equatorial for the day, when the bell announced the
carriage in which Polly and the children came from the
station to relieve me in my solitary service as janitor.
I had the joy of showing her the good news. This night's
work seemed to fill our cup. For all the day before,
when I was awake, I had been haunted by the fear of
famine for them. True, I knew that they had stored away
in chambers H, I, and J the pork and flour which we had
sent up for the workmen through the summer, and the corn
and oats for the horses. But this could not last
forever.

Now, however, that it proved that in a tropical
climate they were forming their own soil, developing
their own palms, and eventually even their bread-fruit
and bananas, planting their own oats and maize, and
developing rice, wheat, and all other cereals, harvesting
these six, eight, or ten times--for aught I could see--in
one of our years,--why, then, there was no danger of
famine for them. If, as I thought, they carried up with
them heavy drifts of ice and snow in the two chambers
which were not covered in when they started, why, they
had waters in their firmament quite sufficient for all
purposes of thirst and of ablution. And what I had seen
of their exercise showed that they were in strength
sufficient for the proper development of their little
world.

Polly had the messages by heart before an hour was
over, and the little girls, of course, knew them sooner