64 Three Young Crusoes 



He and Henry talked of water-wheels, cider- 

 presses, levers, screws, wedges, and every other form 

 of mechanical pressure they could think of without 

 hitting upon anything suitable to the conditions 

 there. Visions of peanut candy, preserved ginger, 

 and cocoanut taffy were fast fading. Finally, they 

 decided to begin at once in the simplest way and 

 think out some better scheme later. So thev hunted 

 up a big rock that was curved in on its upper side 

 and there they mauled the sticks of sugarcane and 

 twisted out the juice like wringing out clothes. 



Snowball carried the juice to the kitchen, where 

 Edna boiled it down. Both he and the monkey 

 were much more interested in this stage of the pro- 

 cess than in the lirst. Henry soon discovered, how- 

 ever, that the monkey had nothing to do, so he set 

 him to stripping the leaves from the cane and put- 

 ting them in a pile for the beds. Sometime later, 

 the boys looked up from their work to find the mon- 

 key gone. They called him and looked for him 

 everywhere. At last, William noticed a little mo- 

 tion in the pile of fodder and found the monkey 

 hiding under it, with a mischievous twinkle in his 

 little eyes. 



