The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old FavoritesTappan, Eva March
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The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites
Tappan, Eva March
Children's stories; Literature -- Adaptations
I was at a strange loss to understand this, and resolved to spend some
time in the observing it, to see if nothing from the sets of the tide
had occasioned it. But I was presently convinced how it was, viz.,
that the tide of ebb setting from the west, and joining with the
current of waters from some great river on the shore, must be the
occasion of this current; and that according as the wind blew more
forcibly from the west, or from the north, this current came near, or
went farther from the shore; for waiting thereabouts till evening, I
went up to the rock again, and then the tide of ebb being made, I
plainly saw the current again as before, only that it run farther off,
being near half a league from the shore; whereas in my case it set
close upon the shore, and hurried me and my canoe along with it,
which, at another time, it would not have done.
This observation convinced me that I had nothing to do but to observe
the ebbing and the flowing of the tide, and I might very easily bring
my boat about the island again. But when I began to think of putting
it in practice, I had such a terror upon my spirits at the remembrance
of the danger I had been in that I could not think of it again with
any patience; but, on the contrary, I took up another resolution,
which was more safe, though more laborious; and this was, that I would
build, or rather make me another _periagua_, or canoe, and so have one
for one side of the island, and one for the other.
You are to understand that now I had, as I may call it, two
plantations in the island; one, my little fortification or tent, with
the wall about it, under the rock, with the cave behind me, which, by
this time, I had enlarged into several apartments or caves, one within
another. One of these, which was the driest and largest, and had a
door out beyond my wall or fortification, that is to say, beyond where
my wall joined to the rock, was all filled up with the large earthen
pots, of which I have given an account, and with fourteen or fifteen
great baskets, which would hold five or six bushels each, where I laid
up my stores of provision, especially my corn, some in the ear, cut
off short from the straw, and the other rubbed out with my hand.
As for my wall, made, as before, with long stakes or piles, those
piles grew all like trees, and were by this time grown so big, and
spread so very much, that there was not the least appearance, to any
one's view, of any habitation behind them.
Near this dwelling of mine, but a little farther within the land, and
upon lower ground, lay my two pieces of corn ground, which I kept duly
cultivated and sowed, and which duly yielded me their harvest in its
season; and whenever I had occasion for more corn, I had more land
adjoining as fit as that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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