This exposure laid me up for six weeks with the chills, and about the end of that time there was a wedding—my girl married that Jinks, who took this perfidious advantage of me. I felt very sore for a long time in the region of the diaphragm. The poets usually designate the heart as the particular organ affected in such cases, but I am persuaded it is the semi lunar ganglion or solar plexus, probably the former, from the fact that the victim is apt to be affected by semi lunacy. But that is a question of physiology.
Although I never had another such disastrous experience, yet as I said at first, the average outing with its accidents, fatigues and discomforts, had on the whole, left no very favorable impression on me. Yet I had made up my mind after an interval of six years to try one more. My literary work had tired me out, and a trip, if it gave no pleasure, would hurt at least in another place.
August the third, 1892, found me installed in a cottage, at Cottagewood, at the eastern end of Lake Minnetonka. My plans were simple. I had a gun, a boat and fishing tackle, but of these I intended to make small use. I would rest most of the time, and lie under the trees and read or loaf as I saw fit. I would buy my food of such kind and in such condition as to take but little time for its preparation, for I intended to “keep bach” for which I was qualified by more or less previous experience. If at any time I wanted a square meal, I could take a row around to the St. Louis hotel, or if the wind were favorable could sail over to the Lafayette, or to Excelsior. In short, I meant to rest and take it easy; do nothing at all to-day, that I could put off till to-morrow. I thought this all over the first day and in accordance with the programme proceeded to make myself as lazy as possible. I succeeded well. It requires but little effort to become lazy when one is in the afternoon of life. During a week my activity was reduced to a minimum; I saw but few people, although I had neighbors only a few rods away concealed by the thick brush, that grew between us. Once a dog came and after looking around, trotted away. As I sat or lolled on a rustic bench near the lake, the drowsy monotonous lapping of the water against the shore kept me for hours on the border land of sleep, just in that condition in which one does not know whether the motions of his brain are dreams or waking thoughts, and in which he often dreams that he is dreaming. The sound of the distant puffing of a steam yacht or the merry laughter of a sailing party, that occasionally ricocheted to the shore rather directed than disturbed the train of these passive activities.