Swiss Family Robinson

tone:
    `Do you not think that a mattress stuffed with these leaves would be very cool in summer?'
    The twinkle in her eyes showed me that my curiosity must still remain unsatisfied, but it nevertheless became greater than ever.
    The boys and I had one day made a long and fatiguing expedition, and, tired out, we flung ourselves down in the verandah. As we lay there resting, we heard the mother's voice:
    `Could any of you enjoy a little jelly?' She presently appeared, bearing a porcelain dish laden with most lovely transparent jelly. Cut with a spoon and laid before us it quivered and glittered in the light.
    `Ambrosia!' exclaimed Fritz, tasting it. It was indeed delicious, and, still marvelling from whence my wife could have obtained a dish so rare, we disposed of all that she had set before us.
    `Aha,' laughed my wife, `is not this an excellent substitute for tobacco, far more refreshing than the nasty weed itself. Behold the produce of my mysterious seaweed.'
    `My dear wife,' exclaimed I, `this dish is indeed a masterpiece of culinary art, but where had you met with it? What put it into your head?'
    `While staying with my Dutch friends at the Cape ,' replied she,
    `I often saw it, and at once recognized the leaves on Shark Island . Once knowing the secret, the preparation of the dish is extremely simple: the leaves are soaked in water, fresh every day, for a week, and then boiled for a few hours with orange juice, citron and sugar.'
    We were all delighted with the delicacy, and thanked my wife for it most heartily, the boys declaring that they must at once go off again to the island to collect as many of the leaves as they could find. I agreed to accompany them, for I wished to examine the plantations we had made there.
    All were flourishing, the palms and mangroves had shot up in a most marvellous manner, and many of the seeds which I had cast at random amongst the clefts in the rocks had germinated, and promised to clothe the nakedness of the frowning boulders.
    A way up among the rocks too we discovered a bright sparkling spring of delicious water, at which, from the footprints around, we saw that the antelopes must have refreshed themselves.
    Finding everything so satisfactory, we were naturally anxious to discover how our colony and plantations on Whale Island had fared. It was evident at a glance that the rabbits had increased, the young and tender shoots of the trees bore the marks of many greedy mischievous little teeth. The cocoanut palms alone had they spared.
    Such depredations as these could not be allowed, and with the help of the boys I erected round each stem a hedge of prickly thorn, and then prepared again to embark; before we did so, however, I noticed that some of the seaweed had also been gnawed by the rabbits, and wondering what it could have been to tempt them, I collected some of it to examine more fully at home.
    The skeleton of the whale, too, attracted our attention, for picked clean by the birds and bleached by sun and rain the bones had been purified to a most perfect whiteness. Thinking that the joints of the vertebrae might be made of use, I separated some ten or twelve, and rolled them down to the boat, and then returned to the shore, towing them after us.
    A scheme now occupied my mind for the construction of a crushing machine which would prove of the greatest service to us. I knew that to make such a machine of stone was far beyond my power, but it had struck me that the vertebrae of the whale might serve my purpose.
    I determined next morning to look out a tree from which I might cut the blocks of wood that I should require to raise my crushers.
    My expedition was destined to be a solitary one, for when I went to the stables for a horse, I discovered that the boys had gone off by themselves with their guns and traps, and had left to me a choice between the bull and buffalo.
    With Storm, therefore, I was fain to be content. I crossed the bridge, but as I reached the cassava field I noticed to my great annoyance that it had been overrun and laid waste by some mischievous animals. I examined the footprints, and seeing that they greatly resembled those of pigs, determined to follow the trail, and see who these invaders of our territory would prove to be.
    The track led me on for some way until I almost lost sight of it near our old potato field. For some time I hunted backwards and forwards without seeing a sign of the animals; at length a loud barking from Floss and Bruno, who were