The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson Part 11

These same swine became the torment of their lives, for some of the devils said to haunt Vailima seemed to have entered into them, and no sty could be made strong enough to restrain them.

In clearing away the dense growth on the site of their projected house they were careful to preserve the best of the native plants. "The trees that have been left standing in the clearing," says the diary, "are of immense size, really majestic, with creepers winding about their trunks and orchids growing in the forks of their branches. These great trees are alive with birds, which chatter at certain hours of the night and morning with rich, throaty voices. Though they do not exactly sing, the sound they make is very musical and pretty.

Yesterday Ben [the man of all work] took his gun and went into the bush to shoot. He returned with some small birds like parrots, which were almost bursting with fat. I felt some compunction about eating birds that suggested cages and swings and stands, but as we had nothing else to eat was fain to cook them, and a very excellent dish they made. I have read somewhere that the dodo and a relative of his called the 'tooth-billed pigeon' are still to be found on this island. It would be delightful to possess a pet dodo."[37]

[Footnote 37: "The one surviving species of dodo, the manume'a, a bird about the size of a small moor-hen, exists in Samoa. It has only recovered its present feeble powers of flight since cats were introduced in the island. Its dark flesh is extremely delicious."--From Balfour's _Life of Robert Louis Stevenson_.]

Although their stay in the little lodge was to be but temporary, it was like her to set to work to make it a pleasant abode even for the short time that they were to be there. "What we most dislike about our house," she says, "is the chilly, death-like aspect of the colors in which it is painted--black and white and lead-color. So we unearthed from our boxes some pieces of _tapa_[38] in rich shades of brown and nailed them on the walls, using pieces of another pattern for bordering, and at once the whole appearance of the room was changed.

Over the door connecting the two rooms we fastened a large flat piece of pink coral, a present given me by Captain Reid when we were on the _Equator_. We have had the carpenter put up shelves in one corner of the room and on two sides of one of the windows. I also had him nail some boards together in the form of a couch, upon which I have laid a mattress covered by a shawl. On the table an old pink cloth is spread, and when we light the lamp and set the little j.a.panese burner to smoking buhach--for, alas, there are mosquitoes--we feel quite snug and homelike.

[Footnote 38: Tapa is a cloth made of vegetable fibre and stained in various striking patterns. It is used by the natives for clothing, curtains, beds, and many other purposes.]

"The pig house, a most unsightly thing, is finished, and a creeper or two will soon disguise its ugliness. There seem to be a great number of mummy apples[39] springing up through the clearing, of which I am glad for the sake of the prospective cow. Paul and I have planted out a lot of kidney potatoes, which is an experiment only, as they are not supposed to grow in Samoa. We have sowed tomato seeds, also artichokes and eggplants, in boxes. A few days ago Mr. Caruthers sent us half a dozen very fine pineapples, and as fast as we eat them we plant the tops.

[Footnote 39: The papaw.]

"_October 6._ I have been too busy to write before. Much has been accomplished. A good lot of sweet corn is planted, besides peas, onions, lettuce, and radishes. Lima beans are coming up, and some of the cantaloupes. Mr. Caruthers has brought a root of mint and some cuttings of granadilla,[40] which have been set out along the arbor.

It seems absolutely impossible to get anything sent up to us from Apia. Lists and notes go flying, but, except from Krause the butcher, with no results. It seems an odd thing that there should not be a spade or a rake for sale in a town where there would be no difficulty in finding the best quality of champagne, to say nothing of all the materials for mixed drinks. We have almost starved for want of provisions until yesterday, when Ben killed a couple of fowls, a large piece of meat came from town, Paul shot two pigeons, and Mr. Blacklock came with fresh tomatoes. Afterwards Ben came with palusami,[41] and now to-day comes a young native girl from Mrs. Blacklock with enormous bananas, long green beans, a dozen eggs, and a bunch of flowers, and Ben has come in with eight little parrots. It seems either a feast or a famine with us.

[Footnote 40: A tropical fruit.]

[Footnote 41: A native dish of taro tops and cocoanut.]

