Time flew by with rapid wing, and the infant colony prospered in many ways, though not in all.

 

One day John Adams took down his gun from the pegs on which it rested above the door of his hut. Saying to his wife that he was going to shoot a few cats and bring home a pig for supper, he sallied forth, and took the footpath that led to one of the darkest recesses of the lonely island.

 

Lest the reader should imagine that Adams was a cruel man, we must explain that, several years having elapsed since the landing of the mutineers on Pitcairn, the cats had by that time multiplied excessively, and instead of killing the rats, which was their duty, had taken to hunting and devouring the chickens. For this crime the race of cats was condemned to death, and the sentence was put in force whenever opportunity offered.

 

Fortunately, the poultry had also multiplied quickly, and the hogs had increased to such a degree that many of them had been allowed to take to a wild life in the woods, where they were hunted and shot when required for food. Sporting, however, was not often practised, because the gunpowder which had been saved from the Bounty had by this time sensibly diminished. Strange to say, it did not seem to occur to any of the men that the bow and arrow might become of use when guns became useless. Probably they looked upon such weapons with contempt, for they only made little bows, as playthings for the children, with harmless, blunt-headed arrows.

 

On turning from the clearing into the bush, Adams came on a sight which amused him not a little. In an open place, partially screened from the sun by the graceful leaves of palms and bananas, through which was obtained a glimpse of the sea, Otaheitan Sally was busily engaged in playing at “school.” Seated on the end of a felled tree was Thursday October Christian, who had become, as Isaac Martin expressed it, a great lout of a boy for his age.

 

Thursday was at the head of the class, not in virtue of his superior knowledge, but his size. He was a strong-made fellow, with a bright, intelligent, good-humoured face, like that of his father. Next to him sat little Matt Quintal, rather heavy and stupid in expression, but quiet and peaceable in temperament, like his mother. Next came Daniel McCoy, whose sharp sparkling countenance seemed the very embodiment of mischief, in which quality he resembled his father. Fortunately for little Dan, his mother was the gentlest and most unselfish of all the native women, and these qualities, transmitted to her son, were the means of neutralising the evil which he inherited from his father. After him came Elizabeth Mills, whose pretty little whitey-brown face was the counterpart of her mother’s in expression. Indeed, all of these little ones inherited in a great degree that sweet pliability of character for which the Otaheitan women were, and we believe still are, famous. Last, but not least, sat Charlie Christian at the bottom of the class.

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