helf,
which two sawyers with their tools and saw-pit, would have cut off the
same tree in half a day. It was a large tree, as my board was to be
broad. I was three days in cutting it down and two more in lopping off
the boughs, and reducing it to a piece of timber. This I hacked and
hewed off each side, till it became light to move; then I turned it,
made one side of is smooth and flat as a board from end to end, then
turned it downward, cutting the other side, till I brouht the plank to
be about three inches thick, and smooth on both sides. Any body may
judge my great labour and fatigue in such a piece of work; but this I
went through with patience, as also many other things that my
circumstances made necessary for me to do.

The harvest months, November and December, were now at hand, in which I
had the pleasing prospect of a very good crop. But here I met with a new
problem; for the goats and hares, having tasted of the outshoot of the
blade, kept it to short that it had not strengthen to shoot up into a
stalk. To prevent this, I enclosed it with a hedge, and by day shot some
of its devourers; and my dog which I had tied to the field-gate, keeping
barking all night; so frightened those creatures, that I got entirely
rid of them.

But no sooner did I get rid of these, than other enemies appeared, to
wit, whole flocks of several sorts of birds, who only waited till my
back was turned, to ruin me: so much did this provoke me, that I let
fly, and killed three of the malefactors; and afterwards served them as
they do notorious thieves in England, hung them up in chains as a terror
to others. And, indeed, to good an effect had this that they not only
forsook the corn, but all that part of the island, so long as these
criminals hung there.

My corn having ripened apace, the latter end of December, which was my
second harvest, I reaped it with a scythe, made of one of my broad
swords. I had no fatigue in cutting down my my first crop it was so
slender. The ears I carried home in a basket, rubbing it with my hands,
instead of threshing it: and when the harvest was over, found my half
peck of seed produced near two bushels of rice, and two bushels and a
half of barley. And now I plainly foresaw, that by God's goodness, I
should be furnished with bread; but yet I was concerned, because I knew
not how to grind or make meal of my corn, nor bread, neither knew how to
bake it. I would not however, taste any of the crop, but reso