Mrs Reichardt placed before me some of the fish, broiled on the embers, and I ate very heartily.

  “It is very kind of you,” said I, “to be working for me, when I ought to be working for you — but you must not do it again.”

  “Only my share of the work when you are well,” replied she; “but my share I always shall do. I cannot be idle, and I am strong enough to do a great deal; but we will talk about that to-morrow morning. You will be quite well by that time, I hope.”

  “Oh! I feel well now,” replied I, “only I am very weak.”

  “You must put your trust in God, my poor boy. Do you ever pray to Him?”

  “Yes, I try a little sometimes — but I don’t know how. Jackson never taught me that.”

  “Then I will. Shall I pray now for both of us?”

  “Will God hear you? What was it that you said just before I forgot everything this morning?”

  “I told you that there was another here besides ourselves, a good and gracious God, who is always with us and always ready to come to our assistance if we call upon Him.”

  “You told me God lived beyond the stars.”

  “My poor boy, as if He were a God who was afar off and did not attend to our prayers! Such is not the case. He is with us always in spirit, listening to all our prayers, and reading every secret thought of our hearts.”

  I was silent for some time, thinking upon what she had told me; at last I said— “Then pray to Him.”

  Mrs Reichardt knelt down and prayed in a clear and fervent voice, without hesitation or stop. She prayed for protection and support in our desolate condition, that we might be supplied with all things needful for our sustenance, and have a happy deliverance from our present position. She prayed that we might be contented and resigned until it should please Him to rescue us — that we might put our whole trust and confidence in Him, and submit without murmuring to whatever might be His will. She prayed for health and strength, for an increase of faith and gratitude towards Him for all His mercies. She thanked him for our having been preserved by being left on the desolate rock, instead of having left it in the boat with the seamen. (This surprised me.) And then she prayed for me, entreating that she might be the humble instrument of leading me to my Heavenly Father, and that He would be pleased to pour down upon me His Holy Spirit, so that I might by faith in Christ, be accepted, and become a child of God and an inheritor of eternal bliss.

  There was something so novel to me and so beautiful in her fervency of prayer, that the tears came into my eyes, and about a minute after she had finished, I said —

  “I now recollect, at least, I think I do — for the memory of it is very confused — that my mother used to kneel down by me and pray just as you have done. Oh, how I wish I had a mother!”

  “My child,” replied she, “promise me that you will be a good and obedient son, and I will be a mother to you.”

  “Will you? Oh! How kind of you. Yes, I will be all you wish; I will work for you day and night if it is necessary. I will do everything, if you will but be my mother.”

  “I will do my duty to you as a mother most strictly,” replied she; “so that is agreed upon. Now, you had better go to sleep, if you can.”

  “But I must first ask you a question. Why did you thank God for the seamen having left us here, instead of taking us with them?”

  “Because the boat was overloaded as it was; because the men, having liquor, would become careless and desperate, and submit to no control; and therefore I think there is little or no chance of their ever arriving anywhere safe, but that they will perish miserably in some way or another. This, I consider, is the probability, unless the Almighty in His mercy, should be pleased to come to their assistance, and allow them to fall in with some vessel soon after their departure.”

  “Do you think, then, that God prevented our going with them on purpose that we might not share their fate?”

  “I do! God regulates everything. Had it been better for us that we should have gone, He would have permitted it; but He willed it otherwise, and we must bow to His will with a full faith, that He orders everything for the best.”

  “And you say that God will give us all that we ask for in our prayers?”

  “Yes, if we pray fervently and in faith, and ask it in the name of Jesus Christ; that is, He will grant all we pray for that is good for us, but not what is not good for us; but when we ask anything, we do not know that we are asking what is proper or not — but He does. We may ask what would be hurtful to us, and then, in His love for us, He denies it. For instance, suppose you had been accustomed to pray, you must have prayed God that He would permit you to leave this island in the boat, as you are so anxious to go away; but supposing that boat is lost, as I imagine it will be, surely it would have been a kindness in God, who knew that it would be lost, not to grant your prayer. Is it not so?”

  “Yes, I see now, thank you; now I will go to sleep — good night.”

  Chapter Twenty Four.

  I awoke the next morning quite recovered from my illness of the day before, and was out of the cabin before Mrs Reichardt, who still remained behind the screen which she had put up after I had gone to sleep. It was a beautiful morning, the water was smooth, and merely rippled with a light breeze, and the sun shone bright. I felt well and happy. I lighted a fire to broil the fish for breakfast, as there was a sufficiency left, and then got my fishing-lines ready to catch some larger fish to re-inhabit my pond at the bathing-pool. Mrs Reichardt came out of the cabin and found me playing with Nero.

  “Good morning, dear mother,” said I, for I felt most kindly towards her.

  “Good morning, my dear boy,” replied she. “Are you quite well?”

  “Quite well; and I have got my lines all ready; for I have been thinking that until the birds come, we must live on fish altogether, and we can only take them in fine weather like this; so we must not lose such a day.”

