William is Attacked by a Wild Boar 77 



they stripped the tree bare; the monkey climbing 

 around in the tree and throwing the Httle nuts down 

 to Snowball while he gathered them up into piles. 



Getting Salt for the Bacon 



Of course, no bacon is a success without salt, and 

 there was very little salt left; so that raised another 

 question. Henry said that salt was found in mines, 

 and that he had read about the wonderful mines in 

 Poland, where men worked and their families stayed 

 all their lives among the sparkling salt crystals. 



''The ocean water is salty enough," said William, 

 "and why can't we boil it down the way we do sugar 

 juice?" That was a workable idea and they began 

 at once to follow it up, only they improved on it by 

 putting the water first into the canoe, a little at a 

 time, and letting the sun evaporate it down so that 

 they wouldn't have so much to carry home nor so 

 much boiling to do afterwards. 



The sight of the brine made Henry think of some- 

 thing else. " Do you remember how good salt mack- 

 erel used to taste, William? Why can't we pack 

 awav a lot of fish in salt and have them on hand to 

 eat whenever we like ? " 



"And why can't we preserve gherkins and snap- 

 beans and other vegetables in brine and then make 



