The Little Savage

Chapter XXIV

I awoke the next morning quite recovered from my illness of the day before, and was out of the cabin before Mrs Reichardt, who still remained behind the screen which she had put up after I had gone to sleep. It was a beautiful morning, the water was smooth, and merely rippled with a light breeze, and the sun shone bright. I felt well and happy. I lighted a fire to broil the fish for breakfast, as there was a sufficiency left, and then got my fishing-lines ready to catch some larger fish to reinhabit my pond at the bathing pool. Mrs Reichardt came out of the cabin and found me playing with Nero.

"Good morning, dear mother," said I, for I felt most kindly towards her.

"Good morning, my dear boy," replied she. "Are you quite well?"

"Quite well; and I have got my lines all ready, for I have been thinking that until the birds come, we must live on fish altogether, and we can only take them in fine weather like this; so we must not lose such a day."

"Certainly not. As soon as we have breakfasted, we will go down and fish. I can fish very well, I am used to it. We must both work now; but first go for your Bible, that we may read a little."

I did so, and after she had read a chapter she prayed, and I knelt by her side; then we breakfasted, and as soon as we had breakfasted, we set off to the bathing-pool.

"Do you know if they left anything behind them, Frank?"

"Yes," replied I, "they left some oars, I believe, and a long line and we have the shovel, and the hammer, and the boat's small sail, up at the cabin."

"Well, we shall see very soon," replied she, as we went down the path.

When we arrived at the bathing-pool, the first thing that met my eyes made me leap with joy. "Oh! mother! mother! they've left the iron pot; I did so long for it; and as I lay awake this morning, I thought that if I prayed for anything, it would be for the iron pot. I was tired of dried birds, and they ate so different when they were boiled up in the pot with potatoes."

"I am equally glad, Frank, for I do not like victuals uncooked; but now let us first see what else they have thrown out of the boat."

"Why they have put on shore three of the little casks of water," said I; "they took them all on board."

"They have so, I suppose, because the boat was too heavy, and they would not part with the liquor. Foolish men, they will now not have more than six days' water, and will suffer dreadfully."

We then looked round the rocks and found that they had left the iron kettle, three breakers, five oars, and a harpoon and staffs; a gang-board, a whale line of 200 fathoms, an old saw, a bag of broad-headed nails, and two large pieces of sheet-iron.

"That saw may be very useful to us," said Mrs Reichardt, "especially as you have files in your chest. Indeed, if we want them, we may convert one-half of the saw into knives."

"Into knives! How?"

"I will shew you; and these pieces of sheet-iron I could use again. You see the sheet-iron was put on to repair any hole which might be made in the boat, and they have thrown it out, as well as the hammer and nails. I wonder at John Gough permitting it."

"I heard them quarrelling with him as I came out yesterday to fetch you down; they would not mind what he said."

"No, or we should not have been left here," replied she; "John Gough was too good a man to have allowed it, if he could have prevented it. That sheet-iron will be very useful. Do you know what for? to broil fish on, or anything else. We must turn up the corners with the hammer. But now we must lose no more time, but fish all day long, and not think of eating till supper time."

Accordingly we threw out our lines, and the fish taking the bait freely, we soon hauled in more than a dozen large fish, which I put into the bathing-pool.

"What use can we make of that long line which they have left?"

"A good many; but the best use we can make of it, is to turn it into fishing-lines, when we require new ones."

"But how can we do that, it is so thick and heavy?"

"Yes, but I will show you how to unlay it, and then make it up again. Recollect, Frank, that I have been the wife of a Missionary, and have followed my husband wherever he went; sometimes we have been well off, sometimes as badly off as you and I are now—for a Missionary has to go through great dangers, and great hardships, as you would acknowledge if you ever heard my life, or rather that of my husband."

"Won't you tell it to me?"

