by Daniel Defoe
turning that side downward, cut the otherside till I brought the plank to be about three inches thick, and smoothon both sides. Any one may judge the labour of my hands in such a pieceof work; but labour and patience carried me through that and many otherthings; I only observe this in particular, to shew the reason why somuch of my time went away with so little work, viz. that what might be alittle to be done with help and tools, was a vast labour, and required aprodigious time to do alone, and by hand.
But notwithstanding this, with patience and labour, I went through manythings, and indeed ever thing that my circumstances made necessary forme to do, as will appear by what follows.
I was now in the months of November and December, expecting my crop ofbarley and rice. The ground I had manured or dug up for them was notgreat; for, as I observed, my seed of each, was not above the quantityof half a peck; for I had lost one whole crop by sowing in the dryseason; but now my crop promised very well, when on a sudden I found Iwas in danger of losing it all again by enemies of several sorts, whichit was scarce possible to keep from it; as first, the goats, and wildcreatures which I called hares, which, tasting the sweetness of theblade, lay in it night and day, as soon as it came up, and ate it soclose, that it could get no time to shoot up into stalks.
This I saw no remedy for, but by making an enclosure about it with ahedge, which I did with a great deal of toil; and the more, because itrequired a great deal of speed; the creatures daily spoiling my corn.However, as my arable land was but small, suited to my crop, I got ittotally well fenced in about three weeks time, and shooting some of thecreatures in the day-time, I set my dog to guard it in the night, tyinghim up to a stake at the gate, where he would stand and bark all nightlong; so in a little time the enemies forsook the place, and the corngrew very strong and well, and began to ripen apace.
But as the beasts ruined me before, while my corn was in the blade, sothe birds were as likely to ruin me now, when it was in the ear; forgoing along by the place to see how it throve, I saw my little cropsurrounded with fowls of I know not how many sorts, which stood as itwere watching till I should be gone. I immediately let fly among them(for I always had my gun with me.) I had no sooner shot, but there aroseup a little cloud of fowls, which I had not seen at all, from among thecorn itself.
This touched me sensibly; for I foresaw, that in a few days they woulddevour all my hopes; that I should be starved, and never be able toraise a crop at all; and what to do I could not tell: however, Iresolved not to lose my corn, if possible, though I should watch itnight and day. In the first place, I went among it to see what damagewas already done, and found they had spoiled a good deal of it; butthat, as it was yet too green for them, the loss was not so great, butthe remainder was like to be a good crop, if it could be saved.
I stayed by it to load my gun, and then coming away, I could easily seethe thieves sitting upon all the trees about me, as if they only waitedtill I was gone away, and the event proved it to be so; for as I walkedoff as if I was gone, I was no sooner out of their sight, but theydropped down one by one into the corn again. I was so provoked, that Icould not have patience to stay till more came on, knowing that everygrain that they ate now was, as it might be said, a peck loaf to me inthe consequence; but coming up to the hedge, I fired again, and killedthree of them. This was what I wished for; so I took them up, and servedthem as we serve notorious thieves in England, viz. hanged them inchains for a terror to others. It is impossible to imagine almost, thatthis should have such an effect as it had; for the fowls would not onlynot come at the corn, but in short they forsook all that part of theisland, and I could never see a bird near the place as long as myscarecrows hung there.
This I was very glad of, you may be sure; and about the latter end ofDecember, which was our second harvest of the year, I reaped my corn.
I was sadly put to it for a scythe or a sickle to cut it down, and all Icould do was to make one as well as I could out of one of thebroad-swords, or cutlasses, which I saved among the arms out of theship. However, as my crop was but small, I had no great difficulty tocut it down: in short, I reaped it my way, for I cut nothing off but theears, and carried it away in a great basket which I had made, and sorubbed it out with my hands: and at the end of all my harvesting Ifound, that out of my half-peck of seed I had near two bushels of rice,and above two bushels and a half of barley, that is to say, by my guess,for I had no measure at that time.
