s to leave
but the rind. In this I put the cream, laid a piece on the hole, and
bound it up so that none could come out. The boys then held a cloth, and
on it I put the gourd, which they rolled from side to side. They kept up
this game with great mirth for near an hour, when my wife took off the
string, and found that the churn had done its work well.

As our sledge was not fit to use on rough roads, my next work was to
make a cart. I had brought a pair of wheels from the wreck, so that my
task did not prove a hard one.

While I was thus at work, my wife and the boys took some of the fruit
trees we had brought with us, and put them in the ground where they
thought they would grow best. On each side of the path that led from The
Nest to the Boy's Bridge they put a row of young nut trees. To make the
path hard we laid down sand from the sea shore, and then beat it down
with our spades.

We were for six weeks at this and such like work. We were loth to spare
any pains to make The Nest, and all that could be seen near it, look
neat and trim, though there were no eyes but our own to view the scene.

One day I told my sons that I would try to make a flight of stairs in
place of the cane steps with rope sides, which were, to tell the truth,
the worst part of our house. As yet we had not used them much, but the
rain would some day force us to keep in The Nest, and then we should
like to go up and down stairs with more ease than we could now climb
the rude steps. I knew that a swarm of bees had built their nest in the
trunk of our tree, and this led me to think that there might be a void
space in it some way up. "Should this prove to be the case," I said,
"our work will be half done, for we shall then have but to fix the
stairs in the tree round the trunk." The boys got up and went to the top
of the root to tap the trunk, and to judge by the sound how far up the
hole went. But they had to pay for their want of thought; the whole
swarm of bees came out as soon as they heard the noise, stung their
cheeks, stuck to their hair and clothes, and soon put them to flight.

We found that Jack, who was at all times rash, had struck the bees' nest
with his axe, and was much more hurt by them than the rest. Ernest, who
went to his work in his slow way, got up to it last, and thus did not
get more than a sting or two, but the rest were some hours ere they
could see out of their eyes. I took a large gourd, which had long been
meant to se