Girl Friday
Adapted from “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe
By Maryanne Peters

CHAPTER XIV

He was a comely, handsome fellow, perfectly well made, with straight, strong limbs, not too
large; tall, and well-shaped; and, as I reckon, about twenty-six years of age. He had a very good
countenance, not a fierce and surly aspect, but seemed to have something very womanly in his
face.  He had all the sweetness and softness of a European in his countenance, too, especially
when he smiled. His hair was long and black, not curled like wool; his forehead very high and
large; and a great vivacity and sparkling sharpness in his eyes. The colour of his skin was not
quite black, but very tawny; and yet not an ugly, yellow, nauseous tawny, as the Brazilians and
Virginians, and other natives of America are, but of a bright kind of a dun olive-colour, that had
in it something very agreeable, though not very easy to describe. His face was round and plump;
his nose small, not flat, like the Negroes; a very good mouth, full lips, and his fine teeth well set,
and as white as ivory.

After he had slumbered, rather than slept, about half-an-hour, he awoke again, and came out of
the cave to me: for I had been milking my goats which I had in the enclosure just by: when he
espied me he came running to me, laying himself down again upon the ground, with all the
possible signs of an humble, thankful disposition, making a great many antic gestures to show it.
At last he lays his head flat upon the ground, close to my foot, and sets my other foot upon his
head, as he had done before; and after this made all the signs to me of subjection, servitude,
and submission imaginable, to let me know how he would serve me so long as he lived. I
understood him in many things, and let him know I was very well pleased with him.

In a little time I began to speak to him; and teach him to speak to me: and first, I let him know
his name should be Friday, which was the day I saved his life: I called him so for the memory of
the time. I likewise taught him to say Master; and then let him know that was to be my name: I
likewise taught him to say Yes and No and to know the meaning of them. I gave him some milk
in an earthen pot, and let him see me drink it before him, and sop my bread in it; and gave him a
cake of bread to do the like, which he quickly complied with, and made signs that it was very
good for him. 

I kept there with him all that night; but as soon as it was day I beckoned to him to come with
me, and let him know I would give him some clothes; at which he seemed very glad, for he was
stark naked.

As we went by the place where he had buried the two men, he pointed exactly to the place. I
then led him up to the top of the hill, to see if his enemies were gone; and pulling out my glass I
looked, and saw plainly the place where they had been, but no appearance of them or their
canoes; so that it was plain they were gone, and had left their two comrades behind them,
without any search after them.

When we had done this, we came back to our castle and I began the search for clothes to cover
the naked body of my new servant.  I returned to the chests that I had taken off the wreck of the
Spanish ship, and in most regard the two chests taken unopened from the great cabin.  When I
had opened them days later I had removed only the white linen handkerchiefs and coloured
neckcloths, being of some use to me.  I had left in the chest some jewelry and decorative items
for safe keeping, and also some women’s clothing which was of no use to me, except to inhale
the perfume when I was in a lonely mood.  Friday being smaller than I, could fit many of these
slips and loose items.  I had a mid to fashion for him some linen drawers from what could be
found in the Spanish gunner’s chest, but when I saw Friday in the ladies’ garments and the look
on his face from the feel of so soft a fabric, I decided to let him stay for a moment in this garb.

Friday knew that the clothes were intended for one of the weaker sex, as he could easily see by
the shape permitting of a generous bust.  He saw fit to place the halves of coconut shells where
the breasts should have sat.  To show him the style of the women of England he let me take his
long hair and wind it up upon his head to be held in place by a Spanish comb of tortoise shell
and semi-precious stones.  In this dress Friday performed a dance for me, that I assumed must
be one performed by women of his race to encourage their men.  Certainly, it had that effect
upon me, so that I needed to cool myself to prevent the commission of a grave sin.

I did fashion some drawers for him in time, but wearing these things was very awkward to him. 
He preferred the skirts, and I preferred him in them, with some relaxation of dress for when he
accompanied me on hunting expeditions.  In time he would become a better tailor than I and
fashion clothes for us both, but preferring for himself copies of the garments of a noble Spanish
woman.  We had also, some miniatures of fine ladies of the Court of the King of Spain with some
style to be copied by the able Friday.

But I return to the day after I dressed him for the first time as my maid, when I began to
consider where I should lodge him: and that I might do well for him and yet be perfectly easy
myself, still being concerned that he might be of a wild nature.  I would have made him his own
tent wherein he could reside and be heard by me when he left it.  

