Page 18 - An American Robinson Crusoe

[Illustration: ROBINSON'S TOOLS]

He had completed his hedge with the exception of a small hole that must 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 for two thistles on the outside. He could easily
get in, but the entrance was difficult to find from the outside.

Robinson looked on his hedge from without. It was not yet thick enough. For this reason he planted small
thistles between the larger ones. With the digging them out and transplanting them he was a whole week
longer.

Finally, the hedge and the yard were ready. Now Robinson could rest without fear and sleep in his cave, and
could have his goat near him all the time. It delighted him greatly. It ran after him continually like a dog.
When he came back from an absence, it bleated for joy and ran to meet him as soon as he got inside the
hedge. Robinson felt that he 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 become of me when the winter comes? I will
have no fire to warm me. I have no clothing to protect me from the cold, and where shall I find food when
snow and ice cover all the ground and when the trees are bare and the spring is frozen? It will be cold then in
my cave; what shall I do? It is cold and rainy already. I believe this is harvest time and 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 out two pieces of wood and sat down and
rubbed them together. The sweat rolled down his face. When the wood began to get warm, his hand would
become tired, and he would have to stop. When he began again the wood was cold. He worked for an hour or
two, then he laid the wood aside and 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 and snow." He looked down at his worn, thin clothing, his
trousers, his shirt, his jacket; they had become so thin and worn that they were threadbare.

"I will take the skins of the hares which I have shot and will make me something," he thought. He washed and
cleaned them, but he needed a knife and he set about making one. He split one end of a tough piece of 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 quite well. But what should he do for needle and thread? Maybe the vines would do. "But they are
hardly strong enough," he thought. He pulled the sinews from the bones of the rabbit and found them hard.
Maybe he could use them. He found fish skeletons on the seashore and bored a hole in the end of the small,
sharp rib bones. Then he threaded his bone needle with the rabbit sinews and attempted to sew, but it would
not go. His needle broke. The skin was too hard. He bored holes in the edge of the pieces of skin and sewed
through the holes. This went very well.

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

[Illustration: ROBINSON IN HIS NEW SUIT]