21 The First Decade

CHAPTER 21 The First Decade Ten years passed. The gunpowder was running out. I needed to find a way to eat that didn't involve hunting. If I could catch a few young goat kids, I could tame them. If I could tame them, I would always have food —they would soon grow into a whole flock of goats. It took me a few tries before I could

capture the goats. The corn I set out would be eaten, but there would be no goat in the trap! The trap would be tripped, but there would be no animals in sight! After three days of trying, I came back to the pit one morning to find goats munching away happily on the food that I had left. I led the goats to the meadow close to my summer home. There was already a nice hedge around the plot. I had set that up so the goats wouldn't escape once I got them to the grass. The three kids didn't like being tied up very much, but there was no other way to make sure they stayed put. I fed them corn and rice, and they liked it very much. They often ate it right out of my hands. We carried on like this for a while. They ate what I gave them, and I kept them tied up. When I knew they wouldn't run wild anymore, I let them roam free over the meadow. The flock grew steadily over the

next few years. So now, I had my harvest, my fruit trees, and my goats. I was very proud of my growing farm. The corn grew well. The rice did, too. The flock gave me both meat and milk. All in all, things evolved as they should. I made more clothes from goatskin. Poll kept me in good company. Shippy grew old and died, though. And even though I thought about it all the time, I never did get back in that boat. Many, many years passed before I even went near where it was tied up! You can only imagine what I looked like after spending ten whole years as a castaway! I wore goatskin clothes and a big, floppy hat. I had long hair and a long beard. My skin was often red and burnt. I didn't know anything about what was fashionable back home, and I guess it didn't really matter. There was no one on the island to see me anyway!