Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/259

Rh To make more space, we turned such animals as we had captured, and who therefore might be imagined to know how to shift for themselves, outside during the daytime, bringing them under the arched roots only at night. To perform this duty, Fritz and I used to sally forth every evening, and as regularly every evening did we return soaked to the skin. To obviate this, the mother, who feared these continual wettings might injure our health, contrived waterproofs; she brushed on several layers of caoutchouc over stout shirts, to which she attached hoods; she then fixed to these duck trousers, and thus prepared for each of us a complete waterproof suit, clad in which we might brave the severest rain.

In spite of our endeavours to keep ourselves busy, the time dragged heavily. Our mornings were occupied in tending the animals; the boys amused themselves with their pets, and assisted me in the manufacture of carding-combs and a spindle for the mother. The combs I made with nails, which I placed head downwards on a sheet of tin about an inch wide; holding the nails in their proper positions, I poured solder round their heads to fix them to the tin, which I then folded down on either side of them to keep them perfectly firm. In the evening, when our room was illuminated with wax candles, I wrote a journal of all the events which had occurred since our arrival in this foreign land; and, while the mother was busy with her needle, and Ernest making sketches of birds, beasts, and flowers with which he had met during the past months, Fritz and Jack taught little Franz to read.

Week after week rolled by. Week after week saw us still close prisoners. Incessant rain battered down above us, constant gloom hung over the desolate scene.