Shipwrecked Six Pack (Illustrated)

Chapter XIV-2

Presently the boys returned, and we prepared for a most appetizing meal which the mother set before us.

While we were discussing the roast pig, and washing it down with fragrant mead, Fritz described the day's expedition.

They had set their traps near Woodlands, and had there captured the muskrats, attracting them with small carrots, while with other traps, baited with fish and earth-worms, they had caught several beaver rats, and a duck-billed platypus. Hunting and fishing had occupied the rest of the day, and it was with immense pride that Jack displayed the kangaroo which he had run down with his swift courser. Contributions to the garden had not been forgotten, and Fritz handed over to his mother several cuttings from cinnamon and sweet-apple trees. Finally, when all the other treasures had been displayed, Fritz begged me to examine his thistles which he had gathered, thinking, he said, that it was a plant used in the manufacture of wool. He was perfectly right, for I recognized it at once as the "fuller's teasel," a plant whose sharp little thorns, which cover the stem and leaves, are used to raise the nap of cloth.

We resolved to be up betimes the following morning, that we might attend to the preparation of the booty, and as I now noticed that the boys were all becoming extremely drowsy, I closed the day with evening devotions.

The number of the creatures we killed rendered the removal of their skins a matter of no little time and trouble. It was not an agreeable task at any time, and when I saw the array of animals the boys had brought me to flay, I determined to construct a machine which would considerably lessen the labor. Among the ship's stores, in the surgeon's chest, I discovered a large syringe. This, with a few alterations, would serve my purpose admirably. Within the tube I first fitted a couple of valves, and then, perforating the stopper, I had in my possession a powerful air pump.

The boys stared at me in blank amazement when, armed with this instrument, I took up the kangaroo, and declared myself ready to commence operations.

"Skin a kangaroo with a squirt?" said they, and a roar of laughter followed the remark.

I made no reply to the jests which followed, but silently hung the kangaroo by its hind legs to the branch of a tree. I then made a small incision in the skin, and inserting the mouth of the syringe forced air with all my might between the skin and the body of the animal. By degrees the hide of the kangaroo distended, altering the shape of the creature entirely.

Still I worked on, forcing in yet more air until it had become a mere shapeless mass, and I soon found that the skin was almost entirely separated from the carcass. A bold cut down the belly, and a few touches here and there where the ligatures still bound the hide to the body, and the animal was flayed.

"What a splendid plan!" cried the boys; "but why should it do it?"

"For a most simple and natural reason," I replied; "do you not know that the skin of an animal is attached to its flesh merely by slender and delicate fibers, and that between these exist thousands of little bladders or air chambers; by forcing air into these bladders the fibers are stretched, and at length, elastic as they are, cracked. The skin has now nothing to unite it to the body, and, consequently, may be drawn off with perfect ease. This scientific fact has been known for many years; the Greenlanders make constant use of it; when they have killed a seal or walrus, they distend the skin that they may tow the animal more easily ashore, and then remove its hide at a moment's notice."

The remaining animals were subjected to the same treatment, and, to my great joy, in a couple of days the skins were all off, and being prepared for use.

I now summoned the boys to assist me in procuring blocks of wood for my crushing machine, and the following day we set forth with saws, ropes, axes, and other tools. We soon reached the tree I had selected for my purpose, and I began by sending Fritz and Jack up into the tree with axes to cut off the larger of the high branches that, when the tree fell, it might not injure its neighbors. They then descended, and Fritz and I attacked the stem. As the easiest and most speedy method we used a saw, such a one as is employed by sawyers in a saw-pit, and Fritz taking one end and I the other, the tree was soon cut half through. We then adjusted ropes that we might guide its fall, and again began to cut. It was laborious work, but when I considered that the cut was sufficiently deep we took the ropes and pulled with our united strength. The trunk cracked, swayed, tottered, and fell with a crash.

The boughs were speedily lopped off, and the trunk sawed into blocks four feet long.

To cut down and divide this tree had taken us a couple of days, and on the third we carted home four large and two small blocks, and with the vertebra joints of the whale I, in a very short time, completed my machine.

While engaged on this undertaking I had paid little attention to our fields of grain, and, accordingly, great was my surprise when one evening the fowls returned, showing most evident indifference to their evening meal, and with their crops perfectly full. It suddenly struck me that these birds had come from the direction of our cornfield. I hurried off to see what damage they had done, and then found to my great joy that the grain was perfectly ripe.

