CHAPTER 18 – FOOT
Chapter 18
It was eleven years since my first moment on the island. One day, I noticed that I didn’t have much gunpowder. It started to worry me. I needed gunpowder to kill animals.
My first goat was very old. It was too late to try to find a male for her. I wanted meat but I didn’t have the heart to kill her. One day, she died a natural death.
I thought, “With less and less gunpowder I will have to find another way to get meat. I will make some trap. Tomorrow, I will start to make the trap.”
I wasn’t successful at the beginning. But then I caught three young goats. They were one male and two females. I took the goats home with me.
I kept the goats inside a small area with a fence around it. But it was too small for three goats. I made a fence for them around a big area. It took me three months to build this fence, but the area was very nice. There was a lot of grass and water for them.
After some time, the young goats were very calm. Soon, they ate out of my hand. In two years, I had twelve goats inside my fence. And in three years I had more than twenty goats.
I had a lot of milk and meat thanks to this. I experimented a few times, and I was able to make cheese and butter. My table was full now and I had a lot of animals around me. I had my old dog, goats and Poll, my parrot. The only thing which I still missed was somebody for a conversation.
One day, I went to the part of the sea where the strong current was. On the way there, I thought about how strange I looked. I had a big hat, a short jacket and short trousers. They were all made from animal skin. I didn’t have socks or shoes but I put some goat skins around my feet. I had two belts. One belt was for the gun and knife, and one belt for the gunpowder. I also carried a basket on my back and an umbrella above my head. My beard was very long. I realized that life on the island made me a different person.
One day, I was walking on the beach. I was going to check my canoe. Then I saw something surprising. I saw a mark of a human foot on the sand. I looked around but I didn’t see anybody. I was scared. I ran back to my house. I was so scared that it was difficult to sleep at night. I started to think, “Maybe it was all just my imagination. Or maybe it was the mark of my own foot and it was stupid to be scared.” This thought made me feel better. I left my house and I went to see the mark in the sand again.
WORDS FROM CHAPTER 18
