An American Robinson Crusoe Page 3

  He practised shooting. He stuck his stone knife in a tree and shotat it the whole day long. At first he could not hit it at all. Thearrows flew far from the mark. After a while he could hit the tree,but not the knife. Then as he practised, his arm grew ever surer, untilat last he could hit the knife at almost every attempt. After a fewdays he again went rabbit hunting. He thought that the rabbit did notoffer a mark so high as his knife, so he stuck a stone in the groundand practised shooting at that. He gradually increased the distanceuntil he could hit the mark at twenty or thirty yards.

  The next morning Robinson took his bow and arrows and went out tohunt. He aimed at a rabbit, shot, and it fell, pierced by the arrow.His very first shot was successful.

  He hastened up and took the dead rabbit on his shoulder, carried itto his cave and skinned it. Then he cut off a nice, large piece ofmeat and was going to roast it, but alas, he had no fire!

  XV

  ROBINSON'S SHOES AND PARASOL

  The next morning Robinson could not get up. His feet were swollen andsore in consequence of walking without shoes over thorns and stones.He must remain the whole day in his cave.

  Before him, in the sun, his walking stick stuck in the ground. Hethought how he had been troubled yesterday to find his way and aboutthe shadow. He had now time to study it. He watched it the whole daythrough. In the morning it pointed toward the land. In the eveningtoward the sea. This comes from the daily movement of the sun. Hedetermined to study the matter more carefully.

  Robinson got up and with great effort walked to the spring. There hecooled his burning feet, and gathered some large leaves, which hebound on them. He decided to remain in his cave a few days, for hehad enough food stored up to last him some length of time. He plannedhow he might make himself a pair of shoes. As soon as his feet werewell, he sought out some thick bark and put fastenings of tough, strongfiber on it. These served very well to protect his feet.

  But he must have some further protection from the sun. It beamed sohot that his hat was not enough. He made a parasol out of leaves likehis hat. He took a straight stick for a handle. He tied some reedstogether and bent them into a hoop. He then fastened the upper endof the stick in the center of the hoop by means of six reeds whichformed the ribs of the parasol. To keep out the sun he covered thisframework with large, broad leaves. With a cord he tied the stem endsof the leaves to the stick just above where the reeds were tied.

  Spread out, these broad leaves completely covered the ribs. Their tipsreached over the hoop. They were fastened together by means of small,needle-like fish-bones Robinson had found on the beach.

  XVI

  GETTING FIRE

  Now Robinson had heard that savages take two dry pieces of wood andrub them so long on each other that they at length begin to burn.

  He tried it. The sweat ran down his cheeks, but every time the woodwas about to catch fire his strength would give out, and he wasobliged to rest, and when he began again the wood was cold.

  "How will it be in winter," he cried, "when it is cold, and I haveno fire?" He must try other ways of preparing meat for his table. Hemust think of some other way of getting fire. He remembered that once,when a boy at home, he had in playing with a stick made it hot by twirlingit on end on a piece of wood. "I will try this," he thought. Hesearched for a good hard stick and a piece of wood upon which to turnor twirl it with his hands. Having found the best materials at hand,he began to twirl the stick. He made a little hollow in the block ofwood in which to turn his upright stick. There was heat but no fire.He twirled and twirled, but he could not get the wood hot enough toblaze up or ignite. He had not skill. Besides his hands were not usedto such rough treatment. Soon they blistered and this method had tobe given up.

  "I must have fire," he still thought, and recalled the sparks thatflew from the stone pavements of the streets when the iron shoes ofthe horses struck them as they slipped and strained at their cruelloads. Why may I not get fire by striking together two stones? Hesought out two hard stones and with great diligence kept striking themtogether until his strength gave out, and he was obliged again toacknowledge failure.

  He remembered that sometimes travelers put the meat underneath thesaddle and ride on it until it is soft. He tried it with pounding.He laid some of the meat on a flat stone and pounded it. It becamequite soft and tasted very well. He then tried hanging it in the sunand finally wrapped it in leaves and buried it for a few hours in thehot sand.

