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114 THE SWISS PAMILY ROBINSON
hid himself. Ernest was at the place as soon as he, and caught him with a new-laid egg in his paw, which he was going to hide. The monkey sprang away to another hole, and Ernest followed ; here also he found some eggs, and brought them in his hat to his mother. It was plain to see that the monkey had seized the eggs as soon as the hens had laid them. We inflicted no other punishment upon him for this naughtiness than that of tying him up when the hens were about to lay.
In the meanwhile Jack had got up into the tree, and had arranged some of the snares in the branches ; he came down again to tell us that our pigeons had made a sort of nest there of some dry grass, and that it already contained several eggs.
During these arrangements the boys and I had been busily employed, and now our work was completed, and we had made a rough kind of sledge for the donkey to draw. On looking up, when we had finished, I found that my wife had spitted the birds which the boys had killed, and was roasting them on an officer's sword which Fritz had brought from the ship. I was inclined to blame her profusion in cooking more birds at once than we could eat, but she reminded me that I had myself advised her to |
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