"Yes, perhaps I will, some day or another; but what I wish to point out to you now is, that being his wife, and sharing his danger and privation, I have been often obliged to work hard and to obtain my living as I could. In England, women do little except in the house, but a Missionary's wife is obliged to work with the men, and as a man very often, and therefore learns to do many things of which women in general are ignorant. You understand now?"

"Oh yes. I have thought already that you appear to know more than Jackson did."

"I should think not; but Jackson was not fond of work I expect, and I am. And now, Frank, you little thought that when you so tardily went to work the other day to plant potatoes for the benefit of any one that might hereafter come to the island, that you were planting for yourself, and would reap the benefit of your own kind act; for if you had not assisted, of course I could not have done it by myself: so true it is, that even in this world you are very often rewarded for a good action."

"But are not you always?"

"No, my child, you must not expect that; but if not rewarded in this world, you will be rewarded in the next."

"I don't understand that."

"I suppose that you hardly can, but I will explain all that to you, if God spare my life; but it must be at a more seasonable time."

We continued fishing till late in the afternoon, by which time we had taken twenty-eight large fish, about seven to nine pounds' weight; Mrs Reichardt then proposed that we should leave off, as we had already provision for a fortnight.

I hauled out one more fish, which she took with her to cook for our supper, and having coiled up my lines, I then commenced, as she had told me to do, carrying up the articles left by the boat's crew at the bathing-pool. The first thing I seized upon was the coveted iron kettle; I was quite overjoyed at the possession of this article, and I had good reason to be. In my other hand I carried the saw and the bag of nails. As soon as I had deposited them at the cabin, I went down again, and before supper was ready I had brought up everything except the three breakers of water, which I left where they were, as we did not want them for present use, whatever we might hereafter. We were both rather tired, and were glad to go to bed after we had taken our supper.

Chapter XXV

When we met the following morning, my mother, as I shall in future call her, said to me, "This will be a busy day, Frank, for we have a great many arrangements to make in the cabin, so that we may be comfortable. In future the cabin must be kept much more clean and tidy than it is—but that is my business more than yours. Let us get our breakfasts, and then we will begin."

"I don't know what you want me to do," replied I; "but I will do it if I can, as soon as you tell me."

"My dear boy, a woman requires a portion of the cabin to herself, as it is not the custom for women to live altogether with men. Now, what I wish is, that the hinder part of the cabin, where you used to stow away your dried birds, should be made over to me. We have oars with which we can make a division, and then nail up seal skins, so that I may have that part of the cabin to myself. Now, do you understand what I want?"

"Yes, but the oars are longer than the cabin is wide," observed I. "How shall we manage it?"

"We have the old saw, and that will do well enough to cut them off, without its being sharpened."

"I never saw one used," replied I, "and I don't understand it."

"I will soon show you. First, we must measure the width of the cabin. I shall not take away more than one third of it."

My mother went into the cabin, and I followed her. With a piece of fishing-line, she took the width of the cabin, and then the height up to the rafters for the door posts. We then went out, and with the saw, which she showed me how to use, and which astonished me very much, when I perceived its effects, the oars were cut up to the proper length. Gimlets I had already from the sea-chest, and nails and hammer we had just obtained from the boat, so that before the forenoon was over, the framework was all ready for nailing on the seal skins. The bag of broad-headed short nails, which had been thrown on the rocks, were excellent for this purpose, and, as I had plenty of skins, the cabin was soon divided off, with a skin between the door-jambs hanging down loose, so that any one might enter. I went inside after it was complete. "But," said I, "you have no light to see what you are about."

"Not yet, but I soon will have," replied my mother. "Bring the saw here, Frank. Observe, you must cut through the side of the cabin here, a square hole of this size; three of the planks cut through will be sufficient. Begin here."

I did as she directed me, and in the course of half an hour, I had cut out of the south side of the cabin a window about two feet square, which admitted plenty of light.

"But won't it make it cold at night?" said I.

