One day when the children had grown to man's and woman's estate the
mother called them all together and said to them, "I want to tell you
the story of your father and of this island," and she told them the
simple story that is written here.

"And now," she said, "as you go out into the world I want each of you to
take with you the spirit of your father's work, and each in your own way
and place, to do as he has done: make you the world a bit more beautiful
and better because you have been in it. That is your mother's message to
you."

The first son to leave the island home went with a band of hardy men to
South Africa, where they settled and became known as "the Boers."
Tirelessly they worked at the colony until towns and cities sprang up
and a new nation came into being: The Transvaal Republic. The son became
secretary of state of the new country, and to-day the United States of
South Africa bears tribute, in part, to the mother's message to "make
the world a bit more beautiful and better."

The second son left home for the Dutch mainland, where he took charge of
a small parish; and when he had finished his work he was mourned by king
and peasant as one of the leading clergymen of his time and people.

A third son, scorning his own safety, plunged into the boiling surf on
one of those nights of terror so common to that coast, rescued a
half-dead sailor, carried him to his father's house, and brought him
back to a life of usefulness that gave the world a record of
imperishable value. For the half-drowned sailor was Heinrich Schliemann,
the famous explorer of the dead cities of Troy.