From this moment I began to conclude in my mind, that it was possible for me to be more happy in this forsaken, solitary condition, than it was probable I should have ever been in any particular state in the world; and with this thought I was going to give thanks to God for bringing me to this place.
I know not what it was, but something shocked my mind at that thought, and I durst not speak the words. “How canst thou be such an hypocrite,” said I, even audibly, “to pretend to be thankful for a condition, which, however thou mayst endeavour to be contented with, thou wouldst rather pray heartily to be delivered from?” So I stopped there; but though I could not say I thanked God for being there, yet I sincerely gave thanks to God for opening my eyes, by whatever afflicting providences, to see the former condition of my life, and to mourn for my wickedness, and repent. I never opened the Bible, or shut it, but my very soul within me blessed God for directing my friend in England, without any order of mine, to pack it up among my goods, and for assisting me afterwards to save it out of the wreck of the ship.
Thus, and in this disposition of mind, I began my third year; and though I have not given the reader the trouble of so particular an account of my works this year as at the first, yet in general it may be observed, that I was very seldom idle, having regularly divided my time according to the several daily employment that were before me—such as, first, my duty to God, and reading the Scriptures, which I constantly set apart some time for, thrice every day; secondly, the going abroad with my gun for food, which generally took me up three hours every morning when it did not rain; thirdly,—the ordering, curing, preserving, and cooking what I had killed or catched for my supply—these took up great part of the day; also it is to be considered, that in the middle of the day, when the sun was in the zenith, the violence of the heat was too great to stir out; so that about four hours in the evening was all the time I could be supposed to work in; with this exception, that sometimes I changed my hours of hunting and working, and went to work in the morning, and abroad with my gun in the afternoon.
To this short time allowed for labor, I desire may be added the exceeding laboriousness of my work; the many hours which, for want of tools, want of help, and want of skill, every thing that I did took up out of my time—for example, I was full two-and-forty days making me a board for a long shelf, which I wanted in my cave; whereas, two sawyers, with their tools and sawpit, would have cut six of them out of the same tree in half a day.
My case was this: it was to be a large tree which was to be cut down, because my board was to be a broad one. The tree I was three days of cutting down, and two more cutting off the boughs, and reducing it to a log, or piece of timber. With inexpressible hacking and hewing, I reduced both the sides of it into chips, till it began to be light enough to move; then I turned it, and made one side of it smooth and flat, as a board, from end to end; then, turning that side downward, cut the other side till I brought the plank to be about three inches thick, and smooth on both sides. Any one may judge the labour of my hands in such a piece of work; but labour and patience carried me through that and many other things: I only observe this in particular, to show the reason why so much of my time went away with so little work, namely, that what might be a little to be done with help and tools, was a vast labour, and required a prodigious time, to do alone, and by hand.