  XVII

  ROBINSON MAKES SOME FURNITURE

  One thing troubled Robinson very much. He could not sit comfortablywhile eating. He had neither chair nor table. He wished to make them,but that was a big job. He had no saw, no hammer, no auger and nonails. Robinson could not, therefore, make a table of wood.

  Not far from his cave he had seen a smooth, flat stone. "Ay," thoughthe, "perhaps I can make me a table out of stone." He picked out thebest stone and built up four columns as high as a table and on thesehe laid his large, flat stone. It looked like a table, sure enough,but there were rough places and hollows in it. He wanted it smooth.He took clay and filled up the holes and smoothed it off. When theclay dried, the surface was smooth and hard. Robinson covered it withleaves and decked it with flowers till it was quite beautiful.

  When the table was done, Robinson began on a chair, He made it alsoof stone. It had no back. It looked like a bench. It was uncomfortableto sit on. Robinson covered it with moss. Then it was an easy seat.

  Table and chair were now ready. Robinson could not move them from onecorner to another, nor when he sat on the chair could he put his feetunder the table, and yet he thought them excellent pieces offurniture.

  Every day Robinson went hunting and shot a rabbit, but the meat wouldnot keep. At home they would have put it in the cellar. If only hehad a cellar! He saw near his cave a hole in the rock. He dug it outa little with his mussel shell and found that it led back under a rock.

  From much bending over in digging, Robinson's back, unused to severetoil, ached wretchedly. He decided to make a spade. With his flinthe bored four holes in a great, round mussel shell. They formed arectangle as long as a little finger and as wide. Through these holeshe drew cocoanut fibre and bound the shell to a handle fast andstrong.

  With his spade he dug a hole so deep that he could stand in itupright. Then he put in a couple of shelves made of flat stones. Inthis cellar he put his rabbit meat and his eggs. Then he laid branchesover it and finally covered the whole with leaves.

  XVIII

  ROBINSON BECOMES A SHEPHERD

  With his bow and arrow, Robinson went hunting every day. The rabbitssoon learned to know him and let themselves be seldom seen. As soonas they saw him, they took alarm. They became timid and shy. One dayRobinson went out as usual to shoot rabbits. He found none. But ashe came to a great rock he heard from behind a new sound, one he hadnot heard before in the island. Ba-a-a, it sounded.

  "A kid," thought Robinson, "like that with which I have so oftenplayed at home."

  He slipped noiselessly around the rock and behold, really there stooda kid. He tried to call it, but the kid sought safety in flight. Hehastened after it. Then he noticed that it was lame in one fore foot.It ran into some brush, where Robinson seized it by the horns and heldit fast.

  How Robinson rejoiced! He stroked it and fondled it. Then he thought,how could it come into this wilderness on this lonesome island? "Hasyour ship been cast upon the rocks too, and been broken to pieces?You dear thing, you shall be my comrade." He seized the goat by thelegs, and no matter how it kicked, carried it to his cave.

  Then he fetched quickly a cocoanut shell full of water and washed andbathed the goat's wounded leg. A stone had rolled down from the hilland had inflicted a severe wound on its left fore leg, or perhaps ithad stepped into a crack in the rocks. Robinson tore off a piece oflinen from his shirt, dipped it in water and bound it with shreds ofthe cocoanut upon the wound. Then he pulled some grass and moss andmade a soft bed near the door of the cave. After he had given it
water, it looked at him with thankful eyes and licked his hand.

  Robinson could not sleep that night. He thought continually of hisgoat and got up time and again to see if it was safe. The moon shoneclear in the heavens. As Robinson sat before the goat's bed he lookeddown on his new possession as lovingly as a mother on her child.

  The next morning Robinson's first thought was, "I am no longer alone.I have a companion, my goat." He sprang up and looked for it. Thereshe lay on her side, still sleeping.

  As he stood and considered, the thought came to him that perhaps thegoat had escaped from its keeper. There must then be some one livingon the land. He quickly put on his shoes and his hat, took hisparasol, and ran to the rock where he had found the goat.

