He was sick and tired of
medicine, and he was sick and tired of persons. Human speech jarred
upon him. Human attentions drove him frantic. The thought came to
him that since he was going to die, he might as well die in the
open, away from all the bother and irritation. And behind this idea
lurked a sneaking idea that perhaps he would not die after all if
only he could escape from the heavy foods, the medicines, and the
well-intentioned persons who made him frantic.
So Ernest Darling, a bag of bones and a death's-head, a
perambulating corpse, with just the dimmest flutter of life in it to
make it perambulate, turned his back upon men and the habitations of
men and dragged himself for five miles through the brush, away from
the city of Portland, Oregon. Of course he was crazy. Only a
lunatic would drag himself out of his death-bed.
But in the brush, Darling found what he was looking for - rest.
Nobody bothered him with beefsteaks and pork. No physicians
lacerated his tired nerves by feeling his pulse, nor tormented his
tired stomach with pellets and powders. He began to feel soothed.
The sun was shining warm, and he basked in it. He had the feeling
that the sun shine was an elixir of health. Then it seemed to him
that his whole wasted wreck of a body was crying for the sun.
