Page 17 - An American Robinson Crusoe

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

He called, he sought, he peered about to see if some shepherd were there somewhere. He found nothing. He
found no trace of man. There was no road, no bridge, no field, no logs, not even a chip or shaving to 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 he
noticed the goat sorrowfully. The bandage had become dry. The goat might be suffering pain. Robinson
loosened the bandage, washed the wound again and bound it up anew. It was so trustful. It ran after him 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 and carry Robinson's goat away while he
slept, and if the goat got frightened 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 had neither hatchet nor saw. Where then were the stakes to come from? He went in
search of something. After hunting for a long time he came upon a kind of thistle about two feet higher than
himself, having at its 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 and plant them thick around the door of
my cave, I would have just the thing. No one could get at me, nor at the goat, either. The thorns would keep
anything from creeping through, peeping in or getting over."

So he took his mussel-shell spade and went to work. It was pretty hard, but at length he succeeded in laying
bare the roots of quite a number. But he could not drag them to his cave on account of the thorns sticking in
him. He thought a long time. Finally, he sought out two strong poles or branches which were turned up a little
at one end and like a sled runner. To these he tied twelve cross-pieces with bark. 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 draw his
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 and he 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 use trying to dig with such a weak tool in the hard
ground. It would only break again.

"If I only had a pick." But he had none. He found a thick, hard, sharp stone. With it he picked up the hard
earth, but had to bend almost double in using it. "At home," he thought, "they have handles to picks." The
handle was put through a hole in the iron. He turned the matter over and over in his mind, how he might put a
hole through the stone. But he found no means. He searched out a branch with a crotch at one end. He tied the
stone to this with strong cocoa fiber and bark. How his eye glistened as he looked at the new tool! Now he
began to work. He first loosened up the earth with his pick, then he dug it out with his spade and planted in a
high thistle. Many days he had to work, but finally one evening the hedge was ready. He had a row in a
semi-circle in front of his cave. He counted the marks on his calendar tree. The day on which he had begun to
make his hedge he had especially marked out. He had worked fourteen days.