ould use various substitutes beside those which I have
named. "For," as the Forefathers sang,--

"we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips."

Finally, as for salt, that grossest of groceries, to obtain this might
be a fit occasion for a visit to the seashore, or, if I did without it
altogether, I should probably drink the less water. I do not learn that
the Indians ever troubled themselves to go after it.

Thus I could avoid all trade and barter, so far as my food was
concerned, and having a shelter already, it would only remain to get
clothing and fuel. The pantaloons which I now wear were woven in a
farmer's family--thank Heaven there is so much virtue still in man; for
I think the fall from the farmer to the operative as great and memorable
as that from the man to the farmer;--and in a new country, fuel is an
encumbrance. As for a habitat, if I were not permitted still to squat,
I might purchase one acre at the same price for which the land I
cultivated was sold--namely, eight dollars and eight cents. But as it
was, I considered that I enhanced the value of the land by squatting on
it.

There is a certain class of unbelievers who sometimes ask me such
questions as, if I think that I can live on vegetable food alone; and
to strike at the root of the matter at once--for the root is faith--I
am accustomed to answer such, that I can live on board nails. If they
cannot understand that, they cannot understand much that I have to say.
For my part, I am glad to bear of experiments of this kind being tried;
as that a young man tried for a fortnight to live on hard, raw corn on
the ear, using his teeth for all mortar. The squirrel tribe tried the
same and succeeded. The human race is interested in these experiments,
though a few old women who are incapacitated for them, or who own their
thirds in mills, may be alarmed.

My furniture, part of which I made myself--and the rest cost me nothing
of which I have not rendered an account--consisted of a bed, a table, a
desk, three chairs, a looking-glass three inches in diameter, a pair of
tongs and andirons, a kettle, a skillet, and a frying-pan, a dipper, a
wash-bowl, two knives and forks, three plates, one cup, one spoon, a jug
for oil, a jug for molasses, and a japanned lamp. None is so poor that
he need sit on a pumpkin. That is shiftlessness. There is a plenty of
such chairs as I like best in the village garrets to