A piece of ground twenty yards long by the same in breadth is not easy to dig over in a day, even to the most industrious toiler, and so Fritz found it; for, in spite of the interruption his brother had suffered from on his first start after the manure from the bird colony, the lad managed to cover the whole of the plot they had marked out with the fertilising compound, which he wheeled up load after load, long before he had accomplished half his task, although he dug away earnestly.
Fritz had been a little more sanguine than he usually was. He thought he could have finished the job before the middle of the day; but, when it got late on in the afternoon and the sun gave notice as he sank behind the western cliff that the evening was drawing nigh, there was still much to finish; and so, much to the elder brother’s chagrin, the task had to be abandoned for the day in an incomplete state.
“Never mind,” he said to Eric—when, putting their spades and other tools into the wheelbarrow, they trundled it homeward in turn, like as their friends the penguins practised their domestic duties—“we’ll get it done by to-morrow, if we only stick to it.”
“I’m sure I will do my best, brother,” responded Eric; “but, really, I do hate digging. The man who invented that horrible thing, a spade, ought to be keel-hauled; that’s how I would serve him!”
“Is that anything like what the penguins did to you this morning?” asked Fritz with a chuckle.
“Pretty much the same,” said Eric, grinning at the allusion. “I declare I had almost forgotten all about that! However, I’ll now go and get a change of clothes, and have a bath in the sea before sitting down comfortably to our evening meal;” and, anxious to carry out this resolve at once, the lad set off running towards the hut with the wheelbarrow before him, he having the last turn of the little vehicle.
“There never was so impetuous a fellow as Eric,” Fritz said to himself, seeing the lad start off in this fashion. “Himmel, he is a regular young scatter-brain, as old Lorischen used to call him!”
“Pray be quick about your bath,” he called out after him. “I will get the coffee ready by the time you come back.”
“Good!” shouted Eric in return. “Mind and make it strong too; for, I’m sure I shall want something to sustain me after all my exertions!”
The day terminated without any further incident; although the wind having calmed down, the young fellows heard the penguins much more plainly through the night than previously. Still, this did not much affect their rest; for in the morning they turned out fresh and hearty for another day’s experience of gardening.