Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/88



“ spare you a description, (said my wife,) of our first day's occupations; truth to tell, I spent the time chiefly in anxious thought and watching your progress and signals. I rose very early this morning, and with the utmost joy perceiving your signal that all was right, hastened to reply to it, and then while my sons yet slumbered, I sat down and began to consider how our position could be improved. ‘For it is perfectly impossible,’ said I to myself, ‘to live much longer where we are now. The sun beats burningly the livelong day on this bare rocky spot, our only shelter is this poor tent, beneath the canvas of which the heat is even more oppressive than on the open shore. Why should not I and my little boys exert ourselves as well as my husband and Fritz? Why should not we too try to accomplish something useful? If we could but exchange this melancholy and