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“So we did,” said Tish, “but we didn’t need it. Won’t you sit down?”

He looked dazed and backed toward the bushes.

“I–I think,” he said, “if there’s nothing wrong I’d better not–“

“Fiddlesticks!” Tish snapped. “Are you ashamed of the body the Lord gave you? Don’t you suppose we’ve all got skins? And didn’t I thrash my nephew, Charlie Sands, when he was almost as big as you and had less on, for bathing in the river? Sit down, man, and don’t be a fool.”

He edged toward the fire, looking rather silly, and Aggie passed him a frog’s leg on a piece of bark.

“Try this, Percy,” she said, smiling.

At the name he looked ready to run. “I guess you’ve seen the notices,” he said, “so you’ll understand I cannot accept any food or assistance. I’m very grateful to you, anyhow.”

“You may take what food you find, surely,” said Aggie. “If you find a roasted frog’s leg on the ground–so–there’s nothing to prevent you eating it, is there?”

“Nothing at all,” said Percy, and picked it up. “Unless, of course–“

“It’s not a trap, young man,” said Tish. “Eat it and enjoy it. There are lots more where it came from.”

He relaxed at that, and on Tish’s bringing out a blanket from the tent to throw over his shoulders he became almost easy. He was much surprised to learn that we knew his story, and when I repeated the “love him” message, he seemed to grow a foot taller and his eyes glowed.

“I’m holding out all right,” he said. “I’m fit physically. But the thing that gets my goat is that I’m to come out clothed. Dorothea’s father says that primitive man, with nothing but his hands and perhaps a stone club, fed himself, made himself a shelter, and clothed himself in skins. Skins! I’m so big that two or three bears would hardly be enough. I did find a hole that I thought a bear or two might fall into, and got almost stung to death robbing a bee tree to bait the thing with honey. But there aren’t any bears, and if there were how’d I kill ’em? Wait until they starve to death?”

“Rabbits!” said Tish.

He looked down at himself and he seemed very large in the firelight. “Dear lady,” he said, “there aren’t enough rabbits in the county to cover me, and how’d I put ’em together? I was a fool to undertake the thing, that’s all.”

“But aren’t you in love with her?” asked Aggie.

“Well, I guess I am. It isn’t that, you know. I’m a good bit worse than crazy about her. A man might be crazy about a mint julep or a power boat, but–he’d hardly go into the woods in his skin and live on fish until he’s scaly for either of them. If I don’t get her, I don’t want to live. That’s all.”

He looked so gloomy and savage that we saw he meant it, and Aggie was perceptibly thrilled. Trish, however, was thinking hard, her eyes on the leech. “Was there anything in the agreement to prevent your accepting any suggestions?”

He pondered. “No, I was to be given no food, drink, shelter, or any weapon. The old man forgot fire–that’s how I came to beg some.”

“Fire and brains,” reflected Tish. “We’ve given you the first and we’ve plenty of the second to offer. Now, young man, this is my plan. We’ll give you nothing but suggestions. If now and then you find a cooked meal under that tree, that’s accident, not design, and you’d better eat it. Can you sew?”

“I’m like the Irishman and the fiddle–I never tried, but I guess I can.” He was much more cheerful.

“Do you have to be alone?”

“I believe he took that for granted, in this costume.”

“Will it take you long to move over here?”

“I think I can move without a van,” he said, grinning. “My sole worldly possessions are a stone hatchet and a hairpin fishhook.”