The Treasure Tree

by Marjory Hall

Eliza and Edward Seaward were bound for Honduras on a small brig. On Christmas Day, 1733, a violent storm wrecked their ship on the rocky shore of a Caribbean island. Eliza and Edward were real people, just married, and very much in love. Their story, told here, is based on an old and meticulously detailed diary, "edited by Jane Porter," which the author unearthed in Boston. From it she took the realistic and fascinating details about the young Robinson Crusoes, and the resourceful ways in which they struggled to survive. Determined to be a help, not a hindrance, to Edward, Eliza primly tucked up her long skirts and went to work. She learned to cook iguana and strange jungle fruit, to catch fish, weave baskets, and help Edward plant crops. He salvaged the animals and the stores from the hold of their ship, built a hut and a boat, and gradually, with his ingenuity, made life almost comfortable.

232 pages