  He called, he sought, he peered about to see if some shepherd werethere somewhere. He found nothing. He found no trace of man. Therewas no road, no bridge, no field, no logs, not even a chip or shavingto show that the hand of man had been there.

  But what was that? In the distance ran a herd of goats over the rocks.But no dog followed them and no shepherd. They ran wild on the island.They had perhaps been left there by some ship. As he came home henoticed the goat sorrowfully. The bandage had become dry. The goatmight be suffering pain. Robinson loosened the bandage, washed thewound again and bound it up anew. It was so trustful. It ran afterhim and he decided always to protect it.

  "I will always be your shepherd and take care of you," he said.

  XIX

  ROBINSON BUILDS A HOME FOR HIS GOAT

  But the goat was a new care. Wild animals could come and kill andcarry Robinson's goat away while he slept, and if the goat gotfrightened while he was hunting it would run away.

  "I will have to make me a little yard in front of my cave," he said,"for my goat to live in." But from whence must come the tools? He hadneither hatchet nor saw. Where then were the stakes to come from? Hewent in search of something. After hunting for a long time he cameupon a kind of thistle about two feet higher than himself, having atits top a red torch-like blossom. There were a great many of them.

  "Good!" thought Robinson. "If I could only dig up enough of them andplant them thick around the door of my cave, I would have just thething. No one could get at me, nor at the goat, either, The thornswould keep anything from creeping through, peeping in or gettingover."

  So he took his mussel-shell spade and went to work. It was prettyhard, but at length he succeeded in laying bare the roots of quitea number. But he could not drag them to his cave on account of thethorns sticking in him. He thought a long time. Finally, he soughtout two strong poles or branches which were turned up a little at oneend and like a sled runner. To these he tied twelve cross-pieces withbark. To the foremost he tied a strong rope made from cocoa fiber.He then had something that looked much like a sled on which to drawhis thistle-like brush to his cave. But for one day he had done enough.The transplanting of the thistles was hard work. His spade broke andhe had to make a new one. In the afternoon he broke his spade again.And as he made his third one, he made up his mind that it was no usetrying to dig with such a weak tool in the hard ground. It would onlybreak again.

  "If I only had a pick." But he had none. He found a thick, hard, sharpstone. With it he picked up the hard earth, but had to bend almostdouble in using it. "At home," he thought, "they have handles topicks." The handle was put through a hole in the iron. He turned thematter over and over in his mind, how he might put a hole through thestone. But he found no means. He searched out a branch with a crotchat one end. He tied the stone to this with strong cocoa fiber andbark.

  ROBINSON'S TOOLS]

  How his eye glistened as he looked at the new tool! Now he began towork. He first loosened up the earth with his pick, then he dug itout with his spade and planted in a high thistle. Many days he hadto work, but finally one evening the hedge was ready. He had a rowin a semicircle in front of his cave. He counted the marks on his calendartree. The day on which he had begun to make his hedge he hadespecially marked out. He had worked fourteen days.

  He had completed his hedge with the exception of a small hole thatmust serve for a door. But the door must not be seen from without.

  As Robinson thought, it came to him that there was still place fortwo thistles on the outside. He could easily get in, but the entrancewas difficult to find from the outside.

  Robinson looked on his hedge from without. It was not yet thickenough. For this reason he planted small thistles between the largerones. With the digging them out and transplanting them he was a wholeweek longer.

  Finally, the hedge and the yard were ready. Now Robinson could restwithout fear and sleep in his cave, and could have his goat near himall the time. It delighted him greatly. It ran after him continuallylike a dog. When he came back from an absence, it bleated for joy andran to meet him as soon as he got inside the hedge. Robinson felt thathe was not entirely alone. He had now a living being near him.

