certainly presupposes sound nourishment. Excellent point that...
And yet Thoreau did his own cooking. A sort of Boy Scout I guess,
with a badge as kitchen master. Perhaps he took Beechnut bacon with
him into the woods. I wonder who cooked for Stevenson--Cummy? The
'Child's Garden of Verses' was really a kind of kitchen garden,
wasn't it? I'm afraid the commissariat problem has weighed rather
heavily on you. I'm glad you've got away from it."

All this was getting rather intricate for me. I set it down as I
remember it, inaccurately perhaps. My governess days are pretty
far astern now, and my line is common sense rather than literary
allusions. I said something of the sort.

"Common sense?" he repeated. "Good Lord, ma'am, sense is the most
uncommon thing in the world. I haven't got it. I don't believe your
brother has, from what you say. Bock here has it. See how he trots
along the road, keeps an eye on the scenery, and minds his own
business. I never saw him get into a fight yet. Wish I could say the
same of myself. I named him after Boccaccio, to remind me to read
the 'Decameron' some day."

"Judging by the way you talk," I said, "you ought to be quite a
writer yourself."

"Talkers never write. They go on talking."

There was a considerable silence. Mifflin relit his pipe and watched
the landscape with a shrewd eye. I held the reins loosely, and Peg
ambled along with a steady clop-clop. Parnassus creaked musically,
and the mid-afternoon sun lay rich across the road. We passed