But I needed none of all this precaution; for never man had a more faithful, loving, sincere
servant than Friday was to me: without passions, sullenness, or designs, perfectly obliged and
engaged.  Friday’s very affections were tied to me, like those of a child to a father; and I daresay
one who would have sacrificed their life to save mine upon any occasion.

For that reason, I took this creature into my own place, and there Friday stayed, sleeping beside
me.  

It gave me occasion to observe, and that with wonder, that however it had pleased God in His
providence, and in the government of the works of His hands, to take from so great a part of the
world of His creatures the best uses to which their faculties and the powers of their souls are
adapted, yet that He has bestowed upon them the same powers, the same reason, the same
affections, the same sentiments of kindness and obligation, the same passions and resentments
of wrongs, the same sense of gratitude, sincerity, fidelity, and all the capacities of doing good
and receiving good that He has given to us; and that when He pleases to offer them occasions of
exerting these, they are as ready, nay, more ready, to apply them to the right uses for which
they were bestowed than we are. 

And so the Lord God has seen fit to place with me a person who is not only good, but could so
easily be the most comely of women, and with that offer me all that a woman can provide to
her master.  And Friday did make every effort to be more beautiful to my eyes, and to become
soft and yielding to my touch, and behave in a way that surely all women must show, even a
savage.  She knew that this was her obligation, for I had saved her and she had sworn to serve
me, as she did.

I was greatly delighted with her, and made it my business to teach her everything that was
proper to make her useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make her speak, and in the right
tone such as a girl, and to understand me when I spoke.  She was the aptest scholar that ever
was; and particularly was so merry, so constantly diligent, and so pleased when she could but
understand me, or make me understand her, that it was very pleasant for me to talk to her. Now
my life began to be so easy that I began to say to myself that could I but have been safe from
more savages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the place where I lived.

When we spoke about our island and its place in the world, I offered that I could assist her to go
back to her place, which must be nearer to us.  She answered not one word, but looked very
grave and sad. I asked her what was the matter and she asked me, "Why you angry mad with
Friday? - what me done?"; I asked her what she meant. I told her I was not angry with her at all.

"No angry!" says she, repeating the words several times; "why send Friday home away to my
nation?"; "Why," says I, "Friday, did not you say you wished you were there?"

"Yes," says she, "wish we both there; no wish Friday there, no master there". In a word, she would not think
of going there without me. She returns very quick - "What you send Friday away for? Take kill
Friday, no send Friday away." This she spoke so earnestly that I saw tears form in her pretty
eyes. In a word, I so plainly discovered the utmost affection in her to me, and a firm resolution
in her, that I told her then and often after, that I would never send her away from me if she was
willing to stay with me.

After that, I came to know her, in the sense that the Scriptures describe, and I saw no sin in
that.  She was so attached to me and fearful that we would separate, that she offered her body
to me, and made it irresistible.  She would bathe in the fresh pool and use fragrant flowers to
perfume her body and her long dark hair.

She became much enamoured by the styles of the women of Europe and England, from the
miniatures and also from the garments in the Spanish chest.  Therein she found a corset to lift
her bosom to display it better to me, and she did use herbs to promote the enlargement of this
region.  She told me that within her people there were some who were disposed to fill the place
of women, and although she had not been one of this type hitherto, she knew something of
their remedies, to keep the male influences in the body at a low level, and to promote the
feminine.

Having become educated in matters of the Christian faith she too, came to regard her
circumstance as ordained by God, so that two persons placed so far from the world could
become physically suited to one another, in seeming defiance of nature.

Chapter XIX

My story moves hence to the adventures that befell us with the return of the cannibals, and the
family of Friday, and the visit of the mutineers, and finally with the help of those persons, the
recovery of a ship to take us from our island, back to England.  Throughout my travails including
the good fortune that became me in the Brazils, and the journey to Portugal and Spain and
through to France, my pretty servant girl Friday, did accompany me, and play no small part in
what happened.

To all she was a true woman.  She spoke as a woman and behaved as a woman, and if her antic
was a little crude it must be put down to her savage origins rather than the anatomy that she
hid beneath her skirts.  She prevailed upon me to provide good clothes for her conduct in the
civilised world, and this I gave happily.  With these she presented herself so well that despite her
dusky countenance, some thought that she might be my wife.  Friday herself said to me that “If
only it could be so.”  In Portugal and Spain I allowed this misunderstanding so that we could
share a bed during our voyaging.

