Island of the Blue Dolphins

by Scott O'Dell

So hard did the women work that we really fared better than before when the hunting was done by the men.

In the old days the springs sometimes ran low and no one worried, but now everything seemed to cause alarm.

had watched him and really seen nothing.

each morning I would see nothing

all my life I had never been able to speak with the dead, though many times I had tried.

I was not hungry because of my fear.

More than anything, it was the blue dolphins that took me back home.

was surprised that I felt this way, for it was only a short time ago that I had stood on this same rock and felt that I could not bear to live here another day.

From these memories I made it after many errors and many hours of work,

In all the time he lived, Rontu never left again, and the wild dogs, which for some reason divided into two packs, after that never returned to the headland.

had gone to sleep and wakened on another island.

thought of many things, but stronger was the wish to be where people lived, to hear their voices and their laughter.

They were the sound of a human voice. There is no sound like this in all the world.