(Deevs are often ungrammatical when they don’t take pains; and this Deev wasn’t taking any pains.)
“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at this town that has come along behind us, full of dirt and disease and laziness and worse. Why don’t you harness up a mountain—you could do that, couldn’t you, Deevy?—and plough up the earth and trample it down and let people live as they were meant to live, and turn them into folks? Why don’t you?”
“It couldn’t be done that way,” said the Deev, very much excited and disgustingly certain.
“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at the men and women and children that have come along behind us. What about them—what about them? Why don’t you make your arms steel and act as if you had wings, and beat the world into a better place for them to live, instead of making a cake of it. You could do it, Deevy—anybody could do that.”
“Yes,” said the Deev, “I could do that. But it don’t appeal to me.”
(Deevs are always ungrammatical when they are being emphatic, and now the Deev was being very emphatic. He was a keen Deev, but he would only learn what he wanted to learn.)
“Deevy dear,” cried Bit-bit, in distress because the Deev was such a disgusting creature, “then at least do get some sweet-grass and make a little garment to help clothe the world?”
“What’s the use?” said the Deev. “Let it go naked. It’s always been that way.”
So, since the Deev would not learn the work witchcraft, Bit-bit, very sorrowful, stood up and said a great truth and made a real answer—which is always a dangerous business.
“You will, you will, you will do these things,” he cried, “because it’s that kind of a world.”