A ROBINSON CRUSOE SITUATION.
When Todd reached the curtained doorway of the hut and looked out, he
could not have told whether he was more disappointed or relieved by the
sight that greeted him. He had fully expected to see human beings who
would either prove friends or foes. He hoped they would give him
something to eat, and at the same time feared they might kill him. But a
single glance showed him that for the moment both his fears and his
hopes were groundless. Instead of people he saw half a dozen goats
grouped in front of the doorway, and gazing at him expectantly. A little
kid among them bleated plaintively, and Todd knew in a moment that its
voice was the one he had mistaken for that of a child.
He looked eagerly about for a herdsman or a shepherd boy, for even the
tiniest Indian lad would have been welcomed just then; but none was to
be seen. In his keen disappointment he became filled with wrath at the
unoffending goats, and stepping forward with an angry gesture he bade
them begone. For an instant they seemed bewildered at such unaccustomed
treatment, and stood irresolute; but as Todd took another step towards
them they recognized him for an enemy; and scampering away, were quickly
lost to sight amid the surrounding trees.
Even before they disappeared the hungry boy regretted his hasty action.
"For," he said to himself, "I might have captured one of them, and so
have laid in a supply of food; or I might have milked the mother of that
kid. What a chump I am, anyway. Seems to me I am always acting first and
reflecting afterwards. I wonder if I can't overtake and make friends
with them even now?"
Thus thinking, he started in pursuit of the goats; but though he saw
them several times as they skipped among the trees, they easily eluded
his feeble efforts to catch them, for he was too weak to run, and they
were too well assured of his unfriendly intentions to allow him to
approach them.
"If I only had my rifle," sighed the lad. "Though what would be the good
of it anyway, for I haven't a fire nor any means of making one, and
hungry as I am I don't believe I could eat raw-goat. How do people
obtain fire under such circumstances anyhow? Matches? I haven't any. A
burning-glass? I don't suppose there is such a thing within five hundred
miles of this place. Rubbing two dry sticks together? That's all
nonsense, and I don't believe it can be done, for I've tried it, and
never succeeded in getting so much as a curl of smoke, let alone fire. I
remember reading about some fellow up in Alaska doing it. Serge
Belcofsky--yes, that was his name; but I don't believe he ever really
did. That same Serge made a fire another time with brimstone and
feathers, or at least the book said so; but as I haven't either of those
things, I don't see that it does me any good to remember it.
"Then there was Phil Ryder, who made a fire by cutting open one of his
cartridges, rubbing powder on his handkerchief, and shooting into it
with his rifle. I have plenty of cartridges, and so could get the
powder, but haven't any rifle--so that plan won't work. Flint and
steel? That's a way you hear a good deal about, though I never saw any
one really try it. Still, I suppose it can be done, and my knife will
furnish the steel if I can only find a flint. I wonder what a flint
looks like, anyway?"
By this time Todd had returned wearily to the hut and was sitting on the
stone that formed its doorstep. Now he began striking at this with the
back of his sheath-knife, and finally thought he saw a spark fly from
the point of contact; but it was such a fleeting thing, and disappeared
so instantly, that he could not be certain.
"Even if it was a spark," he said to himself, "how could anybody make a
fire from it? I should want one as big as those that fly from red-hot
horseshoes when the blacksmith pounds them, though I doubt if I could
get a blaze even then, they go out so quickly. So, Todd Chalmers, you
might as well make up your mind to go without a fire, and eat your food
raw--that is, if you get any at all, which looks very doubtful just now.
"Oh dear! What do people do when they are cast away on desert islands?
