Page:The Swiss Family Robinson, In Words of One Syllable.djvu/52

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THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON.

in his spare time, and to mark down the name of each spot as near as he could.

When the heat of the day was past, I told my sons that I should be glad to take a walk with them. They all left off work, threw down their tools, and made haste to join me. My wife said that she should like to go with us; so we left The Nest in charge of Turk, and bent our course to the banks of the stream. On our way we went past some shrubs and rare herbs, which my wife knew well how to make use of should we fall sick; and Ernest, who had read much, and knew most kind of plants, found a large spot of ground on which grew a fine kind of Po-ta-to. At these the boys set to work with such zeal, that we soon had a full bag of the ripe fruit. We then went on to Tent House, which we found in the same state as when we left it to cross the stream on our way to the great tree.

We found that our ducks and geese had grown so wild that they would not come near us; so, while my wife and I went to pick up such things as we thought we might take back with us, Ernest and Fritz were sent to catch them, and to tie their legs and wings, and in this way we got them at last to The Nest. It was late at night when we came in sight of the tree, and the weight of the fowls and bags that we