"We will prevent that," replied she, and she took out a piece of white linen, and with some broad-headed nails, she nailed it up, so as to prevent the air from coming in, although there was still plenty of light. "There," said she, "that is but a coarse job, which I will mend bye-and-bye, but it will do for the present."

"Well, it is very nice and comfortable now," said I, looking round it. "Now what shall I bring in?"

"Nothing for the bed but seal skins," said she. "I do not like the feathers. The seal skins are stiff at present, but I think we may be able to soften them bye-and-bye. Now, Frank, your chest had better come in here, as it is of no use where it is, and we will make a storeroom of it, to hold all our valuables."

"What, the diamonds?" replied I.

"My dear boy, we have articles to put into the chest, which, in our present position, are more valuable to us than all the diamonds in the world. Tell me now, yourself, what do you prefer and set most value upon, your belt of diamonds, or the iron kettle?"

"The iron kettle, to be sure," replied I.

"Exactly so; and there are many things in our possession as valuable as the iron kettle, as you will hereafter acknowledge. Now do you go and get ready some fire for us, and I will finish here by myself. Nero, keep out, sir—you are never to come into this cabin."

I went with Nero for a fish and when I returned, I determined that I would use the iron kettle. I put it on with water and boiled the fish, and I thought that it ate better than broiled on the embers, which made it too dry.

As we sat at our meal, I said, "Dear mother, what are we to do next?"

"To-morrow morning we will put the cabin into better order, and put away all our things instead of leaving them about the platform in this way. Then I will carefully look over all that we have got, and put them away in the chest. I have not yet seen the contents of the chest."

The next day it was very cloudy and, rough weather, blowing fresh. After breakfast we set to work. We cleared out the floor of the cabin, which was strewed with all manner of things, for Jackson and I had not been very particular. The whale line was coiled up and put into one corner, and every thing else was brought in and a place found for it.

"We must contrive some shelves," said my mother, "that we may put things on them, or else we never can be tidy; and we have not one except that which holds the books. I think we can manage it. We have two oars left besides the boat's yard; we will nail them along the side of the cabin, about a foot or more from it, and then we will cut some of the boat's sail, and nail the canvas from the side of the cabin to the oars, and that will make a sort of shelf which will hold our things."

I brought in the oars, they were measured and cut off and nailed up. The canvas was then stretched from the side of the cabin to the oar, and nailed with the broad-headed nails, and made two capital shelves on each side of the cabin, running from one end to the other.

"There," said my mother, "that is a good job. Now we will examine the chest and put everything away and in its place."

My mother took out all the clothes, and folded them up. When she found the roll of duck which was at the bottom, she said—

"I am glad to find this as I can make a dress for myself much better for this island than this black stuff dress which I now wear, and which I will put by to wear in case we should be taken off the island some of these days, for I must dress like other people when I am again among them. The clothes are sufficient to last you for a long while, but I shall only alter two shirts and two pair of trousers to your present size, as you will grow very fast. How old do you think you are now?"

I replied, "About sixteen years old, or perhaps more."

"I should think that was about your age."

Having examined and folded up every article of clothing in the chest, the tools, spyglass, &c., were put by me on the shelves, and then we examined the box containing the thread, needles, fishhooks, and other articles, such as buttons, &c.

"These are valuable," said she; "I have some of my own to put along with them. Go and fetch my basket, I have not yet had time to look into it since I left the ship."

"What is there in it?"

"Except brushes and combs, I can hardly say. When I travelled about, I always carried my basket, containing those things most requisite for daily use, and in the basket I put everything that I wished to preserve, till I had an opportunity to put it away. When I embarked on board of the whaler, I brought my basket on my arm as usual, but except opening it for my brushes and combs or scissors, I have not examined it for months."

"What are brushes and combs and scissors?"

"That I will shew you," replied she, opening the lid of the basket. "These are the brushes and combs for cleaning the hair, and these are scissors. Now we will take everything out."