The amount of work before us startled my wife. This unexpected harvest, which added reaping and threshing to the fishing, salting, and pickling already on hand, quite troubled her.

"Only think," said she, "of my beloved potatoes and manioc roots! What is to become of them, I should like to know? It is time to take them up, and how to manage it, with all this press of work, I can't see."

"Don't be down-hearted, wife," said I; "there is no immediate hurry about the manioc, and digging potatoes in this fine, light soil is easy work compared to what it is in Switzerland, while as to planting more, that will not be necessary if we leave the younger plants in the ground. The harvest we must conduct after the Italian fashion, which, although anything but economical, will save time and trouble, and as we are to have two crops in the year, we need not be too particular."

Without further delay, I commenced leveling a large space of firm, clayey ground to act as a threshing floor; it was well sprinkled with water, rolled, beaten, and stamped; as the sun dried the moisture it was watered anew, and the treatment continued until it became as flat, hard, and smooth as threshing floor need be.

Our largest wicker basket was then slung between Storm and Grumble; we armed ourselves with reaping hooks, and went forth to gather in the corn in the simplest and most expeditious manner imaginable.

I told my reapers not to concern themselves about the length of the straw, but to grasp the corn where it was convenient to them, without stooping; each was to wind a stalk around his own handful, and throw it into the basket; in this way great labor was saved. The plan pleased the boys immensely, and in a short time the basket had been filled many times, and the field displayed a quantity of tall, headless stubble, which perfectly horrified the mother, so extravagant and untidy did she consider our work.

"This is dreadful!" cried she; "you have left numbers of ears growing on short stalks, and look at that splendid straw completely wasted! I don't approve of your Italian fashion at all."

"It is not a bad plan, I can assure you, wife, and the Italians do not waste the straw by not cutting it with the grain; having more arable than pasture land, they use this high stubble for their cattle, letting them feed in it, and eat what grain is left; afterward, allowing the grass to grow up among it, they mow all together for winter fodder. And now for threshing, also in Italian fashion. We shall find it spare our arms and backs as much in that as in reaping."

The little sheaves were laid in a large circle on the floor, the boys mounted Storm, Grumble, Lightfoot, and Hurry, starting off at a brisk trot, with many a merry jest, and round they went, trampling and stamping out the grain, while dust and chaff flew in clouds about them.

My wife and I were incessantly occupied with hay-forks, by means of which we shook up and moved the sheaves over which the threshers rode, so as to throw them in the track.

From time to time the animals took mouthfuls of the tempting food they were beating out; we thought they well deserved it, and called to mind the command given to the Jews, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn."

After threshing, we proceeded to winnowing; by simply throwing the threshed corn with shovels high in the air when the land or sea-breeze blew strong, the chaff and refuse was carried away by the wind and the grain fell to the ground.

During these operations our poultry paid the threshing-floor many visits, testifying a lively interest in the success of our labors, and gobbling up the grain at such a rate that my wife was obliged to keep them at a reasonable distance; but I would not have them altogether stinted in the midst of our plenty. I said, "Let them enjoy themselves; what we lose in grain, we gain in flesh. I anticipate delicious chicken-pie, roast goose, and boiled turkey!"

When our harvest stores were housed, we found that we had reaped sixty, eighty, even a hundred fold what had been sown. Our garner was truly filled with all manner of store.

Expecting a second harvest, we were constrained to prepare the field for sowing again, and immediately therefore commenced mowing down the stubble. While engaged in this, flocks of quails and partridges came to glean among the scattered ears. We did not secure any great number, but resolved to be prepared for them next season, and by spreading nets, to catch them in large quantities.

My wife was satisfied when she saw the straw carried home and stacked; our crop of maize, which of course had not been threshed like the other corn, afforded soft leaves which were used for stuffing mattresses, while the stalks, when burnt, left ashes so rich in alkali as to be especially useful.

I changed the crops sown on the ground to rye, barley, and oats, and hoped they would ripen before the rainy season.

The shoals of herring made their appearance just as we finished our agricultural operations. This year we pickled only two barrels of them; but we were not so merciful toward the seals, which arrived on the coast directly afterward. We hunted them vigorously, requiring their skins for many purposes, more especially for the completion of the cajack. On the little deck of that tiny vessel I had made a kind of magazine, in which to store pistols, ammunition, water, and provisions, and this I meant to cover with sealskin, so as to be quite watertight. A couple of harpoons furnished with seal bladders were to be suspended alongside.