[The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island by Johann David Wyss]@TWC D-Link bookThe Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island CHAPTER IV 10/14
Behind the hearth stood one of the hogsheads, opened, and containing the finest Dutch cheeses, enclosed in cases of lead.
All this was very tempting to hungry travellers, and very unlike a supper on a desert island.
I could not think my family had been idle, when I saw such a result of their labours; I was only sorry they had killed the goose, as I wished to be economical with our poultry. "Have no uneasiness," said my wife, "this is not from our poultry-yard, it is a wild goose, killed by Ernest." "It is a sort of penguin, I believe," said Ernest, "distinguished by the name of _booby_, and so stupid, that I knocked it down with a stick. It is web-footed, has a long narrow beak, a little curved downwards.
I have preserved the head and neck for you to examine; it exactly resembles the penguin of my book of natural history." I pointed out to him the advantages of study, and was making more inquiries about the form and habits of the bird, when my wife requested me to defer my catechism of natural history. "Ernest has killed the bird," added she; "I received it; we shall eat it.
What more would you have? Let the poor child have the pleasure of examining and tasting the cocoa-nuts." "Very well," replied I, "Fritz must teach them how to open them; and we must not forget the little monkey, who has lost his mother's milk." "I have tried him," cried Jack, "and he will eat nothing." I told them he had not yet learnt to eat, and we must feed him with cocoa-nut milk till we could get something better.
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