doubtful; yet it is all one to me; what she is were nothing to me
if she would but go by herself and not talk.
Tuesday
She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and offensive
signs:
THIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL.
THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND.
CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY.
She says this park would make a tidy summer resort, if there was
any custom for it. Summer resort–another invention of hers–just
words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is
best not to ask her, she has such a rage for explaining.
Friday
She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What
harm does it do? Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why. I have
always done it–always liked the plunge, and the excitement, and
the coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They
have no other use that I can see, and they must have been made for
something. She says they were only made for scenery–like the
rhinoceros and the mastodon.
I went over the Falls in a barrel–not satisfactory to her. Went
over in a tub–still not satisfactory. Swam the Whirlpool and the
Rapids in a fig-leaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious
complaints about my extravagance. I am too much hampered here.
What I need is change of scene.
Saturday
I escaped last Tuesday night, and travelled two days, and built
me another shelter, in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks
as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which
she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise
again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with.
I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again,
when occasion offers. She engages herself in many foolish things:
among others, trying to study out why the animals called lions and
tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of
teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each
other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each
other, and that would introduce what, as I understand it, is called
“death;” and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the
Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.
Sunday
Pulled through.
Monday
I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest
up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good idea. … She
has been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She
said nobody was looking. Seems to consider that a sufficient
justification for chancing any dangerous thing. Told her that.
The word justification moved her admiration–and envy too, I
thought. It is a good word.
Thursday
She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. This
is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I have not missed
any rib. … She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says
grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can’t raise it; thinks
it was intended to live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get
along the best it can with what is provided. We cannot overturn
the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.
Saturday
She fell in the pond yesterday, when she was looking at herself
in it, which she is always doing. She nearly strangled, and said
it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures
which live in there, which she calls fish, for she continues to
fasten names on to things that don’t need them and don’t come when
they are called by them, which is a matter of no consequence to
her, as she is such a numskull anyway; so she got a lot of them
out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep
warm, but I have noticed them now and then all day, and I don’t
see that they are any happier there than they were before, only
quieter. When night comes I shall throw them out-doors. I will