“You went at it too hard at first,” said his brother. “Slow and sure is the best in the long run, you know! Why, I haven’t tired myself half as much as you; and, see, I have turned over twice the distance of hard ground that you have.”
“Ah, you are used to it,” replied Eric. “I’m more accustomed to ploughing the sea than turning up land! But, I say, Fritz; while you go on digging—that is if you’re not tired—I’ve just thought of something else I can do, so as not to be idle.”
“What is that—look on at me working, eh?”
“No,” said the lad, laughing at the other’s somewhat ironical question; “I mean doing something really—something that will be helping you and be of service to the garden.”
“Well, tell me,” replied Fritz, industriously going on using his spade with the most praiseworthy assiduity, not pausing for a moment even while he was speaking; for, he was anxious to have the ground finished as soon as he could.
“I thought that some of the guano from the place where the penguins make their nests would be fine stuff to manure our garden with before we put in the seeds, eh?”
“The very thing,” said Fritz. “It’s a capital idea of yours; and I am glad you thought of it, as it never occurred to me. I recollect now, that the Tristaner said they used it for the little gardens we saw at their settlement. It will make our potatoes and cabbages grow finely.”
“All right then; shall I get some?”
“By all means,” responded Fritz; “and, while you are collecting it, I will go on preparing the ground ready for it; I’ve nearly done half now, so, by the time you get back with the guano I shall have dug up the whole plot.”
“Here goes then!” cried Eric; and, away he went, trundling the wheelbarrow along, with a shovel inside it for scraping up the bird refuse and loading the little vehicle—disappearing soon from his brother’s gaze behind the tussock-grass thicket that skirted the extreme end of the garden patch, close to the cliff on the right-hand side of the bay, and exactly opposite to the site of their cottage, this being the place where, as already mentioned, the penguins had established their breeding-place, or “rookery.”