Justin Rosenthal was now a very busy man. In the two years that he and his friends had spent upon the island he had made what progress was possible in “making the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose.” The first few months had been spent in the stupendous labor of getting the stores, the animals and the furniture from the wreck over the long, rugged, almost impassable reef of rocks to the island.
By the time that nearly incredible work had been successfully accomplished, the rainy season, the winter of these latitudes, had set in, and all further outdoor work was suspended for several months.
When spring and sunshine had come again, it was necessary, first of all, to build fences to guard the fields and gardens that were to be cultivated from the intrusion of the cattle and poultry; then to till the ground and plant the seeds, of which he had found a great variety in the stores of the missionaries, consisting of wheat, rye and Indian corn among the field grains, and beans, peas, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, lettuce and so forth among the garden seeds.
Of course, the planting of all these seeds, many of which were indigenous to the north temperate zone only, was a questionable experiment, to be tried.
All this—fence building, soil tilling, seed planting and cultivating—was a long labor for one pair of hands, and it occupied the whole spring and half the summer.
But the labor was crowned with all the prosperity that could be hoped. At least half the garden seeds produced good crops of table vegetables. Among the grain the wheat did very well, the Indian corn still better, but the cotton was the greatest success of all. Justin had traveled all over the cotton growing States of his native country, but never had he seen such great white pods of such rich, fine fibre anywhere.
The early autumn months were occupied in harvesting these crops.
In this work Britomarte and Judith were able to help Justin. While Justin cut the wheat, Britomarte picked the great pods of cotton from their stalks and housed them in the grotto, and Judith pulled the ripe ears of Indian corn and stored them in her kitchen.
The end of this work had brought the beginning of their second winter on the island, and again all outdoor labor was suspended.
Those wintry days and evenings were spent very profitably.