Our only misfortune came when we arrived in France and we were set upon by wolves and a
bear.  This story requires some retelling from that in my earlier version of this my tale, as the
animals that we encountered were of the two-legged kind.
 
It was when we came to Gascony and it was in the middle of winter, with snow upon the
ground.  With difficulty Friday had come to understand the nature of the cold, and the need to
layer clothing one item upon the other, to keep the body warm.  She had chosen several good
quality garments, with woollen hose to sheath her smooth golden legs, and many underskirts,
and bodice over her corseted waist and many warm shawls to cover her to the neck and to pull
over her head.  In the style of all women, she had come to enjoy the wearing of the clothes most
favoured of the time.  She wore her hair in the style then prevailing also, with the natural curls
that she had fitting the fashion well, and making her a most attractive woman.

I was asked by some of her origin.  Some would suggest that she might be from the east,
perhaps near the Holy Land or Egypt, but I would say that she was Atlantean, for she came from
the sea.  She would appear to many men to be an exotic creature, and they would desire to
have her.  It was something that I had not realised in all our travels up to that place.

Due to conditions of the weather we were forced to dine and to stay overnight in an inn before
we entered a large forest.  The dining area was warm with a large fire and Friday shed her coat
and her shawl to reveal her bosom, which had grown unnaturally large over the years, and her
dugs were flushed with colour.  She was a sight to make any husband proud that so fair a
woman could be his, and his alone.  But others had designs upon her.

We retired and rose before dawn to prepare and make good upon our continuing journey with
the first light of day.  But when we quitted that place our carriage was followed by the men who
had watched FrIday the evening before.  We were within the carriage when our guide was
attacked and fell to the ground.  Two of the three of them tried to enter the carriage but we left
it by the other side.

I was concerned for Friday, but she seemed excited by the encounter.  It was as if she had
missed the blood and murder of her old life, and that she was of a mind to do such a deed on
that very day.  Sure enough while I was busy keeping two at bay, she swung a stick that she had

found at the one coming for her, not to strike him but to keep him at a distance.  Despite the full
skirts she moved with speed.

When he finally came close enough to her, it was by her own design, so far as I could see it. 
Then she pulled from under her skirts, one of our old Spanish pistols, put it in her assailant’s ear
and blew his brains out.  She produced too, a knife from beneath the same skirts and proceeded
to butcher the body upon the ground, as if to prepare it for a feast as her enemies had intended
for her all those years before.  But the sight of this so terrified the two companions of the dead
man, that they decided to run.

I also, decided that it would be a good thing to leave that place and the scene of murder, and to
bundle our guide into the carriage and head north as quickly as possible.

I have nothing uncommon to take notice of in my passage through France - nothing but what
other travellers have given an account of with much more advantage than I can. I travelled from
Toulouse to Paris, and without any considerable stay came to Calais, and landed safe at Dover
the 14th of January, after having had a severe cold season to travel in.

I was now come to the centre of my travels and had in a little time all my new-discovered estate
safe about me, the bills of exchange which I brought with me having been currently paid.
Any one would think that in this state of complicated good fortune I was past running any more
hazards - and so, indeed, I had been, if other circumstances had concurred; but I was inured to a
wandering life, had no family, nor many relations; nor, however rich, had I contracted fresh
acquaintance; and though I had sold my estate in the Brazils, yet I could not keep that country
out of my head, and had a great mind to be upon the wing again.

I took my two nephews, the children of one of my brothers, into my care; the eldest, having
something of his own, I bred up as a gentleman, and gave him a settlement of some addition to
his estate after my decease. The other I placed with the captain of a ship; and after five years,
finding him a sensible, bold, enterprising young fellow, I put him into a good ship, and sent him
to sea; and this young fellow afterwards drew me in, as old as I was, to further adventures
myself.

In the meantime, I had a mind to settle my arrangement with Friday, and to make of her the
good Christian woman she had become, by offering to marry her.  The only impediment to this
that she could see, is that I might become less her master and more of her partner, and thereby
be in some manner changed toward her.  But in truth I was able to convince her that I could not
imagine taking any other woman to my bed and to my soul, despite the one hidden deformity of
her body.

She was firm in her desire to go where I would go and be where I would be, as in the manner of
a true wife.  And that is what she was to me.

All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten
years more, I shall give a farther account of in the Second Part of my Story.

...

All embellishments are © Maryanne Peters