We knew that we might leave the roots in the ground for some time, as
the soil was dry, but that the grain would soon spoil; so we made the
corn our first care. When it was all cut and brought home, our next task
was to thresh it. The floor of our store room was now as hard as a rock,
for the sun had dried it, and there was not a crack to be seen. On this
we laid the ears of ripe corn, from which the long straw had been cut,
and sent the boys to bring in such of our live stock as were fit for the
work to be next done.

Jack and Fritz were soon on the backs of their steeds, and thought it
fine fun to make them course round the floor and tread out the grain.
Ernest and I had each a long fork, with which we threw the corn at their
feet, so that all of it might be trod on. The ox on which Jack sat put
down his head and took a bunch of the ears in his mouth.

"Come," said Jack, "it is not put there for you to eat, off you go!" and
with that he gave it a lash with his whip.

"Nay," said I, "do you not know what God has said in his Word? We must
not bind up the mouth of the ox that treads out the corn. This brings
to my mind the fact that the means we now take to thresh our wheat were
those used by the Jews in the days of old."

To sort the chaff from the grain we threw it up with our spades while
the land or sea breeze blew strong. The draught which came in at the
door took the light chaff with it to one side of the room, while the
grain fell straight to the ground by its own weight.

The maize we left to dry in the sun, and then beat out the grain with
long skin thongs. By this means we got a store of the soft leaves of
this plant, which my wife made use of to stuff our beds.

When all the grain had been put in our store room, some in sacks and the
rest in dry casks, we took a walk one day to our fields, and found that
flocks of birds, most of which were quails, had come there to feed. This
gave us a fine day's sport with our guns, and the next year we did not
fail to look for them, so that the fields were made to yield a stock of
game as well as a crop of grain.

With but slight change in our mode of life, we spent ten long years in
our strange home. Yet the time did not seem long to us. Each day brought
with it quite as much work as we could do, so that weeks and months and
years flew past, till at last we gave up all hope that we should leave
the isle or see our old Swiss home, the thought of which was still dea