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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Canoe

As the years passed, we made our houses better. We put a wooden roof on the Tree House. The rain didn’t come through in winter after that, but it still wasn’t a good home for the rainy season. We also built a place in front of the cave. We could sit out there and enjoy the sea air and the sunlight.

The farm became bigger and bigger. The buffaloes pulled the plough and they gave us all our milk. We were able to make butter from it too.

We got more eggs from our chickens than we could eat in the spring and the summer. In the winter, we had just enough eggs for our needs. The wild donkey had a baby. It was very pretty and it was easier to teach than its mother.

Of course we had problems. One morning, Jack came running back from the farm. ‘Oh Father, Father, come and see!’ he cried.

I went down there. Everything in the farm buildings was broken, and the plants from the fields were everywhere. Monkeys laughed at us from the trees.

‘Oh no!’ I said. ‘They’ve destroyed everything. We must be sure that this never happens again.’

Turk and Flora’s babies were now old enough for us to teach them. We made a rule that one of us - Fritz, Ernest or I - always slept down at the farm with the dogs. They were quick to learn about the monkeys. We showed them that they must always run after a monkey. When they did, the monkeys ran away. Soon the monkeys stopped coming to the farm.

As I watched my boys grow up, I was very pleased with them. Fritz was very strong and tall. Ernest wasn’t as big, and he was quieter. But he wasn’t as lazy as before. He wrote down the names of all the plants on the island and drew pictures of them. He made some paper out of plants, like the Egyptians many thousands of years ago. Franz was more sensible than Jack. He always did what he promised to do. But Jack was a good son too, and he did a lot of work on the farm. Franz liked helping his mother, while Jack spent more time with me.

One day, Fritz said to me, ‘I’d like to go away alone. I want to visit the parts of the island that we haven’t seen. The ship’s boat is too heavy for one person. I want to make a canoe.’

‘I think we can make a canoe,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen canoes made from the bark of tall trees. I’ll try to help you.’

We found a big tree and I cut a ring round the bark, at the bottom. Then I tied a rope ladder to one of the branches. I told Fritz to cut round the tree about twenty feet up from the ring. Then I made a cut from top to bottom between the two circles. We took the bark off very carefully, and it fell away in one piece. We tied pieces of bamboo to our canoe to hold it in the right shape. Then we nailed together the sides at each end of the boat. A sweet juice from one of the trees dried quickly and went hard. We used this to fill the holes.

‘I think,’ said Fritz, ‘that the water will come in over the front of the canoe, and perhaps over the back. Perhaps we should cover those places. We can leave a place in the middle where I can sit.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you’re right. We must put a light cover over it.’

We also found a long flat piece of wood. Fritz could use that as a paddle, to move the boat along.

When the canoe was ready, we waited for a few days. Then it was dry, and we tried it in the water. At first, Fritz had problems in the canoe. It turned over and he often fell out. But he practised, and after a few days he was able to travel safely, even in rough sea.