Not that this is one, but it's a desert valley, which is a great deal
worse, for the others are always in the tropics, and have bread-fruit
and things. And then the people always have wrecks to get supplies from,
the same as Robinson Crusoe did. If I only had such a snap as he had I
wouldn't say a word. Plenty of provisions, muskets, cutlasses, clothing,
turtles, grapes, and pieces of eight, besides the knowledge of how to
start a fire and make all sorts of things. No wonder he was grateful and
contented. He ought to have been. And the Swiss Family Robinson. There's
another cheerful crowd who had everything they wanted, and more than
they knew what to do with. I just wish I knew what any of those chaps
would do right here in my place at this very minute. I guess they'd find
out what soft times they had in being wrecked where they were and as
they were instead of the way I am. I suppose, though, they would start
right off into the woods, where they would run across all sorts of
fruits to eat and animals waiting to be cooked, besides everything they
needed to make houses and clothing of, so that inside of two weeks
they'd be living as comfortably and happily as though they were right
alongside a Baltimore market. They'd know how to make a fire without
matches too in at least a dozen different ways. That's what would happen
if they were book people; but if they were real live folks like I am I
don't believe they'd know any more how to get a square meal than I do at
this minute.
"Going into the woods, though, and hunting for something to eat isn't a
bad idea. There must be nuts or berries, or at least roots that would
keep a fellow from starving. I suppose some of them will be poisonous
and others won't, and the only way to find out which is which will be to
eat them. The poisonous ones will kill you and the others won't. At the
same time I shall surely die of hunger if I stay here doing nothing, and
so here goes for a breakfast."
Up to this time Todd had been so certain of finding people who would
supply him with food, that while fully realizing how faint and weak he
was growing for want of it, he had not regarded his situation as
perilous. From the moment of discovering the beautiful valley with its
abundant water, he had felt that all real danger was over. He had
imagined that the natives, after feeding him and allowing him a day's
rest in which to regain strength, would willingly guide him to the river
in return for the handsome reward that he knew he could safely promise
them in his brother's name. Now that there did not appear to be any
natives nor any food, it suddenly dawned upon our lad that he was very
little better off in this beautiful place than he had been amid all the
horrors of the Painted Desert, and it was with a decided feeling of
uneasiness that he set forth on his search for food.
He first examined two small structures that he discovered back of the
hut. One of these was evidently a fowl-house, and as soon as Todd
recognized its character he had visions of fresh eggs. "They will be
fine," he said to himself, "even if I can't cook them; for eggs are
almost as good raw as cooked, anyway." So, though he had not as yet seen
nor heard any hens, he entered the place hopefully. Yes, there were
several nests, and an egg in each one. But, alas! they were only nest
eggs that had done duty as such for so long a time that after breaking a
couple of them poor Todd was glad to make a speedy escape from their
vicinity. He was bitterly disappointed, and began to think that the
inhabitants of the valley had recently emigrated from it, taking
everything eatable, including their fowls, with them.
The other structure proved to be a corral or pen in which goats had been
confined, but now it was empty and its gate stood wide open.
Continuing his search for food wearily and despondently, our lad soon
came to several small fields, all showing traces of careful cultivation,
and all enclosed by stout fences of wattle. In these he found oats,
beans, squashes, and corn, of which the last named was the only one that
seemed edible in its raw state. So Todd began to gnaw hungrily at an ear
that had long since passed its green stage without becoming quite ripe
enough to be hard. It was merely tough and toothless. Still it could be
eaten, and served to fill, after a fashion, the aching void of which he
had long been painfully conscious.
Beyond the fields he found a small grove of peach-trees; but they had
been stripped of their fruit some time since, and what of it had fallen
to the ground had evidently been devoured by goats, so that not a single
peach rewarded his careful search.
By this time the sun stood directly overhead, and was pouring down a
heat so intense as to make him feel giddy. So the boy gathered up his
spoils, consisting of a sheaf of ripened oats, a dozen pods of beans, a
green squash, and two ears of tough corn, with which he returned to the
hut. There, after refreshing himself with a copious drink of water, he
attempted to eat in turn each of the things he had brought with him. The
green squash and raw beans were so unpalatable that he threw them out of
the door in disgust. The oats were fairly good; but extracting the
kernel from each separate grain was such slow work that he decided the
attempt to sustain life in that manner would prove only another form of
starvation.
"Oh, for a big dish of oatmeal and cream!" he exclaimed. "But I don't
suppose I shall ever see one again."
He also thought of squash pies and baked beans with regretful longings,
while the tough corn at which he gnawed with aching jaws suggested
muffins, hot cakes, corn bread, hominy, and all the other attractive
forms in which maize can be prepared, until he groaned aloud to think
how very far beyond his present reach all such things were.