The life of Robert Louis Stevenson for boys and girls . d- 153 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON father Stevenson smiled down with approvalon many a motley gathering. Louis oftenwondered if they reminded the old gentlemanof some of the strange people he had enter-tained years ago in Baxter Place. All about was dense, tropical undergrowth,only paths led to the house, and these mustcontinually be cut out. All carrying wasdone by two big New Zealand pack-horses. A large garden was planted - - Mrs. Steven-sons special hobby. Cocoanuts, oranges,guavas, and mangoes already grew on theestate. The ground was ver
The life of Robert Louis Stevenson for boys and girls . d- 153 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON father Stevenson smiled down with approvalon many a motley gathering. Louis oftenwondered if they reminded the old gentlemanof some of the strange people he had enter-tained years ago in Baxter Place. All about was dense, tropical undergrowth,only paths led to the house, and these mustcontinually be cut out. All carrying wasdone by two big New Zealand pack-horses. A large garden was planted - - Mrs. Steven-sons special hobby. Cocoanuts, oranges,guavas, and mangoes already grew on theestate. The ground was very fertile, andkava, the root of which is used for the Samoannational drink, pineapples, sweet potatoes,and eggplants were soon flourishing amongother things. Limes were so plentiful thatthey formed the hedge about the place;citrons were so common that they rotted onthe trees. All this ground-breaking, house-building,and gardening were new to Stevenson, and herevelled in them to the neglect of his writing. This is a hard and interesting and beauti- 154. VAILIMA ful life we lead now, he wrote to SidneyColvin. Our place is in a deep cleft ofVaea Mountain; some six hundred feet abovethe sea, embowered in forest, which is ourstrangling enemy, and which we combatwith axes and dollars. I am crazy over out-door work, and had at last to confine myselfto the house, or literature must have goneby the board. Nothing is so interesting asweeding, clearing, and pathmaking; the over-sight of laborers becomes a disease; it isquite an effort not to drop into the farmer;and it does make you feel so well. To comedown covered with mud and drenched withsweat and rain after some hours in the bush,change, rub down, and take a chair in theverandah, is to taste a quiet conscience. Before his arrival in Apia, Stevensons taleof The Bottle Imp had been translatedinto Samoan by the missionaries. When thenatives discovered he was its author they im-mediately named him Tusitala, The Teller-of-Tales. He still
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