of his features. Then he looked round about him.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Building a house,” I answered.
“I know,” he said with a nod. “What are you here for?”
“Why,” I explained, “my plan is this: I want to see whether a man can come out here in the woods, naked, with no aid but that of his own hands and his own ingenuity and”
“Yes, yes, I know,” interrupted the disconsolate man. “Earn himself a livelihood in the wilderness, live as the cave-man lived, carefree and far from the curse of civilization!”
“That’s it. That was my idea,” I said, my enthusiasm rekindling as I spoke. “That’s what I’m doing; my food is to be the rude grass and the roots that Nature furnishes for her children, and for my drink”
“Yes, yes,” he interrupted again with impatience, “for your drink the running rill, for your bed the sweet couch of hemlock, and for your canopy the open sky lit with the soft stars in the deep-purple vault of the dewy night. I know.”
“Great heavens, man!” I exclaimed. “That’s my idea exactly. In fact, those are my very phrases. How could you have guessed it?”
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