Here, When They Learned That He Was Harmless, They Gave Him
His Own Way.
They no longer dictated as to the food he ate, so he
resumed his fruits and nuts - olive oil, peanut butter, and bananas
the chief articles of his diet.
As he regained his strength he made
up his mind to live thenceforth his own life. If he lived like
others, according to social conventions, he would surely die. And
he did not want to die. The fear of death was one of the strongest
factors in the genesis of the Nature Man. To live, he must have a
natural diet, the open air, and the blessed sunshine.
Now an Oregon winter has no inducements for those who wish to return
to Nature, so Darling started out in search of a climate. He
mounted a bicycle and headed south for the sunlands. Stanford
University claimed him for a year. Here he studied and worked his
way, attending lectures in as scant garb as the authorities would
allow and applying as much as possible the principles of living that
he had learned in squirrel-town. His favourite method of study was
to go off in the hills back of the University, and there to strip
off his clothes and lie on the grass, soaking in sunshine and health
at the same time that he soaked in knowledge.
But Central California has her winters, and the quest for a Nature
Man's climate drew him on. He tried Los Angeles and Southern
California, being arrested a few times and brought before the
insanity commissions because, forsooth, his mode of life was not
modelled after the mode of life of his fellow-men.
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