The Argosy, Christmas 1912 — page 53: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LOOSING THE TEMPEST. “ Yes, that’s it — Robinson Crusoe. I read about him twenty times till the book came all apart.” | “Well, the idea is good, even if the two names don’t fit together like cogs in two well- mated wheels,” I said. ‘“What’s the matter with switching it? How does Crusoe Donaldson strike you?” “Bang! You have hit the bull’s- eye. Son, you are from this moment Crusoe Donaldson, and don’t let any- body bluff you out of it.” This important matter being settled to our satisfaction, and bringing no objection from the islander, we pro- ceeded to heat water for shaving. Ord- way looked like a tramp, and I like a mangy ape. In the suit-case we had taken from the Northbird were shaving utensils, and Crusoe stood watching us with a curious expression in his eyes as we lathered our faces and scraped away the hair with safety-razors. “Why do you do that?” he asked finally. “ Don’t you like your faces? ” Ordway roared. “T like mine well enough,” he an- swered, “ but Dagwell’s would make a sick woodchuck sneak into a hollow log and die. Didn’t Mr. Donaldson shave? ”’ “You mean cut the hair off his face? No. He had hair way—long like this.” He placed his thumb against his chest. “ And the boatswain?”’ “He had much hair on his face.” ‘“ And you have none.” “Mr. Donaldson told me I would have when I grew to be a man. When will that be?” If Ordway had had the ordinary kind of razor he would have commit- ted accidental hari-kari right there. “ Well, Crusoe, old chap, if you grow to be any more of a man than you are now, never get angry at me. I can’t climb a tree fast enough. Use Dagwell for a football all you like.” “But Mr. Donaldson said I was only a boy.” 39 ‘That was fourteen years ago. You are a man now.” Donaldson, as I shall call him now, since he ‘was really entitled to the name, went silently about the dinner business. He was quick, sure, and long living alone had brought about in him a precision of thought that amazed me. He knew just what to do, when to do it, and all his movements had a definite aim which was always reached.. I speculated still more on the effect of civilization on this man upon whom we had chanced so miraculously. If we escaped from the confines of the island, certainly he would accom- pany us. What, I asked myself, were Ordway and I about to do? Give to the world a man of power, genius—a man to lead men and overcome obsta- cles—or were we going to spoil a god? Ordway and I had done our shaving outside the cave, having found shelves for our mirrors. Ordway had a round glass we had torn from a door in the Northbird, and I a broken piece from the sliding front of the gun-closet. The odor of roasting goose came out to us, and Ordway smacked his lips. “Say,” he spluttered through the lather, “if Crusoe can’t do anything else, we'll get him a job as chef at the Waldorf.” “Not that Crusoe in there,” I re plied, also latherwise. “ That chap is born for great things.”’ We enjoyed that meal as well as the first. With his crude implements he was a imaster. He gave us boiled ber- ries, potatoes roasted in clay, so that when the baked ball of clay was cracked the white, mealy potato came out steaming. Oh, it was no hardship we were up against on the island of Orsgov! And this ‘very fact had a peculiar effect on Ordway. He was by nature jolly and fun-loving. The experience on the ice had been the nearest to trag- edy he had ever been through, and the later weeks had rendered him morose, impossible. And now the reaction made him ridiculous. CoOMmicbook CO