Tuesday
Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the
estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls -- why, I am
sure I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That is not a
reason; it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name
anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along,
before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered
-- it looks like the thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the
moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo."
It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about
it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than
I do.
That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so close to me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to sounds that are more or less distant from me.
Friday
The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a
very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty...
GARDEN-OF-EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not
any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and
scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it looks
like a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently,
without consulting me, it has been new-named... NIAGARA FALLS
PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already
there is a sign up:
KEEP OFF THE GRASS
My
life is not as happy as it was.
Saturday
The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most
likely. "We" again -- that is its word; mine too, now, from hearing it
so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the fog
myself. The new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps
right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be so pleasant and
quiet here.
Sunday
Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying. It was
selected and set apart last November as a day of rest. I already had six
of them per week, before. This morning found the new creature trying to
clod apples out of that forbidden tree.
Monday
The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no
objections. Says it is to call it by when I want it to come. I said it
was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and
indeed it is a large, good word, and will bear repetition. It says it is
not an It, it is a She. This is probably 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.
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 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 that 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 that night, and rode a horse all
night as fast as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the Park and
hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was
not to be. About an hour after sunup, 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 in 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 horse, paying no attention when I ordered them to desist, and they would even 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 meagre 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 in boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them away and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple half eaten -- certainly the best one I ever saw, considering the lateness of the season -- and arrayed myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and after this we crept down to where the wild-beast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish, and that is the main point about clothes.... I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property. Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter. She will be useful. I will superintend.
Ten Days Later
I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful it
is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!" Then in an instant
a bright thought flashed into my head, and I let it fly, saying, "It
would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up there!" -- and I was
just about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke
loose in war and death, and I had to flee for my life. "There," she
said, with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very
jest, and called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval with the
creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not witty; oh,
would that I had never had that radiant thought!
Next Year
We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country trapping on
the North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a couple of miles
from our dug-out -- or it might have been four, she isn't certain which.
It resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what she
thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment.
The difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animal -- a fish, perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she is indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more of it than she does of any of the other animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is disordered -- everything shows it.
Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water. At such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways. I have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used to carry the young tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost our property; but it was only play; she never took on about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them.
Sunday
She doesn't work Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and likes to
have the fish wallow over her; and she makes fool noises to amuse it,
and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have not seen
a fish before that could laugh. This makes me doubt.... I have come to
like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week tires a body so. There
ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they
come handy.
Wednesday
It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It makes curious,
devilish noises when not satisfied, and says "goo-goo" when it is. It is
not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't
fly; it is not a frog, for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it
doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a
chance to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around,
and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have not seen any other
animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma, but she only
admired the word without understanding it. In my judgment it is either
an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and
see what its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex me so.
Three Months Later
The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little. It
has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its four legs now. Yet
it differs from the other four-legged animals in that its front legs are
unusually short, consequently this causes the main part of its person to
stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and this is not attractive. It
is built much as we are, but its method of travelling shows that it is
not of our breed. The short front legs and long hind ones indicate that
it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked variation of the
species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does.
Still, it is a curious and interesting variety, and has not been
catalogued before. As I dis- covered it, I have felt justified in
securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and
hence have called it Kangaroorum Adamiensis....
It must have been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five times as big, now, as it was then, and when discontented is able to make from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this reason I discontinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told it she wouldn't give it. As already observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found it in the woods.
It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection, and for this one to play with; for surely then it would be quieter, and we could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small animals except that one; animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.
But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it in, thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for company than have no kin at all, or any animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it is among friends; but it was a mistake -- it went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one before. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make it happy. If I could tame it -- but that is out of the question; the more I try, the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her; and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one, how could it?
Five Months Later
It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by holding to her
finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then falls down.
It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no tail -- as yet --
and no fur, except on its head. It still keeps on growing -- that is a
curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier than this.
Bears are dangerous -- since our catastrophe -- and I shall not be
satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much longer without
a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this
one go, but it did no good -- she is determined to run us into all sorts
of foolish risks, I think. She was not like this before she lost her
mind.
A Fortnight Later
I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet; it has only one tooth. It
has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it ever did before -- and
mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to
breakfast, and to see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful of
teeth, it will be time for it to go, tail or no tail, for a bear does
not need a tail in order to be dangerous.
Four Months Later
I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up in the region that she
calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless it is because there are not any
buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned to paddle around all by
itself on its hind legs, and says "poppa" and "momma." It is certainly a
new species.
This resemblance to words may be purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general absence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear. The further study of it will be exceedingly interesting.
Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the North and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one somewhere, and this one will be less dangerous when it has company of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.
The old one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could think of, since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as ugly now as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat complexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls it Abel.
After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!