"_October 7._ Last night it rained heavily, which was good for my plants, but, as our kitchen is some six or eight yards from the house, cooking became a series of adventures. I had set a sponge for bread last night, and was most anxious to bake the dough early in the day. A black boy was sent to the carpenter for a moulding board, and, placing it on a chair on the back veranda, I knelt on the floor with a shawl over my head to keep the rain off and made up the loaves. In making the dough I was successful, but the attempt to bake it almost sent me into hysterics. With an umbrella over my head I ran to the kitchen, but found, to my dismay, that all the wood was soaked, and the wind drove the smoke back into the stove, which thereupon belched forth acrid clouds from every opening. Paul ran down to where the carpenter had been working, and returned with a boxful of chips which we dried on top of the stove, swallowing volumes of smoke as we did so. Then I called Ben and showed him how to nail up the half of a tin kerosene can over the opening of the pipe to screen it from the wind. That helped a little, but the rain beat in on the stove, and, though we consumed immense quant.i.ties of chips, it still remained cold. Finally I made a barrier of boxes around the stove, and that brought a measure of success, so that in about a couple of hours I was able to half bake, half dry a fowl for luncheon. By that time the bread was done for, and I very nearly so. Paul and I held a council of war, and decided to send the boys down to the pavilion to live, while we took their room for a kitchen and dining-room, one end serving for the one and the other end for the other, somewhat after the fas.h.i.+on of Mr. and Mrs. Boffin's room in _Our Mutual Friend_.

"There were two mango trees among the plants sent up by Mr. Caruthers, and I was surprised to see among them also a shrub that is the pest of Tahiti and will become so here if it is planted. In the afternoon, the rain being then only a high mist, Simile and I began to set out the things. While busy at this I saw three or four beautiful young men, followed by a troop of dogs, pa.s.s along our road towards the bush. I have seldom seen more graceful, elegant creatures than these fellows.

They carried large knives and axes, wore hats of fresh green banana leaves, and also carried large banana leaves as umbrellas to keep off the rain. With a friendly _tofa_ [farewell] on either side, they went their way. After we had planted all the roots and taken a little rest, Simile and I took a hoe and pickaxe and finished the afternoon sowing Indian corn. I asked Simile while we were planting which was the best season for such work, meaning the wet, dry, or intermediate time. 'We Samoans,' he answered, 'always go by the moon. Unless we plant in the time of the big round moon we expect no fruit.'

"I thought one of my yellow hens wanted to sit, and that it would be the proper thing to provide her with eggs. To identify the eggs from fresh ones I made a black pencil mark around each one. After all was finished I retired from the henhouse and peeped through the palings.

Madam hen clucked up to the nest, as I had always seen hens do, but at the sight of the marked eggs she started back in a sort of surprise and alarm. 'What's the matter?' cried the two c.o.c.ks, stretching wide legs as they hastened to the spot. They, too, started back, just as the hen had done, held a hurried consultation and finally ventured to touch the eggs with their beaks. By this time all the five yellow hens had gathered round the nest, and pretty soon all the others were craning their necks to gaze at the marvel. After the c.o.c.ks had poked the eggs about a little with their beaks the hens went nearer and tried to peck off the black marks. All the time there was a great hubbub of anxious conversation. The next morning more than half the eggs had been destroyed, and to save those that were left I had to remove them."

Exploring their new estate was one of their most exciting and at the same time laborious occupations, for most of the land was so densely overgrown that it was necessary to carry a bush knife with which to cut a path as they went, and, moreover, unexpected dangers lurked in the beautiful ferny depths. "Louis and I went up to see the banana patch," says the diary, "Louis carrying a knife to clear the road. For a little way we followed a fairly open path that had previously been cleared by Louis, but by and by it began to close up and become treacherously boggy underfoot. Several times we were ankle-deep in mud and water, and Louis had to slash down the tall vegetation that obstructed our way. Before long he cried out: 'Behold your banana patch!' And there it was, sure enough--a great number of st.u.r.dy, thickset young plants, many with bunches of fruit hanging above the strange purple flower of the plant, choked with a rank undergrowth and set with the roots in sluggishly running water. Here and there the gigantic leaves of the great _taro_[42] spread out--a dark, s.h.i.+ning green. It was too much for Louis, who fell to clearing on the spot, while I went on to the end of the plantation. Once or twice I was nearly stuck in the bog, but managed to drag myself from the ooze by clinging to a strong plant. After a while Louis called out to me as though in answer, and I hurried back to him. When I came up he said he had mistaken the cry of a bird for my voice and supposed I had lost the path. I helped him a little while pulling up the smaller weeds, but was in mortal terror of touching a poisonous creeper whose acquaintance I had already made and whose marks I still bear. It went to my heart to dig up and destroy the most lovely specimens of ferns I have ever seen, but I did it bravely, though I determined to return some day and make a collection of them. Some of the more delicate climbing ferns were magnificent. Occasionally as I drew out a plant the air around me was filled with the perfume of its bruised leaves.

