This is a curious habit with some birds; they seem to do it as a forfeit to another bird. They cough up their food which the other bird then takes as payment, leaving the stranded one alone without pecking him. White-headed terns flew aboard too. We were all of us busy throwing them overboard. In the middle of all the gale and rain and wind, the five rowboats which were over the side tied to the boom by lines, had to be brought on board. A mate stood on the top of the gangway, a life preserver on a long line in the water in case someone fell overboard, and then one by one five men went out on the boom, to the end, down the rope ladder, into a tangled up and bouncing boat, and then rowed it aft to be hoisted up by other men onto the ship. It was all quite exciting and I stood in the rain a long time watching. The next morning it was all calm again and you couldn’t believe there had been a small hurricane the night before. MAY 20TH, 1925 May twentieth is my birthday, and Mother had made me a whole pirate outfit—pantaloon trousers, red sash, calico head scarf, a machete, rope soled shoes, and a ragged shirt. Everybody met at Uncle Will’s cabin just before dinner, and then to the pounding of a big drum we all marched down to the dining saloon, everybody dressed in full pirate costumes, with wild looking wigs and knives and cutlasses of every description. I got two knives, a jar of jam, a box of sweet crackers, a cocoanut, a fine piece of old Chiriqui Indian Pottery, and a peach of a collecting bag. “Lumpy,” the baker, made me a huge birthday cake. Then after dinner Shorty took a flashlight picture of the gang against the shrouds down on the hatch deck. We really looked like a pirate crew too, with everyone in costume and apparently on a sailing ship. The steep rocky island near the north point of Chatham Bay showed in the background, and made it seem even more real. The night of the birthday party Don Dickerman wore his “Marooned man” costume. It is entirely rags and tatters and mended with bits of old string and leather. With a wig of tangled hair all knotted and a bandanna and a cutlass he looks pretty awful. John Tee Van had torn trousers, bare body, a frightful long black wig and he painted on a terrible scar across his face, and slashes of blood on his insteps. Some of the others had fine clothes of velvet with old lace, the rich pirates or those who had stolen booty from some recent captive. And the girls looked like pirates’ wives or sweethearts, except Mother who came as a wild woman, my captive, all bound up with ropes and being dragged along. About the grandest birthday present one could get was given me by Don. It was his favorite sword, a real old time cutlass which perhaps was used by pirates. He called it “Fury” and got up an awfully funny card to go with it.