The death of George Prest was lamented as a public misfortune in the settlement; for he was not only a dutiful son and an amiable companion, but one of the most ready and industrious of the labourers for the community. A sudden damp seemed to be cast over all the plans and doings of the little society by this event, and the affairs which had been most interesting in the morning had lost their interest by night.—The water flowed into the finished trenches, and no one looked on but the one labourer and Mr. Stone who finished the work; and when, the next morning, the young corn which had been parched and withered began already to show signs of revival, no one smiled at this promise of fruitfulness. The little company walked in silence to their cave at night, and seemed unwilling to be roused by the dawn. The fathers grasped the hands of their children, as if some danger was at hand; and it was long before any mother in the settlement would allow her little ones to go out of her sight. It was an affecting thing to observe how George was missed by every body;—a sure sign what a valuable member of society he had been. His father and mother mourned him in silence, but the little children, who could not be made to understand what had happened, were continually asking for him. “I want George. Where is George?” was the daily complaint of little Mary and some of her playmates; and long after they had become accustomed to his absence, and had ceased to mention him, his older friends felt the same want, though they did not express it. The captain himself often said in his heart, “I wish George was here.” As the captain was going his rounds a few days after the funeral, he stopped to look on while Harrison worked at the reed-house. Harrison looked grave,—almost sulky. “I’ll tell you what, captain,” said he, “it is too bad to expect so much of me as you seem to do. Unless I have more help, I shall never get a roof over our heads before the rains come. ’Tis a folly to expect it.” “That is just what I was thinking about,” said the captain. “Mr. Stone told me this morning that the wind has changed a little, and that he thinks we shall be in for the rainy season ten days hence. What help would you like?” “As much as ever you can spare me,” answered Harrison. “If we had half a dozen hands, the work would go on a dozen times as fast, for I lose much of my time in turning from one thing to another, and so does my man. Before he has brought reeds enough, I want them made up in bundles to my hand; and before he has tied three or four bundles, he wants more thongs. And then again the clay might be drying on the parts that are done if it was ready, and somebody was here to plaster; and if I set about that, I am directly told that the first thing to be done is to cover in the part that is reared, in case of the rains coming; but then the wood (whatever it is to be) for the roof is not ready, nor yet the thatch: and so we go on.”