"Oh! father, just look at the glorious shells and coral branches we are finding. How does it happen that there are such quantities?"
"Only consider how the recent storms have stirred the ocean to its depths! No doubt thousands of shell-fish have been detached from their rocks and dashed in all directions by the waves, which have thrown ashore even so huge a creature as the whale yonder."
"Yes; isn't he a frightful great brute!" cried Fritz. "Ever so much larger than he seemed from a distance. The worst of it is, one does not well see what use to make of the huge carcase."
"Why, make train oil, to be sure," said Ernest. "I can't say he's a beauty, though, and it is much pleasanter to gather these lovely shells, than to cut up blubber."
"Well, let us amuse ourselves with them for the present," said I, "but in the afternoon, when the sea is calmer, we will return with the necessary implements, and see if we can turn the stranded whale to good account."
We were soon ready to return to the boat, but Ernest had a fancy for remaining alone on the island till we came back, and asked my permission to do so, that he might experience, for an hour or two, the sensations of Robinson Crusoe.
To this, however, I would not consent, assuring him that our fate, as a solitary family, gave him quite sufficient idea of shipwreck on an uninhabited island, and that his lively imagination must supply the rest.
The boys found it hard work to row back, and began to beg of me to exert my wonderful inventive powers in contriving some kind of rowing machine.
"You lazy fellows!" returned I; "give me the great clockwork out of a church tower, perhaps I might be able to relieve your labors."
"Oh, father!" cried Fritz, "don't you know there are iron wheels in the clockwork of the large kitchen-jacks? I'm sure mother would give them up, and you could make something out of them, could you not?"