Betty soon learned to perform any work she was shown how to do; but she preferred tending the children, and if
she saw them running down to the river, or wandering too far from the house, she was after them like a shot, always bringing them back in her arms, sitting down and lecturing them after her own fashion—telling them of a fearful monster which had its abode beneath the water, or of wild men who lay concealed in the scrub ready to carry them off and eat them. Poor Betty had no notion of right or wrong, and, although she did not steal or tell falsehoods, it was from the belief that the white people, who knew everything, would to a certainty find her out. As soon as she had obtained some knowledge of English, Mary and Janet endeavoured to instil into her dark mind some religious ideas. It was long, however, before they were satisfied that she had comprehended the simplest truths.
The family were now anxiously waiting Paul’s return. All the flour in the store-room had been exhausted, but they were not so badly off as they might have been in some regions. The captain had an acre or more planted with the sweet potato—a species of yam, each root weighing from three to four pounds, and sometimes even more. Biddy had learned to cook them properly, when they appeared dry and floury. Though the cousins at first declared that they were too sweet to eat, they acknowledged, however, when dressed under the roast meat, that they were very nice. Then they had bananas, a pleasant, nutritious fruit. The captain, on first coming to the farm, had formed a plantation of these trees, and as they had been well protected they had escaped destruction from the hurricane. The trees were raised from suckers, which grew around the bottom of the parent tree. Within eighteen months from the time the plants had been set out the trees began to bear fruit. This comes out from the centre of the plant, and hangs down in a large bunch, five or six in a bunch.
One great advantage was that there were ripe bananas all the year round, though they were most plentiful in the summer. The trees were upwards of twenty feet in height, with broad green leaves four to six feet in length. There was an avenue composed of them running from one side of the garden to the other, which afforded at all times a delightful shade. The stems contain a quantity of fibrous matter, which makes excellent rope.
“We shall not starve while we have these to subsist on,” observed the captain to his brother. “The people in the south call us ‘Banana-men’; and not a bad name either, for with their aid we could manage to subsist on beef and mutton, even had we no other vegetable productions to depend upon.”
Mary and Janet had nearly two hundred hens in their poultry yard, and by attending carefully to them and not allowing them to stray, they were able to obtain several dozen eggs daily.
Hector and the younger boys frequently went out fishing, but Harry and Reggy preferred shooting. On one occasion Hector volunteered to accompany them.
The boys were feeling somewhat fatigued from their walk, when they reached a large water-hole, which they had not before visited.
“The water looks very refreshing; I intend to have a bath,” said Hector, beginning to undress.