It was entrancing work, though we were soaked with mud and water, but before very long my head began to swim, and I proposed to go back to the house and see about some sort of food. I just managed to get a meal prepared and then gave out utterly, for my beautiful banana swamp had given me a fever with a most alarming prompt.i.tude. I could not sleep all night, but kept waking with a start, my heart and pulses bounding, and my head aching miserably. This morning Louis gave me a dose of quinine, which soon helped me.

[Footnote 42: A tropical plant with an edible root.]

"The pigs had to be watered when we came back from the perfidious swamp, but how to manage it I could not see. Paul was ill, Simile was gone, and I feared it might be dangerous for Louis to lift pails of water. I walked round and round the stone wall of their fortification, but it seemed unclimbable and impenetrable. I might have got over myself, but could not manage the pailful, also. Finally I thought of a boy, the son of a neighbor, who had come to visit Paul, and persuaded him to undertake the task of watering the pigs. The next day I discovered that he had simply poured the water over the wall upon the ground, and my poor pigs had gone thirsty all night. I cannot think that is the sort of son to help a pioneer.

"In the midst of all this Louis wished to go down to Apia. It took all six of the boys to catch the pony, and in the meantime Louis was having a desperate struggle to find his clothes and dress. I was in a dazed state with fever and quinine and could not help him at all. At last he got away, in what sort of garb I tremble to think, and he was hardly out of sight before I discovered all the things he had been in search of--in their right places, naturally."

Eternal vigilance was the price of any progress made in her gardening, for the moment her eyes were taken off the workmen they committed some provoking blunder that often undid the work of weeks. "As all the men were off with the cart," she writes, "I thought I might as well let Ben plant corn, which he a.s.sured me he understood perfectly, for had he not planted all the first lot which had failed through the depredations of the rats? At about three Simile and I went down to put in some pumpkin seeds among the corn, and, to my disgust, I saw why the first lot of corn had failed. Ben's idea of planting was to sc.r.a.pe a couple of inches off the ground, drop in a handful of corn, and then kick a few leaves over the grains. It is really wonderful that any at all should have germinated.

"While we were working Sitioni[43] came up with some pineapple plants.

He said the people were fighting in Tutuila, but he did not think it would come to war here. He showed me a large pistol fastened round his waist by a cartridge belt, and tried to shoot a flying bat with it, but failed. Simile told me that the vampire bat, or flying fox, as they call it here, is good to eat, but I do not think I could eat bat.

My lady pig from Sydney is at Apia, but as she only cost thirty-seven s.h.i.+llings I feel doubts as to her quality. Still, in Samoa a pig's a pig.

[Footnote 43: Sitioni was a chief, later known as Amatua, a name of higher rank. We shall hear of Amatua again at the very end of the story.]

"_Next day._ The pig is a very small, very common pig, but nevertheless I had the boys make a special sty for her. The old c.o.c.k is really too bad. Every time an egg is laid he strikes his bill into it, and, throwing it on the ground, calls his harem to a cannibal feast. Something, either the rats or a wild hen, has destroyed all our corn."

Perhaps no other part of their life in Samoa was so full of happiness for them as these first days--just those two alone, for the presence of their childlike native helpers counted as naught--with all the surroundings yet in a primitive state and little to remind them of the sophisticated world from which they had been glad to escape. Both were natural-born children of the wild. In the brief tropical twilight they often walked together and talked of the beautiful future they thought they saw stretching out before them.

"Last night," so runs the diary, "Louis and I walked up and down the path behind the house. The air was soft and warm, but not too warm, and filled with the most delicious fragrance. These perfumes of the tropic forest are wonderful. When I am pulling weeds it often happens that a puff of the sweetest scent blows back to me as I cast away a handful of wild plants. I believe I have discovered the ylang-ylang tree, about which there has been so much mystery. Simile tells me that one of the priests distils perfume from the same tree. It does not grow very large and has a delicate leaf of a tender shade of green, with the flowers, of a greenish white, in racemes. The natives often use these flowers to mix in their wreaths."

