Swiss Family Robinson

had attended their guns. Ernest had rightly guessed the mistakes they would make, but practise was making them perfect, and they seemed disposed to continue their sport, when their mother, assuring them that she could not use more birds than those already killed, asked if I did not think some means of snaring them might be contrived, as much powder and shot would be expended if they fired on at this rate.
    Entirely agreeing with this view of the subject, I desired the lads to lay aside their guns for the present, and the younger ones readily applied themselves to making snares of the long threads drawn from the leaves of the karatas in a simple way I taught them, while Fritz and Ernest gave me substantial assistance in the manufacture of the new sledge.
    We were busily at work, when a tremendous disturbance among our fowls led us to suppose that a fox or wild cat had got into their midst. The cocks crowed defiantly, the hens fluttered and cackled in a state of the wildest excitement.
    We hastened towards them, but Ernest remarking Master Knips slipping away, as though conscious of some misdemeanour , went to watch him, and presently caught him in the act of eating a new-laid egg, which he had carried off and hidden among the grass and roots. Ernest found several others.
    These were very welcome to my wife, for hitherto the hens had not presented us with any eggs. Hereafter she determined to imprison the monkey every morning until the eggs had been collected.
    Soon after this, as Jack was setting the newly made snares among the branches, he discovered that a pair of our own pigeons were building in the tree. It was very desirable to increase our stock of these pretty birds, and I cautioned the boys against shooting near our tree while they had nests there, and also with regard to the snares, which were meant only to entrap the wild-fig-eaters.
    Although my sons were interested in setting the snares, they by no means approved of the new order to economize on ammunition.
    No doubt they had been discussing this hardship, for little Franz came to me with a brilliant proposal of his own.
    `Papa,' said he, `why should not we begin to plant some powder and shot immediately? It would be so much more useful than bare grain for the fowls.'
    His brothers burst into a roar of laughter, and I must confess I found it no easy matter to keep my countenance.
    `Come, Ernest,' said I, `now we have had our amusement, tell the little fellow what gunpowder really is.'
    `It is not seed at all, Franz,' Ernest explained. `Gunpowder is made of charcoal, sulphur and saltpetre , mixed cleverly together; so you see it cannot be sown like corn, any more than shot can be planted like peas and beans.'
    My carpentering meantime went on apace. In order to shape my sledge with ends properly turned up in front, I had chosen wood which had been part of the bow of the vessel, and was curved in the necessary way for my purpose. Two pieces, perfectly similar, formed the sides of my sleigh, or sledge, and I simply united these strongly by fixing short bars across them. Then, when the ropes of the donkey's harness were attached to the raised points in front, the equipage was complete and ready for use.
    My attention had been for some time wholly engrossed by my work, and I only now observed that the mother and her little boys had been busily plucking above two dozen of the wild birds, and were preparing to roast them, spitted in a row on a long, narrow sword blade, belonging to one of our ship's officers.
    It seemed somewhat wasteful to cook so many at once, but my wife explained that she was getting them ready for the butter-cask I was going to fetch for her on the new sledge, as I had advised her to preserve them half-cooked, and packed in butter.
    Amused at her promptitude, I could do nothing less than promise to go for her cask directly after dinner. For her part, she resolved in our absence to have a grand wash of linen and other clothes, and she advised me to arrange regular baths for all the boys in future.
    Early in the afternoon Ernest and I were ready to be off. Fritz presented us each with a neat case of margay skin to hang at our girdles.
    We harnessed both cow and ass to the sledge and, accompanied by Juno, cheerfully took our departure, choosing the way by the sands, and reaching Tentholm without accident or adventure.
    There, unharnessing the animals, we began at once to load the sledge, not only with the butter-cask, but with a powder-chest, a