mr. Birdsong took pains to warn me away from the other's philosophy, often even when the other was present.

"That old man blind in more ways than one, baby. He got the blindness of the white man about him."

"That old woman is babbling mad, my dear. Never allow yourself to become infected with her superstitions."

They would go on like this, walking in circles around me as each tried to scuttle the other's philosophy in my eyes, working themselves into a wild state. Then, as if some faraway bell had rung, one of them would break off the harangue and stalk away, in the direction of the large dunes. The one that was left would spend a minute gloating over having won the argument, and then wander away toward the dunes as well.

Their odd choice of tristing-field (who could want sand encrusted privy parts?) must have been made to keep themselves out of our sight, but the joke was that Henry and I were left to the comforts of the house and cavern -- and we made sprightly use of them, indeed. Henry's amorous reversals had taught him little in the way of caution, and I was eager to test my newfound powers. Of course, Grandmother and Mr. Birdsong eventually came home before we thought they would.

"My, my," said grandmother, upon finding us in the bathtub playing Attack of the Great White Shark, "we got us a pair of playful dolphins," and she walked on into the next room. Following her, Mr. Birdsong grumbled, held up the handle of his gargoile cane so that it appeared to be staring at us, and continued on his way.

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