Every paradise has its drawbacks, and though ferocious wild beasts and poisonous snakes are absent from that fortunate island, yet there were many small creatures dwelling in the neighbouring jungle that sometimes made their presence known in disconcerting ways. Of one of these she writes: "We were driven out of the house by a tree frog of stentorian voice, which was hidden in a tree near the front veranda and made a noise like a saw being filed, only fifty times louder. It actually shook the drums of my ears.... I had to stop just here to show Paul how to tie a knot that would not slip. The last time Mr.

Caruthers was here he found his horse at the point of strangulation from a slip noose round its neck as Paul had tethered it out in the gra.s.s.... To return to the tree frog. When we settled ourselves at the table for the evening what was our horror to hear a second tree frog piping up just over our heads in the eaves of the house. We poked at him for some time with sticks and brooms, and I had a guilty feeling that I had done him a mortal injury; but when, after we were in bed and half asleep, he started saw-filing again, I wished I had."

The hurricane season now came on, and wild tropic storms, of a violence of which they had never before dreamed, beat on the little house in the clearing with terrifying fury. "We had a very heavy rainstorm," the diary records, "with thunder and lightning. At night the rain fell so noisily that we could not hear each other speak, and it seemed as though the house must be crushed in by the weight of water falling on it. In the middle of the night Louis arose, made a light, and fell to writing verses. I was troubled about the taller corn--lest it be broken down and spoiled. Yet all went well, for the verses turned out not badly and the corn stood as straight as I could have wished it to do.

"The banana patch is pretty well cleared, but it is difficult to keep men at work there. 'Too many devils, me 'fraid,' explained Lafaele when he came back sooner than I had antic.i.p.ated. There are devils everywhere in the bush, it is said; creatures that take on the semblance of man and kill those with whom they converse, but our banana patch seems to be exceptionally cursed with the presence of these demons."

Indeed, to be alone in the jungle is a solemn thing, even for people of stronger mentality than the superst.i.tious natives. The vegetation is so dense that there are no shadows, and, the location of the sun being an unsolvable mystery, one becomes affected by a strange lost feeling. The loneliness, the silence, the impossibility of seeing far into the surrounding wall of foliage, all oppress the soul, and strange alarms attack the most hardy. Then at night, when there is no moon and the darkness is thick, a phosph.o.r.escent light, due to decaying wood, s.h.i.+nes fearsomely all about on the ground, so that it seems, as Louis said, "like picking one's way over the mouth of h.e.l.l."

"We ourselves," writes Mrs. Stevenson, "have become infected with the native fear of the spirits. Louis has been cutting a path in the bush, and he confesses that the sight of anything like a human figure would send him flying like the wind with his heart in his mouth. One night the world seemed full of strange supernatural noises. When Louis whispered 'Listen! What's that?' I felt as though cold water had been poured down my back, but it was only the hissing of a fire in the clearing. The same night we were waked by sounds of terror in the henhouse. Paul, Louis, and I ran out with one accord, but could see nothing. In the morning we found the body of a pullet with its heart torn out. Simile says that the murderer is a certain small and beautiful bird, but we were quite in the mood to believe it an _aitu_."

Notwithstanding the slow progress caused by inefficient help and the difficulty of getting materials up the steep road to their plantation, they could see their home gradually growing around them. Mr.

Stevenson's health was better than it had been since their marriage, and a deep content settled gently upon their long-hara.s.sed spirits.

Something of this is reflected in an entry made in her diary on a certain beautiful, still evening: "It is now half-past eight and very dark, for the moon is not yet up and the sky is overcast. The air is fresh and sweetly damp and redolent of many scented leaves and flowers. I can hear the sea on Apia beach; the sound of it is regular, like hoa.r.s.e breathing, or even more like the rhythmic purring of a gigantic cat. Crickets and tree frogs and innumerable other insects and small beasts are chirping and pecking with various noises that mingle harmoniously. Occasionally a bird calls with a startling cry--perhaps the very bird that murdered my poor pullet. When I stood in the doorway and looked in, the room seemed to be glowing with color, glowing and melting, and yet there is nothing to go upon but the _tapa_ on the walls, the coral, the pink and maroon window curtains of the coa.r.s.est cotton print, a ragged old ink-spotted table-cover, a few print-covered pillows, and the panda.n.u.s mats on the floor. Louis's books, with their bindings of blue and green, to say nothing of gold lettering, help greatly on the six shelves, and the two _kava_ bowls that I have worked as hard to color as a young man with his first meerschaum have taken on a fine opalescent coating."

