CHAPTER TEN

Friday's New Life

Now that there were two of us on the island, I had to grow enough corn to feed us both. To do this, I needed more ground to plant seeds in. I chose a place and showed Friday how to get the ground ready for planting. He began to work very happily. When the ground was cleared, we put up a fence around it.

That was my happiest time on the island. Friday was an honest, loyal and loving servant. He did everything that I asked him to do. When he learned some English, we would talk together at night.

I taught Friday how to shoot a gun. He became very good at this.

I taught him how to milk the goats, and make butter and cheese.

I showed him how to make baskets.

Actually, I taught him everything that I had had to learn for myself! Soon he was as good at these things as I was.

I told him the story of how I got to the island. He wanted to see the pieces of the old ship, so we walked down to the beach. These pieces still lay where they had been washed onto the beach, long ago.

When he saw the old ship, he said, "Me see this kind of boat. It came to my country."

At first I did not understand this. But as we talked, I learned that some years ago, a ship had crashed into the rocks near the mainland, which was close to the island. Friday and his people had rescued seventeen white men from this ship.

"What did you do with them?" I asked.

"They live, they dwell at my nation," Friday said.

It turned out that for four years the white men had lived with Friday's people.

"Your people don't eat these men?" I asked.

"No! My people not eat other men! Only bad savages do that," Friday said. "My people make white men their brothers."

Not long after that day we were standing on the top of a hill. Suddenly Friday looked out to sea and said, "Oh, I happy! There see my country, my nation!"

He sounded very happy to see his own country again. I took him to the other side of the island, where I kept the canoe I had made before he came.

"Is this boat big enough to take us to your country?" I asked.

Friday shook his head.

A few days later, I took him to the place where, years before, I had made a boat that was too big and heavy to get into the water. The old pieces of that boat were still there. I asked Friday if this kind of boat would be big enough to take us.

He nodded. "Would carry enough food, drink, other things," he said.

"All right," I said. "Let's start building another one!"

Friday found a good tree and began to chop it down. After I showed him how to use an axe, he completed the job very well.

When the inside of the boat was finished, we pushed it into the water. That job took us almost two weeks, because the boat was so heavy. Then, I put a very tall thin tree on the boat for the mast. Then I made a sail from old pieces of cloth.

While I made these things, Friday made a fence around the boat in the shallow water, to keep too much water from coming in. We made a dock so that we could tie the boat up. Next, we covered the boat with tree branches to keep the rain off. Now there was nothing more to be done, but to wait for November and December. I thought that if we went to sea during these months, the weather would be good, so we could reach Friday's country.

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