The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 208: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

204 Whether this was done or not I do not know. I do know, however, that after buffeting the waves for many hours and. suffering untold hardships, the boat we were in was capsized. | “Thad my little girl in my arms, and as we went over I took her in my right arm and with my left hand grasped my wife’s hair. This, of course, left me powerless to swim. But I felt that there was little hope of any of us living and wished to die, if we must, together. “T heard cries all around me at first, but in the darkness, for it was at night, I saw nothing of any of the others. Al- most as soon as we had returned to the surface after our first plunge, I felt something strike me, and discovered it to be our overturned boat. “‘T hesitate to speak of the herculean efforts I made to get all three upon that boat. I placed Mary on the keel, and as I tried to help my wife up, the child would plunge in again. Time after time I had that experience, and as the child was growing weaker, and my strength becoming exhausted, the chances for life were slim indeed. “But somehow, I never knew how, my wife suddenly made a superhuman effort, and actually lifted herself to the keel. She then took the child while [ climbed up to her. “We floated about on the boat till morning. I never knew whether all in the boat with us were drowned, or whether one of the boats had really been near and picked them up, over- looking us. At any rate, when the morning broke they were nowhere to be seen. “But not so very far away I saw land. It was this island. I managed to assist the boat’s headway just enough to steer it, and by noon, hungry, eoaked, and exhausted, we were here. “Mary, as you see, suffered no per- manent consequences. My poor wife, on the contrary, contracted lung trouble, from which she died about three years after. “ At first our life on the island was one of privation and hardship. Unused to labor, unacquainted with tropical fruits and the products of the earth, absolutely without a weapon, our food consisted principally of berries. Gougle : THE ARGOSY. “ But I found that this would never save our lives, and, rather than con- tinue in that condition, I ate every- thing that seemed to appear edible. Those I found non-injurious we used for food. “T built a small and woefully rude hut, in which my wife and Mary found shelter, while I slept in the open. “Then I learned how to get fire from the sun’s rays. I had read some- where, I remembered, of some one using watch crystals as a glass to con- centrate the rays. My wife and I each had a watch, and by using both crystals filled with water, I managed it. Since then I have not permitted my fire to go out except at long intervals. “ Having found fire, we had cooked food, which was more palatable. We also had a method to prepare animal food, but no way of getting the animal. “But necessity truly is the mother of invention, and I contrived a trap by means of which we captured some small animals. “Thén I began the building of a larger house, for the days passed slowly without work to do,and there seemed no hope of a ship coming near us. I have seen ships far out, but they never came near enough to see a signal. At last I finished the house. Then I began on a garden. There was little need, for the island furnishes an abundant supply of everything one -could require. But it gave me occupa- tion. -“ All this time my wife was growing weaker, and that preyed on my mind. Then came her death, which threw Mary and me into a state of bitter grief. ‘“* Mary was then seven, and I regret- ted that she must grow to womanhood without an education. For I hoped that even if I never left the island, she might live to see the civilized world again. So I began teaching her. In my younger days I had been a tutor, and we got along very nicely. “Mary proved to be an apt scholar. We suffered from the lack of books, but we wrote in the wet sand with sticks. Mary could do you a very difficult prob- lem in arithmetic in the sand. But if she saw a pen and paper she would scarcely know what to do with them. GOI OOoO SS (COL