This, of course, was when they were living in the temporary quarters while the main house was being built.

The entry of November 15 gives us an amusing tale of the horses: "The cart horses, a couple of large, mild-eyed, gentle, dappled grays, have arrived from Auckland. It was pleasant to see them fall upon the gra.s.s after their tedious sea voyage. Just as we were thinking about going to bed, an alarming noise was heard from the direction of the stable.

It had been raining hard all day and was still drizzling. The weeds on the way to the stable were up to my waist and dripping with water. The prospect was not inviting, but we n.o.bly marched out with the lantern and an umbrella. As we entered the enclosure where the stable stands, or rather stood, we became aware of two large white objects showing indistinctly through the darkness. A little nearer and our two horses were looking us in the face. They had eaten the sides and ends of their house quite away. They must have thought it odd to be housed in an edible stable.[44] When we entered they received us with every sign of welcome, but we were dismayed to find them tangled with each other and the wreck of the part.i.tion. Louis crawled in under the big hairy feet, and, after much labor, got one wet knot untangled, the horses meanwhile smelling and nosing about the top of his head. He said he expected at every moment to have it bitten off, for, he argued, if the horses found a stable edible, in these outlandish parts, they might easily conceive the idea of sampling the hostler.... I am interrupted at this moment by Simile at the door to ask a question. I wish I could take a photograph as he stands at the door, with the steady eyes of a capable man of affairs, but the dress of a houri; about his loins he has twisted a piece of white cotton; a broad garland of drooping ferns pa.s.ses over his forehead, crosses at the back of his head, and coming forward round his neck is fastened in a knot of greenery on his breast. He is rather a plain young man, but he looks really lovely just now, and the incongruous expression of his eyes heightens the effect.

[Footnote 44: The stable was probably made of panda.n.u.s leaves, like the native houses.]

"Yesterday we had a terrific storm, quite alarming to people living in such a vulnerable abode. Even when the weather is fair the house shakes as though it would fall if any one comes upstairs rapidly, and the slight iron roof is entirely open at the eaves to catch any wind that blows. We could not keep a lamp burning, and the lantern kept for such emergencies having been broken by Paul, we were in semi-darkness.

Late in the afternoon a cloud enveloped us so that we could see no farther than in a London fog. From that time the gale increased, las.h.i.+ng the branches of the trees together, and sometimes twisting their trunks and throwing them to the ground. We could see the rain through the windows driving in layers, one sheet above another.

Occasionally there was an ominous thras.h.i.+ng on the iron roof as though the great hardwood tree alongside of the house meant to do us an injury. Water poured in under our ill-fitting doors, the matches were too damp to light, and the general discomfort and sloppiness gave one quite the feeling of being at sea. I wished we might reef in some of our green tree sails, which reminded me of Ah Fu's terror of the land and longing to be at sea in bad weather. Simile and his boys are building or, rather, excavating, a hurricane refuge. I went to see it yesterday and found it a big mudhole with immense boulders heaving up from the bottom. I advised the instant digging of a ditch unless they wished to use it for a bathing pool. The hole must be pretty well filled up by to-day, for last night the rain came down in awful torrents. For the last two days the evening light has been very strange and disquieting--a whitish glare in the sky, the trees and bare ground a burnt-sienna red, and the vegetation a strong crude green with a delicate white bloom. The rain is still pouring and the whole world is damp and uncomfortable."

The hurricanes were varied now and then by earthquakes, of which they felt two distinct shocks on January 13. To add to these discomforts, tiny visitors from the jungle gave them many pin-p.r.i.c.ks of annoyance.

"It is strange," says the diary, "that each night has its separate plague of insects. The mosquitoes, of course, are always with us, and Simile's hurricane cellar has become a fine breeding place for them.

