Page:The Swiss Family Robinson, In Words of One Syllable.djvu/106

88 plants. All this gave a charm to our home, and made the grounds round it a source of joy when we laid by our work for the day. In fact, we thought there was now scarce a thing to wish for that we had not got.

Our cares were few, and our life was as full of joy and peace as we could well wish; yet I oft cast a look on the sea, in the hope that some day I should spy a sail, and once more greet a friend from the wide world from which we had been so long shut out. This hope, vague as it was, led me to store up such things as would bring a price, if we had the chance to sell them; they might prove a source of wealth to us if a ship came that way, or would at least help to pay the charge of a cruise back to the land we came from.

It is but just to say that the boys did not share my hopes, nor did they seem to wish that we should leave the place where they had been brought up. It was their world, and the cave, to which we gave the name Rock House, was more dear to them than any spot on the earth.

"Go back!" Fritz would say; "to leave our cave, that we dug with our own hands; to part with our dear kind beasts and birds; to bid good by to our farms, and so much that is our own, and which no one in the world wants. No, no. You can not wish us to leave such a spot."

My dear wife and I both