army tent, and rented
for its location the most desirable site on the lake shore.

She had a disagreement with Barton--and left to consult regular doctors.
She turned over all rights to her tent and to the site to me.

"And mind you, Mr. Gregory," she admonished, "this tent and the place it
stands on is as much yours as if you paid for it ... for it's paid for
till Christmas."

So, with my Shelley, my Keats, and my growing pile of manuscript, I took
possession. And with covering from the wet and weather over my head and
with plenty of mosquito netting, I felt established for the summer.

Every morning I rose to behold the beauty of the little, mist-wreathed
lake. Every morning I plunged, naked, into the water, and swam the
quarter of a mile out to the float, and there went through my system of
calisthenics.

I lived religiously on one meal a day--a mono-diet (mostly) of whole
wheat grains, soaked in water till they burst open to the white of the
inside kernel....

Everybody in our rapidly increasing tent-colony enjoyed a fad of his or
her own. There was a little brown woman like the shrivelled inside of
an old walnut, who believed that you should imbibe no fluid other than
that found in the eating of fruits ... when she wanted a drink she never
went to the pitcher, bucket, or well ... instead she sucked oranges or
ate some watermelon. There was a man from Philadelphia who ate nothing
but raw meat. He had eruptions all over his body from the diet, but
still persisted in it. There were several young Italian nature-folk who
ate nothing but vegetables and fruits, raw. They insisted that all the
ills of flesh came to humanity with the cooking of food, that the sun
was enough of a chef. If appearances prove anything, theirs was the
theory nearest right. They were like two fine, sleek animals. A fire of
health shone in their eyes. As they swam off the dam they looked like
two strong seals.

Each had his special method of exercising--bending, jumping, flexing the
muscles this way or that ... lying, sitting, standing!... those who
brought children allowed them to run naked. And we older ones went
naked, when we reached secluded places in the woods.

The townspeople from neighbouring small towns and other country folk
used to come from miles about, Sundays, to watch us swim and exercise.
The women wore men's bathing suits, the men wore just trunks. I wore
only a gee-string, till Barton called me aside and informed me, th