An American Robinson Crusoe | Page 2

father told him too, that in these faraway
countries the nuts on the trees grew to be as large as one's head and that
the trees were as high as church steeples.
When Robinson saw the ships put out to sea, he would watch them till
they would disappear below the horizon far out in the ocean, and think,
"Oh, if I could only go with them far away to see those strange
countries!" Thus he would linger along the great river and wish he
might find an opportunity of making a voyage. Often it would be dark
before he would get home. When he came into the house his mother
would meet him and say in a gentle voice, "Why, Robinson, how late
you are in getting home! You have been to the river again."
[Illustration: ROBINSON WATCHING THE SHIPS]
Then Robinson would hang his head and feel deeply ashamed, and

when his father, who was a merchant, came home from the store, his
mother would tell him that Robinson had again been truant.
This would grieve his father deeply and he would go to the boy's
bedside and talk earnestly with him. "Why do you do so?" he would
say. "How often have I told you to go to school every day?" This would
for a time win Robinson back to school, but by the next week it had
been forgotten and he would again be loitering along the river in spite
of his father's remonstrances.

II
ROBINSON AS AN APPRENTICE
In this way one year after another slipped by. Robinson was not more
diligent. He was now almost sixteen years old and had not learned
anything. Then came his birthday. In the afternoon his father called him
into his room. Robinson opened the door softly. There sat his father
with a sad face. He looked up and said, "Well, Robinson, all your
schoolmates have long been busy trying to learn something, so that
they may be able to earn their own living. Paul will be a baker, Robert
a butcher, Martin is learning to be a carpenter, Herman a tailor, Otto a
blacksmith, Fritz is going to high school, because he is going to be a
teacher. Now, you are still doing nothing. This will not do. From this
time on I wish you to think of becoming a merchant. In the morning
you will go with me to the store and begin work. If you are attentive
and skillful, when the time comes you can take up my business and
carry it on. But if you remain careless and continue to idle about, no
one will ever want you and you must starve because you will never be
able to earn a living."
So the next morning Robinson went to the store and began work. He
wrapped up sugar and coffee, he weighed out rice and beans. He sold
meal and salt, and when the dray wagon pulled up at the store, loaded
with new goods, he sprang out quickly and helped to unload it. He
carried in sacks of flour and chests of tea, and rolled in barrels of coffee

and molasses. He also worked some at the desk. He looked into the
account books and saw in neat writing, "Goods received" and "Goods
sold." He noticed how his father wrote letters and reckoned up his
accounts. He even took his pen in hand and put the addresses on the
letters and packages as well as he could.
But soon he was back in his careless habits. He was no longer attentive
to business. He wrapped up salt instead of sugar. He put false weights
on the scales. He gave some too much and others too little. His hands,
only, were in the business, his mind was far away on the ocean with the
ships. When he helped unload the wagons, he would often let the chests
and casks drop, so that they were broken and their contents would run
out on the ground. For he was always thinking, "Where have these
casks come from and how beautiful it must be there!" And many times
packages came back because Robinson had written the name of the
place or the country wrong. For when he was writing the address, he
was always thinking, "You will be laid upon a wagon and will then go
into the ship." One day he had to write a letter to a man far over the sea.
He could stand it no longer. His father had gone out. He threw down
the pen, picked up his hat and ran out to the Hudson to see the ships,
and from that time on he spent more time loitering along the river than
he did in the store.

III
ROBINSON'S DEPARTURE
Robinson's father