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 dirt away from
the entrance, or enough so that it would not choke up the opening.
A large clam shell was all he could think of at present. He would carry
the dirt to the entrance and some distance away, and then throw it.
Fortunately the ground sloped away rapidly, so that he needed a kind
of platform before his door.

He was careful to open the cleft at some distance above the large
opening. For the air was damp and impure in the shelter. But with the
opening made high above, fresh air was constantly passing into, and
impure air out of, his cave. Light, too, was admitted in this way.




XII