Page 424 - Child's own book

crows hang there. When the corn was ripe, I made me a
scvthe with a sword,and cutoff none but the ears, which I rubbed
out with my hands. At the end of my harvest, I guessed I had
a bushel of rice, and two bushels and a half of barley. I kept all
this for seed, and bore the want of bread with patience, as I had
now a tolerable prospcct of having as much as I wanted.
This article of bread was a great difficulty ; I had neither
plough nor harrow. For the first I made my shovel do; and
to supply the place of a harrow, I went over it myself, dragging
after me the heavy boughs of a tree; and when I camc to make
bread, I had innumerable wants; I wanted a mill to grind it,
sieves to dress it, yeast and malt to make it into bread, and an
oven to bake it. However, I had six months to contrive all
these things in. In the mean time 1 enlarged my arable land.
1 made me some misshapen pots of clay, that all broke in the
sun except two, which I cased in wicker work ; hut I succeeded
better in litile pans, flat dishes, and pitchers, which the sun
baked surprisingly hard ; lmt they would not hear the fire so as
to boil any liquid, and I wanted to boil my meat. One day,
after 1 had dressed my dinner, I went to put out my fire, and
found a piece of one of my earthen vessels burnt as hard as a
stone, and as red as a tile ; this taught me to burn my pipkins ;
and J soon wanted for no sort of earthen vessels. When I found
that I h<id a pot that would bear the fire, 1 set it on with a piece
of kid, in order to make me some broth, which answered toler­
ably well. 1 made me a wooden mortar and pestle, and also a
sieve, out of some of the seamen’s ncckcloths; and at length
made a sort of oven, of a broad shallow' earthen vessel, and a
tiled hearth. When I baked, I drew the live embers forwards
upon the hearth, till it was very hot; then sweeping them away,
I set down my loaves, whelming the earthen pot over them,
which baked my barley bread as well as the best oven in the

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