Page:The Swiss Family Robinson (Kingston).djvu/62

34 boils; the food becomes fit to eat, and the gourd-rind remains uninjured.”

“That is a very clever plan: very simple too. I daresay I should have hit on it, if I had tried,” said Fritz.

“The friends of Columbus thought it very easy to make an egg stand upon its end when he had shown them how to do it. But now suppose we prepare some of these calabashes, that they may be ready for use when we take them home.”

Fritz instantly took up one of the gourds, and tried to split it equally with his knife, but in vain: the blade slipped, and the calabash was cut jaggedly. “What a nuisance!” said Fritz, flinging it down, “the thing is spoiled; and yet it seemed so simple to divide it properly.”

“Stay,” said I; “you are too impatient, those pieces are not useless. Do you try to fashion from them a spoon or two while I provide a dish.”

I then took from my pocket a piece of string, which I tied tightly round a gourd, as near one end of it as I could; then tapping the string with the back of my knife, it penetrated the outer shell. When this was accomplished, I tied the string yet tighter; and drawing the ends with all my might, the gourd fell, divided exactly as I wished.

“That is clever!” cried Fritz. “What in the world put that plan into your head?”

“It is a plan,” I replied, “which the negroes adopt, as I have learned from reading books of travel.”

“Well, it certainly makes a capital soup-tureen, and a soup-plate too,” said Fritz, examining the gourd. “But supposing you had wanted to make a bottle, how would you have set to work?”

“It would be an easier operation than this, if possible. All that is necessary, is to cut a round hole at one end, then to scoop out the interior, and to drop in several shot or stones; when these are