For a minute we both glared at one another, still growling.
Then the man rose up to a standing position with a muttered
exclamation of disgust.
"Ah, cut it out," he said. "Let's talk English."
He walked over towards me and sat down upon a log in an
attitude that seemed to convey the same disgust as the
expression 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.
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