The basket did indeed appear to contain a wonderful quantity of things, almost all new to me. There were two brushes, twelve combs, three pair of scissors, a penknife, a little bottle of ink, some pens, a woman's thimble, a piece of wax, a case of needles, thread and silk, a piece of India ink, and a camel's-hair brush, sealing-wax, sticking plaster, a box of pills, some tape and bobbin, paper of pins, a magnifying glass, silver pencil case, some money in a purse, black shoe ribbon, and many other articles which I have forgotten. All I know is that I never was so much interested ever after at any show as I was with the contents of this basket, all of which were explained to me by my mother, as to their uses, and how they were made. There were several little papers at the bottom of the basket which she said were seeds of plants, which she had collected to take to England with her, and that we would plant them here. As she shook the dust out of the basket after it was empty, two or three white things tumbled out, which she asked me to pick up and give to her.

"I don't know how they came here," said she, "but three of them are orange-pips which we will sow to-morrow, and the other is a pea, but of what kind I know not, we will sow that also—but I fear it will not come up, as it appears to me to be one of the peas served out to the sailors on board ship, and will be too old to grow. We can but try. Now we will put into the chest, with the other things that you have, what we do not want for present use, and then I can drive a nail into the side of my bedroom and hang my basket on it."

"But," said I, "this round glass—what is that for?"

"Put it on one side," replied she, "and to-morrow, if it is fine, I will shew you the use of it; but there are some things we have forgotten, which are your belt and the other articles you gave me to take for you when you thought we were to leave the island. They are in the bed-place opposite to yours."

I brought them, and she put away the mate's watch and sleeve buttons, and the other trinkets, &c., saying that she would examine the letters and papers at another time. The belt was examined, counting how many of the squares had stones in them, and then, with her scissors, she cut open one of the squares, and took out a white glittering thing like glass as it appeared to me, and looked at it carefully.

"I am no great judge of these things," said she, "but still I have picked up some little knowledge. This belt, if it contain all stones like this, must be of considerable value; now I must get out my needle and thread and sew it up again." She did, and put the belt away with the other articles in the chest. "And now," said she, "we have done a good day's work, and it is time to have something to eat."

Chapter XXVI

I must say that I was much better pleased with the appearance of the cabin, it was so neat and clean to what it had been, and everything was out of the way. The next day was a calm and clear day, and we went down to fish. We were fortunate, and procured almost as many as we had done at the previous fishing—they were all put in the bathing pool as before. When we went up to the cabin, as soon as the fish was put on the fire, under the direction of my mother, I turned up the sides of one of the pieces of sheet iron, so as to make a sort of dish. The other piece I did the same to, only not so high at the sides, as one piece was kept for baking the fish on and the other as a dish to put our dinner upon when cooked. That day we had been too busy with fishing to think of anything else, but on the following I recollected the magnifying glass, and brought it to her. She first showed me the power it had to magnify, with which I was much amused for a time, and she explained as well as she could to me the cause of its having that power, but I could not well understand her; I was more pleased with the effect than cognisant of the cause. Afterwards she sent me to the cabin for some of the dried moss which I used for tinder, and placing the glass so as to concentrate the rays of the sun, to my astonishment I saw the tinder caught fire. It was amazement more than astonishment, and I looked up to see where the fire came from. My mother explained to me, and I, to a certain degree, comprehended, but I was too anxious to have the glass in my own hands and try experiments. I lighted the tinder again-then I burnt my hand—then I singed one of the gannet's heads, and lastly, perceiving that Nero was fast asleep in the sun, I obtained the focus on his cold nose. He started up with a growl, which made me retreat, and I was perfectly satisfied with the result of my experiments. From that time, the fire was, when the sun shone, invariably lighted by the burning-glass, and very useful did I find it. As it was so portable, I always carried it with me, and when I had nothing to do, I magnified, or set fire, according to the humour of the moment.