“Ah, that was a bad day for Rome and the future of the world, when those mad fellows struck him down there like a pig!” he cried.

And Mary, Queen of Scots, was “a sweet, soft body of a white thing that should have been content with being in love, and never tried to rule!”

* * * * *

“Can you cook?” asked Spalton of me one day, just as Barton had done at “Perfection City.”

“No,” I replied honestly, thinking back to that experience.

“Fine!” was the unexpected rejoinder, “I’m going to send you put to the camp to cook for my lumber-jacks for a few weeks.”

“But I said I couldn’t cook.”

“You know how to turn an egg in the pan? you know enough not to let ham and bacon burn?... you know water won’t scorch, no matter how long it stands over the fire?...

“You’ll make an excellent cook for lumber-jacks ... so long as it’s something to eat that’s stuck under their noses, they don’t give a damn!... they’re always hungry enough to eat anything ... and can digest anything....

“Get ready!  I’m sending you out on one of the waggons by noon.”

* * * * *

Perched on the high seat of the waggon by the side of the driver!  The latter was bundled up to the chin ... wore a fur cap that came down over the ears ... was felt-booted against the cold ... wore heavy gloves.

It was so cold that the breath of the horses went straight up into the air like thick, white wool.  As we rode by, the passing farmers that were driving into town almost fell off their seats, startled, and staring at me.  For there I perched ... coatless and hatless ... sockless feet in sandals ... my shirt flung open, a la Byron, at the neck.

It is true that the mind can do anything.  I thought myself into being composed and comfortable.  I did not mind, truly I did not mind it.

The driver had protested, but only once, laconically: 

“Whar’s y’r coat an’ hat?”

“I never wear any,” I explained, beginning a propagandistic harangue on the non-essentiality of clothes....

He cut in with the final pronouncement: 

“Damn fool, you’ll git pneumony.”

Then he fell into obdurate, contemptuous silence.

* * * * *

The snow was deep about our living shanty and cook-shack in one, but hard-frozen enough to bear a man’s weight without snow-shoes.  Over the crust had fallen a powdery, white, new snow, about four inches deep.

Every morning, after the “boys” had eaten their breakfast and left for the woods, I went through my exercises, stripped, out in the open ... a half hour of it, finished by a roll in the snow, that set me tingling all over.

One morning I made up my mind to startle the “boys” by running, mother-naked, in a circle, whooping, about them, where they were sawing up fallen trees and felling others.