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Strauch, Dora; Brockmann, Walter / Satan came to Eden
(1936)
Chapter XIX: The Baroness is disappointed, pp. 195-203
Page 195
Chapter XIX: THE BARONESS IS DISAPPOINTED HERR WrrrMER WENT DOWN TO BLACK get his skiff and row round to the Bay ihether mail had come, he would drop iedo and ask us if there was anything ed him to do for us. One day early in February he came by for this purpose and stopped awhile to tell us the neighborhood news. Up at the caves, the social atmosphere was very sultry and it could not be long, he said, before he and his neighbors had a show- down. We believed him when he said that he was a man who would do almost anything for the sake of peace, and make a thousand compromises rather than fight; but too much was too much, he said, and he was almost at the end of nerves and patience. It was no easy matter to raise the baby on Floreana, and they had waited in some anxiety for the arrival of forty tins of con- densed milk they had ordered. This indispensable supply had not arrived and his wife was very worried, for there was no chance whatever of obtaining milk otherwise. It was impossible to ask the Baroness to sell them milk from her cows even if she had been willing to do so for a high price, because the poor beasts were in the last stages of neglect, almost of starvation, and could prob- ably not have produced a cupful between them. While they were waiting for the tinned milk to arrive, he said, they often thought what an irony it was to have a herd of good strong cattle roaming on the pampa but quite impossible to domesticate. It was Captain Hancock who had been kind enough to say that, as he was return- ing so soon to the island, he would be glad to bring not only the milk but blankets also, and a bolt of cotton for clothes. Meanwhile the Captain had come and gone again, and Wittmer had not seen him. He had gone down to the Bay but the supplies had not been landed. He could not help suspecting that there was something very odd about this, as Captain Hancock would certainly not have left the baby in the lurch like that. A day or two later the Baroness had sent Philippson over with a few blankets "which she hoped Frau Wittmer might care to make use of." There was no great friendliness in this action, for the things 195
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