But on one night moths are our torment, while perhaps the very next night it will be myriads of small black beetles. At another time the creatures may be of a large c.o.c.kshafer sort, or a dreadful square-tailed thing that is especially ominous. To-night I have had for the first time two sets of tormentors, the first being small burnished beetles of the most lovely colors imaginable. A pinkish-bronze fellow lies on my paper as I write; he kept standing on his head until he died in a fit. It seems a color night, for I now have small silver moths, all of a size but with different beautiful markings. There are also large salmon-colored moths that Louis cannot bear the sight of because they are marked like a skeleton. Perhaps they are a variety of the death's head moth. They are almost as large as a humming-bird, and have beautiful eyes that glow in the dark like fire."

Enough order had now come out of the first chaos to encourage them to write for the elder Mrs. Stevenson. Her son went to Sydney to meet her, but was there taken very ill and returned in that condition with his mother as nurse. During his absence his wife remained in sole charge, and, judging by the entries in her diary, she had her hands full every moment of the time. Everybody--white, brown, or black--went to her with apparently full confidence that she was able to cure any wound or disease. "One day," she says, "I heard a loud weeping as of some one in great pain; a man had just had two fingers dreadfully crushed. I really didn't know what to do except to go to a doctor, but as the wound was bleeding a good deal I mixed up some crystals of iron in water and washed his hand in that. To my surprise his cries instantly ceased, and he declares he has had no pain since. It was only for the effect on his mind that I gave the iron, which so far as I know is a styptic only; I always think it best to give something--perhaps on the principle of the doctors when they give bread pills. I have cured both Paul and the carpenter of violent lumbago, but there I had a little knowledge to go upon. To-day a man came to us with the sole of his foot very much inflamed from having run a nail into it the day before yesterday. I bound a bit of fat bacon on the foot--an old Negro remedy which was the only one I could think of. It is even more difficult when they bring me their domestic troubles to settle, in which they seem to think I am as great an expert as in curing their physical ills."

In the effort to keep things from being lost or improperly used she fell into the habit of storing them in her bedroom, so that in time it became a veritable junk-shop. "Among my dresses," she writes, "hang bridle straps and horse robes. On the camphor-wood trunk which serves as my dressing-table, beside my comb and toothbrush, a collection of tools--chisels, pincers, and the like--is spread out. Leather straps and parts of harness hang from the walls, as well as a long carved spear, a pistol, strings of teeth--of fish, beasts, and human beings--necklaces of sh.e.l.ls, and several hats. Fine mats and _tapas_ are piled up in heaps. My little cot bed seems to have got into its place by mistake. Besides the above mentioned articles there are an easel and two cameras stowed in one corner. A strange lady's chamber indeed."

On March 28 there was a stiff blow, during which the little cottage rocked and groaned in the most alarming way, and with one gust of wind it swung over so far that its terrified occupants thought it was gone.

All, including Mrs. Stevenson, then took refuge in the stable, which was rather more solidly constructed. The hurricane, the most violent they had yet experienced, lasted several days, during which they remained in the stable, sleeping in the stalls in wet beds, having to sweep out the water without ceasing and suffering severely from clouds of mosquitoes. When at last the storm abated and they could return to the house, they found everything wet and mildewed and the cottage leaning with a decided cant to one side. Worst of all, one of the horses had become entangled in the barbed-wire fence that had been blown down by the wind, and was dreadfully injured. Thus they discovered that life in the tropics has its drawbacks as well as its delights.

These were the primitive conditions that greeted the elder Mrs.

Stevenson on her arrival, and the poor lady's surprise and consternation were increased by the appearance of the good-hearted Paul while waiting on table--a plump little German with a bald head, clothed in a flannel s.h.i.+rt open at the neck, a pair of ragged trousers, particularly dilapidated in the seat and held up by a leather strap round the waist, a sheath-knife stuck in the belt, barefoot, and most likely offering the information that "the meat is tough, by G.o.d." Having no pioneer ancestry to sustain her she was unable to endure the discomforts of the place and only remained over the stay of the _Lubeck_, after which she fled to Sydney, there to await the time when civilization should have been established on the plantation.

By the end of April the new house was ready for them to move in, and by July the whole family, including the Strongs,[45] were established on the place.

[Footnote 45: Mrs. Stevenson's daughter, Isobel Strong, with her husband and son.]

The conditions of their lives were now vastly more comfortable. Mrs.

Stevenson no longer had to share the evening lamp with death's-head moths and piping tree-frogs, for gauze doors and windows had been put in to keep out the flying things. Nor did she have to take refuge in the stable when the hurricane season came around, for the new house was staunchly built and stout storm-shutters stood against the fury of the wind and rain.