  “Certainly not. As soon as we have breakfasted, we will go down and fish. I can fish very well, I am used to it. We must both work now; but first go for your Bible, that we may read a little.”

  I did so, and after she had read a chapter, she prayed, and I knelt by her side; then we breakfasted, and as soon as we had breakfasted, we set off to the bathing-pool.

  “Do you know if they left anything behind them, Frank?”

  “Yes,” replied I, “they left some oars, I believe, and a long line, and we have the shovel and the hammer, and the boat’s small sail, up at the cabin.”

  “Well, we shall see very soon,” replied she, as we went down the path.

  When we arrived at the bathing-pool, the first thing that met my eyes made me leap with joy. “Oh! Mother! Mother! They’ve left the iron pot; I did so long for it; and as I lay awake this morning, I thought that if I prayed for anything, it would be for the iron pot. I was tired of dried birds, and they ate so different when they were boiled up in the pot with potatoes.”

  “I am equally glad, Frank, for I do not like victuals uncooked; but now let us first see what else they have thrown out of the boat.”

  “Why, they have put on shore three of the little casks of water,” said I; “they took them all on board.”

  “They have so, I suppose, because the boat was too heavy, and they would not part with the liquor. Foolish men, they will now not have more than six days’ water, and will suffer dreadfully.”

  We then looked round the rocks and found that they had left the iron kettle, three breakers, five oars, and a harpoon and staffs; a gang-board, a whale-line of 200 fathoms, an old saw, a bag of broad-headed nails, and two large pieces of sheet-iron.

  “That saw may be very useful to us,” said Mrs Reichardt, “especially as you have files in your chests. Indeed, if we want them, we may convert one half of the saw into knives.”

  “Into knives! How?”

  “I will show you; and these pieces of sheet-iron I could use again. You see the sheet-iron was put on to repair any hole which might be made in the boat, and they have thrown it out, as well as the hammer and nails. I wonder at John Gough permitting it.”

  “I heard them quarrelling with him as I came out yesterday to fetch you down; they would not mind what he said.”

  “No, or we should not have been left here,” replied she; “John Gough was too good a man to have allowed it, if he could have prevented it. That sheet-iron will be very useful. Do you know what for? To broil fish on, or anything else. We must turn up the corners with the hammer. But now we must lose no more time, but fish all day long, and not think of eating till supper-time.”

  Accordingly we threw out our lines, and the fish taking the bait freely, we soon hauled in more than a dozen large fish, which I put into the bathing-pool.

  “What use can we make of that long line which they have left?”

  “A good many; but the best use we can make of it, is to turn it into fishing-lines, when we require new ones.”

  “But how can we do that, it is so thick and heavy?”

  “Yes, but I will show you how to unlay it, and then make it up again. Recollect, Frank, that I have been the wife of a Missionary, and have followed my husband wherever he went; sometimes we have been well off, sometimes as badly off as you and I are now — for a Missionary has to go through great dangers, and great hardships, as you would acknowledge if you ever heard my life, or rather that of my husband.”

  “Won’t you tell it to me?”

  “Yes, perhaps I will, some day or another; but what I wish to point out to you now is, that being his wife, and sharing his danger and privation, I have been often obliged to work hard and to obtain my living as I could. In England, women do little except in the house, but a Missionary’s wife is obliged to work with the men, and as a man very often, and therefore learns to do many things of which women in general are ignorant. You understand now?”

  “Oh yes. I have thought already that you appear to know more than Jackson did.”

  “I should think not; but Jackson was not fond of work I expect, and I am. And now, Frank, you little thought that when you so tardily went to work the other day to plant potatoes for the benefit of any one that might hereafter come to the island, that you were planting for yourself, and would reap the benefit of your own kind act; for if you had not assisted, of course I could not have done it by myself: so true it is, that even in this world you are very often rewarded for a good action.”

  “But are not you always?”

  “No, my child, you must not expect that; but if not rewarded in this world, you will be rewarded in the next.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “I suppose that you hardly can, but I will explain all that to you, if God spare my life; but it must be at a more seasonable time.”

  We continued fishing till late in the afternoon, by which time had taken twenty-eight large fish, about seven to nine pounds weight; Mrs Reichardt then proposed that we should leave off, as we had already provision for a fortnight.

  I hauled out one more fish, which she took with her to cook for our supper, and having coiled up my lines, I then commenced, as she had told me to do, carrying up the articles left by the boat’s crew at the bathing-pool. The first thing I seized upon was the coveted iron kettle; I was quite overjoyed at the possession of this article, and I had good reason to be. In my other hand I carried the saw and the bag of nails. As soon as I had deposited them at the cabin, I went down again, and before supper was ready I had brought up everything except the three breakers of water, which I left where they were, as we did not want them for present use, whatever we might hereafter. We were both rather tired, and were glad to go to bed after we had taken our supper.

  Chapter Twenty Five.

