midday
It was some days after the appearance of the schooner , and Dick was making ready to go into the woods and pick guavas . He had all the morning been engaged in making a basket to carry them in . In civilisation he would , judging from his mechanical talent , perhaps have been an engineer , building bridges and ships , instead of palmetto-leaf baskets and cane houses -- who knows if he would have been happier ? The heat of midday had passed , when , with the basket hanging over his shoulder on a piece of cane , he started for the woods , Emmeline following . The place they were going to always filled her with a vague dread ; not for a great deal would she have gone there alone . Dick had discovered it in one of his rambles . They entered the wood and passed a little well , a well without apparent source or outlet and a bottom of fine white sand .