Page:The Children's Robinson Crusoe, Or, The Remarkable Adventures of an Englishman.pdf/16

 CHILDHOOD OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.

old he could make boxes, and stools, and benches ; and though the boxes were not always very neatly dove tailed together, and sometimes one leg of a stool would be shorter than the rest, his parents encouraged him to persevere, and told him he would do better every time

he tried. In basket-making he was very successful ; and from an old blind man, who lived near his father's house and maintained himself by weaving baskets and mats ,

Robinson learned the art. He used to do many kind things for the blind man, who in return taught him to make basket-work almost as neat as his own ; and he not only supplied his mother's house with baskets, but fre

quently made presents of them to his friends. When he was old enough to work in a garden, his

father gave him a small piece of ground to manage as he pleased ; he had a spade, rake, hoe, and wheel barrow of the right size for him to work with conven

iently ; and his great ambition used to be to have a dish of pease out of his little garden, before there were any fit for use in his father's large one. Robinson was very fond of studying natural history , and whenever there was a show of wild beasts in the city, his father allowed him to go and see them as often as he pleased ; he would examine each animal

separately, and read the account of it in some book of natural history ; and sometimes he would take the

book with him, and spend hours in reading and compar ing the description and the plates with the real animal. In this way he became acquainted with each specimen ,

and never confounded tigers, panthers, and leopards all together, as some children do. Robinson took great pleasure in reading about the manners and customs of different countries ; and every

book of voyages and travels that he could get hold of,

he read through with delight. When he grew older, his fondness for this kind of reading increased ; and as he

could not understand all the hardships and sufferings which travellers and navigators are obliged to bear, he thought their life must be the pleasantest in the world.