File:Robert Louis Stevenson (1915) (14598239549).jpg

Identifier: robertlouissteven00crus (find matches)
Title: Robert Louis Stevenson
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Cruse, Amy, 1870-1951
Subjects: Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894
Publisher: London : George G. Harrap
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

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nteresting as weeding,clearing and path-making. He was obliged tomake stern resolutions to confine himself to thehouse, or no literary work at all would have beendone ; and, with the heavy expenses of establishinga plantation and building a house added to thosealready incurred in the South Sea cruises, there wasurgent need for this money-making labour. Butoften the temptation to be bossing his labourersand working with his hands at outdoor matters becametoo strong to be resisted, and he would steal half-guiltily away. He had always exulted in manuallabour, probably because the chances of undertakingit had come so seldom in his life; and now, in thekindly Samoan air, he really felt that he could worklike other men. He laboured with his boys,cutting down bush and burning out tree-stumpstill his hands were blistered and torn. He foughtgreat fights with the tuitui, or sensitive plant, thatsingular, insidious thing which was the deadliestenemy the island planters had to deal with ; and 142
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Vailima he had hand-to-hand skirmishes with the wild limethat fought so tenaciously with its spines and elasticsuckers. Moreover, he conceived the plan of makinga path up the Vaituliga—one of his 8 five streams —single-handed, and stole away gleefully to this workwhenever he could make an opportunity, labouringhard and secretly so that his path might ;i burstupon the public complete. He was stung bypoisonous plants, and nearly hung by the toughlianas; he waded knee-deep in ice-cold streams,and came home looking like a ;< mud-statue —and all this during November and December, themonths which, had he been in England, he wouldhave passed in a sick-room with terrors of colds andalarms of haemorrhages. It is, after all, not wonder-ful that he loved his home in the South Seas. Each day, moreover, had its unexpected alarmsand excursions. First it was the black sow whichgot loose and for twelve hours baffled the attemptsof the entire family and eight hired ; boys to re-capture her ;

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