  XX

  ROBINSON GETS READY FOR WINTER

  There was one thing that troubled Robinson greatly. "What will becomeof me when the winter comes? I will have no fire to warm me. I haveno clothing to protect me from the cold, and where shall I find foodwhen snow and ice cover all the ground and when the trees are bareand the spring is frozen? It will be cold then in my cave; what shallI do? It is cold and rainy already. I believe this is harvest timeand winter will soon be here. Winter and no stove, no winter clothing,no winter store of food and no winter dwelling. What shall I do?"

  He considered again the project of making fire. He again sought outtwo pieces of wood and sat down and rubbed them together. The sweatrolled down his face. When the wood began to get warm, his hand wouldbecome tired, and he would have to stop. When he began again the woodwas cold. He worked for an hour or two, then he laid the wood asideand said, "I don't believe I can do it I must do the next best thing.I can at least get warm clothing to protect me from the rain andsnow." He looked down at his worn, thin clothing, his trousers, hisshirt, his jacket; they had become so thin and worn that they werethreadbare.

  "I will take the skins of the hares which I have shot and will makeme something," he thought. He washed and cleaned them, but he neededa knife and he set about making one. He split one end of a tough pieceof wood, thrust his stone blade in it and wound it with cocoa fibre.His stone knife now had a handle. He could now cut the skins quitewell. But what should he do for needle and thread? Maybe the vineswould do. "But they are hardly strong enough," he thought. He pulledthe sinews from the bones of the rabbit and found them hard. Maybehe could use them. He found fish skeletons on the seashore and boreda hole in the end of the small, sharp rib bones. Then he threaded hisbone needle with the rabbit sinews and attempted to sew, but it wouldnot go. His needle broke. The skin was too hard. He bored holes inthe edge of the pieces of skin and sewed through the holes. This wentvery well.

  He sewed the skins together with the hair side inward, made himselfa jacket, a pair of trousers, a hat, and finally covered his parasolwith rabbit skin, for the rain had already dripped through the leavesof it. All went well, only the trousers did not fit. He loosened themand puckered them to no purpose. "Anyway," he thought, "I am now wellprotected from the cold, when it does come."

  ROBINSON IN HIS NEW SUIT]

  XXI

  HOW ROBINSON LAYS UP A STORE OF FOOD

  Now for the food. Could Robinson preserve the meat? He had often heardhis mother tell about preserving meat in salt. He had even eaten saltmeat, pickled meat. But where could he get salt?

  One day when the wind blew hard the water was driven upon the shoreand filled a little hollow. After a few days the ground glistenedwhite as snow where the water had been. Was it snow? Robinson tookit in his hands and put it in his mouth. It was salt. The sun hadevaporated the water in the hollow--had vaporized it--and the air haddrunk it up. What was left behind? Salt. Now he could get salt as longas he needed it.

  He took cocoanut shells and strewed salt in them. Then he cut therabbit meat in thin strips,
rubbed them with salt, and laid them oneon the other in the salt in the shells. He covered it over with alayer of salt. He put over each shell the half of a larger one andweighted it down with stones. After a period of fourteen days he foundthe meat quite red. It had pickled.

  But he did not stop here. He gathered and stored in his cellarcocoanuts and corn in such quantities that he would be supplied fora whole winter. It seemed best to catch a number of rabbits, builda house for them and keep them. Then he could kill one occasionallyand have fresh meat. Then it came to him that goats would be much better,for they would give milk. He determined immediately to have a herdof goats. He made a string or lasso out of cocoa fibre.

  Then he went out, slipped up quietly to a herd of goats and threw thelasso over one. But the lasso slipped from the horns and the goat ranaway. The next day he had better luck. He threw the lasso, drew ittight and the goat was captured. He brought it home. He rejoiced whenhe saw that it gave milk. He was happy when he got his first cocoanutshell full of sweet rich milk. His goat herd grew. He soon had fivegoats. He had no more room in his yard. He could not provide foodenough. He must let them out. He must make another hedge around hisyard so that the goats could get food and yet be kept from going away.He got stakes from the woods and gathered them before his cave. Hesharpened them and began to drive them in the earth. But it rainedmore and more each day. He was wet through as he worked. He hadfinally to stop work, for the rain was too heavy.