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.
TUESDAY.–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, she is such a numbskull, 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 then they were before, only quieter.
When night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not sleep
with them again, for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among
when a person hasn’t anything on.
SUNDAY.–Pulled through.
TUESDAY.–She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad,
for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them;
and I am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me to get
a rest.
FRIDAY.–She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree,
and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education.
I told her there would be another result, too–it would introduce
death into the world. That was a mistake–it had been better
to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an idea–she could
save the sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent
lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree.
She said she wouldn’t. I foresee trouble. Will emigrate.
WEDNESDAY.–I have had a variegated time. I escaped last night,
and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to get
clear of the Park and hide in some other country before the
trouble should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour after
sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands
of animals were grazing, slumbering, or playing with each other,
according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest
of frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion
and every beast was destroying its neighbor. I knew what it meant–
Eve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world.
. . . The tigers ate my house, paying no attention when I ordered
them to desist, and they would have eaten me if I had stayed–
which I didn’t, but went away in much haste. . . . I found this place,
outside the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few days, but she
has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place Tonawanda–
says it LOOKS like that. In fact I was not sorry she came,
for there are but meager pickings here, and she brought some
of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry.
It was against my principles, but I find that principles have no
real force except when one is well fed. . . . She came curtained