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and noted it in my diary with amazement, “Already bored?”—Even tho the handsome words of Emerson would shake me out of that where he says (in one of those little redleather books, in the essay on “Self Reliance” a man “is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best”) (applicable both to building simple silly little millraces and writing big stupid stories like this)—Words from that trumpet on the morning in America, Emerson, he who announced Whitman and also said “Infancy conforms to nobody”—The infancy of the simplicity of just being happy in the woods, conforming to nobody’s idea about what to do, what should be done—“Life is not an apology”—And when a vain and malicious philanthropic abolitionist accused him of being blind to the issues of slavery he said “Thy love afar is spite at home” (maybe the philanthropist had Negro help anyway)—So once again I’m Ti Jean the Child, playing, sewing patches, cooking suppers, washing dishes (always kept the kettle boiling on the fire and anytime dishes need to be washed I just pour hot hot water into pan with Tide soap and soak them good and then wipe them clean after scouring with little 5-&-10 wire scourer)—Long nights simply thinking about the usefulness of that little wire scourer, those little yellow copper things you buy in supermarkets for 10 cents, all to me infinitely more interesting than the stupid and senseless “Steppenwolf” novel in the shack which I read with a shrug, this old fart reflecting the “conformity” of today and all the while he thought he was a big Nietzsche, old imitator 24