Part 13 (1/2)
”The eider-duck skin is very warm, having, besides its thick coat of feathers, a heavy underlayer of soft warm down, which, as I told you before, the ducks pick off to line their nests with. The skins are also very strong, as well as warm.
”Now, however, as at other times since we had been cast away, good fortune came to us; and we had scarcely begun seriously to feel the need of sewing materials before they were thrown in our way, as if providentially. It happened thus:--
”In cutting the blubber from the dead narwhal, we had quite exposed the strong sinews of the tail, without, however, for a moment imagining that we were preparing the way to a most important and useful discovery.
After a while this sinew had become partially dried in the sun, and one day, while busy with some one of our now quite numerous occupations, I was much surprised to see the Dean running towards me from the beach, and was still more surprised when I heard him crying out, 'I have it, I have it!'
”It seemed to me that the Dean was always having something, and I was more than ever curious to know what it was this time.
”He had been down to the beach, and, observing some of the dried sinew, had begun to tear it to pieces; and in this way he found out that he could make threads of it, and he immediately set off to tell me about it. We at once went together down to the beach, and, cutting off all that we could get of this strong sinew, we spread it upon the rocks, that it might dry more thoroughly.
”In a few days the sun had completely dried and hardened a great quant.i.ty of this stuff; and we found that, when we came to pick it to pieces, we could make, if we chose, very fine threads of it,--as fine and as strong as ordinary silk. This was a great discovery truly, as it was the only thing now wanting, except some cooking utensils, to complete our domestic furniture. As for the latter, it was some time before we invented anything; but thus far we had been occupied with what seemed to be more important concerns. Over on the opposite side of the island I found some stones of very soft texture; and, upon trying them with my knife, I discovered that they were precisely the same kind of stones that I had often found at home, and which we there called soapstone. Upon making further search there proved to be quite an extensive vein of it; and since I knew that in civilized countries griddles are made out of soapstone, I concluded at once that other kinds of cooking utensils might be made as well. Accordingly I carried to our hut several pieces of it, and there they lay for a good while, until I could find leisure to carve some pots and other things out of them.
”Thus you see we were getting along very well, steadily collecting those things which were necessary as well for our comfort as our safety. If the island on which we had been cast away was barren and inhospitable, it was none the less capable, like almost every other land, in whatever region of the earth, of furnis.h.i.+ng subsistence to men.
”When we saw what we could do with the sinew of the narwhal, we immediately set about preparing some bedclothes for ourselves. This we did by squaring off the duck-skins with my knife, and then sewing them tightly together. Thus we obtained, not only a soft bed to lie upon, but a good warm quilt to cover us.
”This done, we went back to the cooking utensils, which you may be sure we were very much in need of. Out of a good large block of soapstone, by careful digging with the knife, we soon made quite a good-sized pot, which was found to answer perfectly. We could now change our diet a little,--at least, I should say, the manner of cooking it; for while we could before only fry our ducks and eggs on flat stones, when we got the pot we could boil them. This gave us great pleasure, as we were getting very tired of having but one style of food; still I cannot say that there was so very much occasion for being over-glad, as at best it was only ducks and eggs, and eggs and ducks, like the boy you have heard of in the story, who had first mush and milk, and then, for variety, milk and mush.
”So one day the Dean said to me, 'Hardy, can't we catch some of these little birds,--auks you call them?' 'How?' said I. 'I don't know,' said he; so we were just as well off as we had been before. But this set us to thinking again; and the birds being very tame, and flying low, it occurred to us that we might make a net, and fasten it to the end of our narwhal horn, which we had thus far only used while making our hut.
Luckily for us, the Dean--who, I need hardly say, was a very clever boy in every sense--had learned from one of the sailors the art of net-making; and out of some of the narwhal sinew he contrived, in two days, to construct quite a good-sized net. And now the difficulty was to stretch it; but by this time our inventive faculties had been pretty well sharpened, and we were not long in finding that we could make a perfect hoop by las.h.i.+ng together three seal ribs which we picked up on the beach; and, having fastened this hoop securely to the narwhal horn, we sallied forth to the north side of the island, where the auks were most abundant.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Changing the Diet again.]
”Hiding ourselves away among the rocks, we waited until a flock of the birds flew over us. They flew very low,--not more than five feet above our heads. When they were least expecting it, I threw up the net, and three of them flew bang into it. They were so much stunned by the blow, that only one of them could flutter out before I had drawn in the net; and the Dean was quick enough to seize the remaining two before they could escape. This, being the first experiment, gave us great encouragement, as it was more successful than we had ventured to hope.
We went on with the work, without pausing, for several hours, looking upon it as great sport, as indeed it was; and since it was the first thing we had done on the island that seemed like sport, the day was always remembered by us with delight.
”So now you see we had begun to mingle a little pleasure with our life; and this was a very important matter, for you know the old saying, 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.'”
CHAPTER XIII.
The Ancient Mariner takes the Little People on a Little Voyage; and the Little People become convinced that an Arctic Winter, an Aurora Borealis, and an Ancient Mariner, are very Wonderful Things.
A lively breeze was blowing over the little village of Rockdale, and in a lively way the tall trees were bending down their heads, and swinging to and fro as if they liked it; for the leaves were beating time, and were singing joyously, and appeared to be saying all the while how glad they would be to keep beating time and singing on forever, if the wind would only please to be so good as to help them on in the joyous business; and the tall gra.s.s and grain were s.h.i.+ning in the sun, and rolling round in a very reckless manner, as if they meant to show off their great billows of green and gold, and make the staid and sober little waves that were ruffling up the surface of the bright blue waters of the bay quite ashamed.
”Ha, ha!” laughed our ancient friend, the Captain, when he saw what a day it was. ”Ha, ha! what a day indeed!” and right away he began to call loudly for his boy, Main Brace,--
”Main Brace, Main Brace, come here! Come, bear a hand, and be lively there, you plum-duff, chuckle-headed young landlubber, and waddle along aft here on your sausage legs.”
A feeble voice is heard to answer from the galley,--”Ay, ay, sir; comin', sir, comin'”; and the plum-duff head and the sausage legs follow feebly in after the voice, looking surprised.
”Main Brace,”--begins the Captain.
”Ay, ay, sir,” responds Main Brace; and the plum-duff head lets fall its lower jaw, and looks amazed, the Captain is so much in earnest.
”Some bait, Main Brace! Do you hear, my lad? Be lively, boy, and get some bait; and then overhaul the _Alice_, and stand by to be ready when I come down. We'll go a-fis.h.i.+ng to-day,--do you hear, my boy? And we'll have a jolly time,--do you hear that? So be lively now, and be off with your plum-duff head and your sausage legs. I tell you, away, away! for we'll go a-sailin'. Away, away! for we'll go a-sailin', a-sailin', a-sailin'. Away, away! for we'll go a-sailin',--a-sailin' on the sea.”