"I am ready."

I stood it on end and struck it sharply with my knuckles: it rang out
with a certain clear resonance.

"I am ready."

I sniffed at the end of it. It exhaled a peculiar good smell, as of old
fields in the autumn.

"I am ready."

So I took it under my arm and carried it down.

"Mercy, what are you going to do?" exclaimed Harriet.

"Deliberately, and with malice aforethought," I responded, "I am going
to litter up your floor. I have decided to be reckless. I don't care
what happens."

Having made this declaration, which Harriet received with becoming
disdain, I laid the log by the fireplace--not too near--and went to
fetch a saw, a hammer, a small wedge, and a draw-shave.

I split my log into as fine white sections as a man ever saw--every
piece as straight as morality, and without so much as a sliver to mar
it. Nothing is so satisfactory as to have a task come out in perfect
time and in good order. The little pieces of bark and sawdust I swept
scrupulously into the fireplace, looking up from time to time to see how
Harriet was taking it. Harriet was still disdainful.

Making an axe-helve is like writing a poem (though I never wrote one).
The material is free enough, but it takes a poet to use it. Some people
imagine that any fine thought is poetry, but there was never a greater
mistake. A fine thought, to become poetry, must be seasoned in the upper
warm garrets of the mind for long and long, then it must be brought down
and slowly carved into words, shaped with emotion, polished with love.
Else it is no true poem. Some people imagine that any hickory stick will
make an axe-helve. But this is far from the truth. When I had whittled
away for several evenings with my draw-shave and jack-knife, both of
which I keep sharpened to the keenest edge, I found that my work was not
progressing as well as I had hoped.

"This is more of a task," I remarked one evening, "than I had imagined."

Harriet, rocking placidly in her arm-chair, was mending a number of
pairs of new socks, Poor Harriet! Lacking enough old holes to occupy her
energies, she mends holes that may possibly appear. A frugal person!

"Well, David," she said, "I warned you that you could buy a helve
cheaper than you could make it."

"So I can buy a book cheaper than I can write it," I responded.

I felt somewhat pleased with my return shot, though I took pains not to
show it. I squinted along my hickory stick which was even then beginni