An American Robinson Crusoe
Chapter 31. Robinson As Baker
Samuel Buell Allison
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_ CHAPTER XXXI. ROBINSON AS BAKER
Now that Robinson had fire, he determined to try to make bread. He had seen the servants at home make bread many times, but he had not observed closely and knew next to nothing about the way bread is made. He knew he must in some way grind the corn into flour, but how could he do this? He had no mill nor any tools with which to crush the corn.
He first tried to find a stone large and hard enough out of which he might hollow a vessel or kind of mortar. He thought he could put the corn into this mortar and grind it by means of another stone or pestle. It was with great difficulty that he could get a stone of suitable size and form. After several days' trial he at last got one cut out from some layers of rock near the shore. He made a hollow place in it. Then he took a smaller oblong shaped rock for his pestle.
He took great pride in these new tools. "I shall soon be a stone-cutter," he said to himself, "as well as a farmer and potter." But his stone mortar was a failure. The rock was too soft. Every time he thrust the pestle down, it loosened small pieces of the stone vessel. These mixed with the ground corn or flour and made it unfit to eat. There was no way to separate the sand from the crushed grain.
He resolved then to try to make a mortar and pestle of hard wood. Now that he had fire, he could do this, though it cost him many a hard day's work. He found not far away a log of very hard wood. By building a fire at the right distance from one end he was able to separate a piece of the log. He rolled this to his cave and made a good-sized hollow in it by burning. This pestle was not so difficult to make. He took a limb or branch of an ironwood tree, burned it in two at the place to make it the right length. By burning also he rounded one end and then he was ready for the grinding. After cleaning his mortar and pestle carefully he placed some corn in the hollow and soon had some fine yellow meal or flour without any grit or sand in it.
His next care was to separate the coarse outer husk or covering of the kernel from the finer parts that make the meal. He had no sieve. His net was too coarse. It let both bran and meal go through. "I must make a net or cloth fine enough to sift or bolt my flour," said he. Such was now his skill in spinning and weaving that this was not hard to do. He had soon woven in his loom a piece of fine netting which allowed the meal to shake through, but held back the coarse bran or outer husk of the kernel. Out of the dry corn that he had stored up he now made quite a quantity of flour. This he kept tightly covered in a large earthen pot or jar that he had made for this purpose. "I must keep all my food clean and protect it from the ants and other insects as well as dust and damp," he thought.
His preparations were now nearly made. He had already his stove of flat stones. On this he could set his pots to boil water, cook rice, and meat, but it would not do for baking a loaf of bread of any thickness. He must have an oven or enclosed place into which he could put the loaf to bake it. By the use of flat stones he soon rebuilt his stove so as to have an oven that did fine service. Now it was mixing the dough that claimed his attention. He had of course no yeast to make raised or light bread. He poured goats' milk on the flour and kneaded it into a thick dough. He did not forget to add salt. He placed his loaf in a shallow earthen pan he had made for this purpose. After the fire had heated the stones of his oven through, he put in his loaf and soon was enjoying a meal of corn bread and meat stew.
Robinson soon tried to make cocoa from the beans of the cocoa palm that grew in the island. This with good rich goats' milk in it he thought the best drink in the world. He often thought of making sugar from the sugar cane plant he had discovered in the island. But the labor of squeezing out the juice was too great. He could think of no way to do this without the help of horses or oxen. _