I judged that I had reached a spot suitable for my
habitation.
My first care was to make a fire. Difficult though it
might appear to the degenerate dweller of the city to do
this, to the trained woodsman, such as I had now become,
it is nothing. I selected a dry stick, rubbed it vigorously
against my hind leg, and in a few moments it broke into
a generous blaze. Half an hour later I was sitting beside
a glowing fire of twigs discussing with great gusto an
appetizing mess of boiled grass and fungi cooked in a
hollow stone.
I ate my fill, not pausing till I was full, careless, as
the natural man ever is, of the morrow. Then, stretched
out upon the pine-needles at the foot of a great tree,
I lay in drowsy contentment listening to the song of the
birds, the hum of the myriad insects and the strident
note of the squirrel high above me. At times I would give
utterance to the soft answering call, known to every
woodsman, that is part of the freemasonry of animal
speech. As I lay thus, I would not have exchanged places
with the pale dweller in the city for all the wealth in
the world. Here I lay remote from the world, happy, full
of grass, listening to the crooning of the birds.
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