s pins. At last
he pinned the tips of the leaves together at the top and the hat was
ready. It looked just like a big cone, but it kept out the heat of the
sun.

Robinson now had corn and bananas and when he was thirsty he drank a
handful of water from the spring. He had been now nine days on the
island. Every day he looked out on the sea until his eyes ached to see
if he might discover a ship.

He could not understand why no ship came his way. "Who knows how long I
must wait here?" said he sorrowfully. Then the thought came to him: "You
will not be able to keep track of the days unless you write it down."

XI

ROBINSON'S CALENDAR

The matter of keeping track of time puzzled Robinson very much. It was
getting more difficult every day to keep it in his memory. He must write
down the days as they slip by, but where and how? He had neither pen,
ink, nor paper. Should he mark every day with a colored stone on the
smooth side of the huge rock wall within whose clefts he had dug out his
cave? But the rain would wash off the record and then he would lose all
his bearings. Then he thought of the beach, but there the wind and waves
would soon also erase it.

He thought a long time. "I must find something," he said to himself on
which to keep a record. "I must also know when Sunday is. I must rest
one day in the week. Yes, I must find something," he said, "on which to
write." And finally he found it. He chose two trees standing near each
other and then sought for a small sharp stone, which he could make
still sharper by striking it on another. When he had got this pen ready
he cut into the bark of one tree:

_Shipwreck, Sunday, 10th of September, 1875._

He made seven cuts in a row for the seven days in the week. The first
cut was longer than the others. This was to represent the Sunday. At
sundown every day he made a new cut in the bark.

The other tree he called the month tree. On its stem he was to cut a
mark every time his week tree told him a month had passed. But he must
be careful, for the months were not of equal length. But he remembered
that his teacher had once said in school that the months could be
counted on the knuckles and hollows of the hand, in such a way that the
long and short months could be found easily and he could tell in this
way the number of days in each.

Robinson worked at enlarging his shelter a little every day. He was
sorely at loss to find something in which to carry the d