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XI. TWILIGHT The first of March! If only the dull weather would clear up I could get more done these last days here. Fifteen brand-new canvases hang from my ridge pole waiting for pictures to adorn them. To-day is the only day that work out-of-doorshas been quite out of the question. It snows hard. Last Thursday morning Rockwell and I began to take our morning baths in the bay—the snow having become too hard. And now at just sevenfifteen —on cloudy mornings, clothed in sneakers we scamper down the shore and plunge into the waves. Brrrrrrrr! It's cold, but mighty good. Olson, after predicting for some time a dire end to our morning performances , has at last evinced enough curiosity to drag himself out of bed and come over to see. But he has not yet been early enough to catch us. The days are lengthening rapidly. It is now after six o'clock in the evening and our lamp's not lighted! Last time in Seward Olson bought a lot of odds and ends of molding for picture frames. And now, with my help, all the little things that we have given him are gorgeously framed. On the little picture of himself that I painted he has what he calls a "camoflag" frame; it's made of different moldings on the four sides. Well, Olson is mighty proud of his pictures. He's really very fond of us. People in Seward say he talks of us continually. And there it is thought quite remarkable how I have managed with the "crazy" old man. I guess the craziness explains it. I picture with horror having as a constant companion here one of the fine, stalwart, shrewd, honest, wholesome-to-sterility Americans that our country likes to be so proud of. *73 I told Olson of Kathleen's amusement over the brusque ending of his letter, "Answer this if you feel like it—and if you don't it's all the same to me'.' "Well" he said, "that's the way it is here in Alaska;if anyone don't like the waya man does he can go to Hell!" I've heard an amusingstory about Olson and his goats at a little Seward exposition at which they were shown. They put his two goats into narrow packing boxes that their dirt might not fall onto the floor of the building. Olson arrived and seeing the plight of his pets flew into a rage. He lifted them out, hurled the packing boxes out of the door into the street, and denounced the fair-committeefor their abuse of animals. "But they dirty the floor" said a lady. "Those goats are just as good as you are" was his answer. And although the whole place tumbled about the old man's ears, he won, and saw his goats given an honorable amount of freedom in a special enclosure—curtained off, "admission to see the goats ten cents"— which notice Olson promptly disregarded, letting everyone in—and a big crowd at that—free. "Humans" says the sage Olson, "are just one kind of animal, but they're the meanest kind. Animals will fight and kill each other but they never do it without a reason!' I've already told somewhere of a famous retort of Olson's that routed a fresh Jew. This last trip in Seward the six weeks saw the end of much of his good nature. And people took advantage of the old man and teased him a lot. He'd spend his days sitting behind the stove in Hawkins' store and it was a rare chance for the clerks to torment him. One fat, rather "stylish" looking, pompous grocery clerk has always aroused Olson's ire. On this day the fun started by someone's saying. "Olson, I saw you down the railroad track last night with a strange lady. Didn't know you were a lady's man!" Chorus, "Oh, Olson, that's the kind of business you're up to here in Seward. Tell us who she was!' "Yes" here put in the fat dandy, "won't you tell us, Olson, who she was?" "I will',' said Olson. "Well, who was she?" "Your Wife"! MONDAY, MARCH THIRD Inauguration day passed here without event. In this ideal community of Fox Island we're so little concerned with law—the only law that bears on us at all we delight in breaking—that...

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