Page:The Swiss Family Robinson, In Words of One Syllable.djvu/74

60 past. Then we went down to the shed we had built on the ground at the root of the tree, and made the best shift we could. All our stores were kept here, so that the space was too small to hold us, and the smell from the beasts made it far from a fit place for six of us to dwell in; but it was at least safe for a time, and this was of course the first thing to be thought of. To dress our food we had to make a fire in the barn, and as there was no place to let out the smoke, it got down our throats and made us cough all the day long.

It was now for the first time that my wife gave a sigh for her old Swiss home. But we all knew that it was of no use to grieve, and each set to work to do all he could to make the place look neat and clean. Some of our stores we took up the stairs out of our way, and this gave us more room. As we had cut square holes in the trunk of the tree all the way up, and put in frames of glass that we got from the ship, my wife could sit on the stairs, with Frank at her feet, and mend our clothes. Each day I drove from the barn such of the beasts as could bear to be out in the rain. That we might not lose them, I tied bells round their necks; and if we found that they did not come back when the sun went down, Fritz and I went out to bring them in. We oft got wet through to the skin, which