However, this was a great encouragement to me; and I foresaw, that intime it would please God to supply me with bread: and yet here I wasperplexed again; for I neither knew how to grind or make meal of mycorn, or indeed how to clean it and part it; nor, if made into meal, howto make bread of it; and if how to make it, yet. I knew not how to bakeit. These things being added to my desire of having a good quantity forstore, and to secure a constant supply, I resolved not to taste any ofthis crop, but to preserve it all for seed against the next season, andin the meantime to employ all my study and hours of working toaccomplish this great work of providing myself with corn and bread.
It might be truly said, that I now worked for my bread. It is a littlewonderful, and what I believe few people have thought much upon; viz.the strange multitude of little things necessary in the providing,producing, curing, dressing, making, and finishing this one articleof bread.
I, that was reduced to a mere state of nature, found this to be my dailydiscouragement, and was made more and more sensible of it every hour,even after I got the first handful of seed corn, which, as I have said,came up unexpectedly, and indeed to a surprise. First, I had no ploughto turn the earth, no spade or shovel to dig it. Well, this I conqueredby making a wooden spade, as I observed before; but this did my work butin a wooden manner; and though it cost me a great many days to make it,yet, for want of iron, it not only wore out the sooner, but made my workthe harder, and made it be performed much worse.
However, this I bore with too, and was content to work it out withpatience, and bear with the badness of the performance. When the cornwas sowed, I had no harrow, but was forced to go over it myself, anddrag a great heavy bough of a tree over it, to scratch the earth, as itmay be called, rather than rake or harrow it.
When it was growing or grown, I have observed already how many things Iwanted, to fence it, secure it, mow or reap it, cure or carry it home,thresh, part it from the chaff, and save it. Then I wanted a mill togrind it, sieves to dress it, yeast and salt to make it into bread, andan oven to bake it in; and all these things I did without, as shall beobserved; and yet the corn was an inestimable comfort and advantage tome too; but all this, as I said, made every thing laborious and tediousto me, but that there was no help for; neither was my time so much lossto me, because I had divided it; a certain part of it was every dayappointed to these works; and as I resolved to use none of the corn forbread till I had a greater quantity by me, I had the next six months toapply myself wholly by labour and invention, to furnish myself withutensils proper for the performing all the operations necessary for themaking the corn, when I had it, fit for my use.
But first I was to prepare more land, for I had now seed enough to sowabove an acre of ground. Before I did this, I had a week's work at leastto make me a spade, which, when it was done, was a very sorry oneindeed, and very heavy, and required double labour to work with it;however, I went through that, and sowed my seeds in two large flatpieces of ground, as near my house as I could find them to my mind, andfenced them in with a good hedge, the stakes of which were all cut offthat wood which I had set before, which I knew would grow; so that inone year's time I knew I should have a quick or living hedge, that wouldwant but little repair. This work was not so little as to take me upless than three months; because great part of that time was in the wetseason, when I could not go abroad.
Within-door, that is, when it rained, and I could not go out, I foundemployment on the following occasion, always observing, that all thewhile I was at work, I diverted myself with talking to my parrot, andteaching him to speak; and I quickly learnt hi
m to know his own name; atlast, to speak it out pretty loud, Pol; which was the first word I everheard spoken in the island by any mouth but my own. This therefore wasnot my work, but an assistant to my work; for now, as I said, I had agreat employment upon my hands, as follows: viz. I had long studied, bysome means or other, to make myself some earthen vessels, which indeed Iwanted sorely, but knew not where to come at them: however, consideringthe heat of the climate, I did not doubt but, if I could find out anysuch clay, I might botch up some such pot as might, being dried by thesun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, and to hold anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; and as this wasnecessary in preparing corn, meal, &c. which was the thing I was upon, Iresolved to make some as large as I could, and fit only to stand likejars to hold what should be put into them.
It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to tell howmany awkward ways I look to raise this paste, what odd misshapen uglythings I made, how many