  When we met the following morning, my mother, as I shall in future call her, said to me, “This will be a busy day, Frank, for we have a great many arrangements to make in the cabin, so that we may be comfortable. In future the cabin must be kept much more clean and tidy than it is; but that is my business more than yours. Let us get our breakfasts, and then we will begin.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to do,” replied I; “but I will do it if I can, as soon as you tell me.”

  “My dear boy, a woman requires a portion of the cabin to herself, as it is not the custom for women to live altogether with men. Now, what I wish is, that the hinder part of the cabin, where you used to stow away your dried birds, should be made over to me. We have oars with which we can make a division, and then nail up seal-skins, so that I may have that part of the cabin to myself. Now, do you understand what I want?”

  “Yes, but the oars are longer than the cabin is wide,” observed I. “How shall we manage it?”

  “We have the old saw, and that will do well enough to cut them off, without its being sharpened.”

  “I never saw one used,” replied I, “and I don’t understand it.”

  “I will soon show you. First, we must measure the width of the cabin. I shall not take away more than one-third of it.”

  My mother went into the cabin, and I followed her. With a piece of fishing-line, she took the width of the cabin, and then the height up to the rafters for the door-posts. We then went out, and with the saw, which she showed me how to use, and which astonished me very much, when I perceived its effects, the oars were cut up to the proper length. Gimlets I had already from the sea-chest, and nails and hammer we had just obtained from the boat; so that before the forenoon was over, the framework was all ready for nailing on the seal-skins. The bag of broad-headed short nails, which had been thrown on the rocks, were excellent for this purpose, and as I had plenty of skins, the cabin was soon divided off, with a skin between the door-jambs hanging down loose, so that any one might enter. I went inside after it was complete. “But,” said I, “you have no light to see what you are about.”

  “Not yet, but I soon will have,” replied my mother. “Bring the saw here, Frank. Observe, you must cut through the side of the cabin here, a square hole of this size; three of the planks cut through will be sufficient. Begin here.”

  I did as she directed me, and in the course of half an hour, I had cut out of the south side of the cabin a window about two feet square, which admitted plenty of light.

  “But won’t it make it cold at night?” said I.

  “We will prevent that,” replied she, and she took out a piece of white linen, and with some broad-headed nails, she nailed it up, so as to prevent the air from coming in, although there was still plenty of light. “There,” said she, “that is but a coarse job, which I will mend by-and-bye; but it will do for the present.”

  “Well, it is very nice and comfortable now,” said I, looking round it. “Now what shall I bring in?”

  “Nothing for the bed but seal-skins,” said she. “I do not like the feathers. The seal-skins are stiff at present, but I think we may be able to soften them by-and-bye. Now, Frank, your chest had better come in here, as it is of no use where it is, and we will make a storeroom of it, to hold all our valuables.”

  “What, the diamonds?” replied I.

  “My dear boy, we have articles to put into the chest, which, in our present position, are more valuable to us than all the diamonds in the world. Tell me now, yourself, what do you prefer and set most value upon, your belt of diamonds, or the iron kettle?”

  “The iron kettle, to be sure,” replied I.

  “Exactly so; and there are many things in our possession as valuable as the iron kettle, as you will hereafter acknowledge. Now do you go and get ready some fire for us, and I will finish here by myself Nero keep out, sir — you are never to come into this cabin.”

  I went with Nero for a fish, and when I returned. I determined that I would use the iron kettle. I put it on with water and boiled the fish, and I thought that it ate better than broiled on the embers, which made it too dry.

  As we sat at our meal, I said, “Dear mother, what are we to do next?”

  “To-morrow morning we will put the cabin into better order, and put away all our things, instead of leaving them about the platform in this way. Then I will carefully look over all that we have got, and put them away in the chest. I have not yet seen the contents of the chest.”

  The next day it was very cloudy and rough weather, blowing fresh. After breakfast we set to work. We cleared out the floor of the cabin, which was strewed with all manner of things, for Jackson and I had not been very particular. The whale-line was coiled up and put into one corner and everything else was brought in and a place round for it.

  “We must contrive some shelves,” said my mother, “that we may put things on them, or else we never can be tidy; and we have not one except that which holds the books. I think we can manage it. We have, two oars left besides the boat’s yard; we will nail them along the side of the cabin, about a foot or more from it, and then we will cut some of the boat’s sail, and nail the canvass from the side of the cabin to the oars, and that will make a sort of shelf which will hold our things.”

  I brought in the oars; they were measured and cut off and nailed up. The canvass was then stretched from the side of the cabin to the oar, and nailed with the broad-headed nails, and made two capital shelves on each side of the cabin, running from one end to the other.

  “There,” said my mother, “that is a good job. Now we will examine the chest and put everything away and in its place.”

  My mother took out all the clothes, and folded them up. When she found the roll of duck which was at the bottom, she said —

  “I am glad to find this, as I can make a dress for myself much better for this island than this black stuff dress which I now wear, and which I will put by to wear, in case we should be taken off the island some of these days; for I must dress like other people when I am again among them. The clothes are sufficient to last you for a long while; but I shall only alter two shirts and two pair of trousers to your present size, as you will grow very fast. How old do you think you are now?”