Barty Crusoe and His Man Saturday

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Chat-chat—chattery-chatterdy-chatterdy," replied the little black creature, getting so excited that he quite jumped up and down as if he could not keep still. He chattered so hard and his chatter sounded so much as if he were talking that it made Barty laugh more than ever and put a queer new thought into his head.

"It seems as if he were trying to say Saturday," he cried out. "Perhaps he is saying it in monkey language. I'm going to call him that. If he isn't a Man Friday he can be a Man Saturday." And Man Saturday seemed so pleased and the Good Wolf thought it such a good idea, that Barty was delighted and hugged his new little black friend quite tight in his arms.

"Things get nicer and nicer," he chuckled. "I wouldn't have missed coming to this desert island for anything."

Tropical storms come very quickly and go very quickly. Suddenly this one seemed to end all at once. The thunder stopped and the lightning stopped and the rain was over and the huge black cloud disappeared and out came the blazing sun looking as if it were pretending that it had never been hidden at all.

Barty and the Good Wolf went to look out through the big hole in the wall of the cave which was like a window. Everything was sparkling and blue and green and splendid again.

The sea, and the sky, and the grass, and the trees all looked so beautiful that Barty stood and gazed out of the window for about five minutes, forgetting everything else. Then suddenly he turned and looked around the cave.

"Where is Saturday?" he cried out.

The Good Wolf turned and looked about too, and after he had done it he shook his ears in a mystified way.

"I don't see him anywhere," he said. "He is not in that corner and he is not in that one, and he is not in that one, and he is not in the other one. If he were in the middle we should see him, of course."

"I am sure he wouldn't run away," said Barty. "I feel quite sure he wouldn't. He had such a nice look in his eyes and I know he took me for his friend. And I took him for mine. When people are friends they don't run away."