pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way
were universally a thirsty race. Might not the basket,
soothed by the sympathy which my mere presence, implied, and showed
traveller. And when I returned new drifts would have formed,
"How blind that cannot see serenity!"
was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the
Down the road, on the right hand, on Bristers Hill, lived
One of the last of the philosophers -- Connecticut gave him to the
from the village to the woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on
half-century after they had grown up and died -- blossoming as fair,
tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines;
fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake.
by the wall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and Le Grosse.
fire but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond
leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road." He is
not such as had come down unbroken from those days, or grown on
acted a prominent and astounding part in our New England life, and
scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who
by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for
Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and
stop the consequent leak; -- but I had enough of that kind of oakum
up; which, thank Heaven, could never be burned; and he groped long
would he want more.
my house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a
such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I
approaches nearest to the pond, Wyman the potter squatted, and
midwinter, some warm and springly swamp where the grass and the
to read Chalmers collection of English poetry without skipping. It
snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a
were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and
if I chanced to be at home, I heard the cronching of the snow made
the meadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for
no water privileges, forsooth? Ay, the deep Walden Pond and cool
tended once by childrens hands, in front-yard plots -- now standing
on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so
even when doctors sleep. We made that small house ring with
was now harvest time. It was overrun with Roman wormwood and
earliest species of goldenrod (Solidago stricta) grows there
making amends then to Walden vale for the long silences. Broadway
without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks
at eventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or
town.
performed this duty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a
to my taste. Not long since I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln
pranks of a demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has
Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience
Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the
himself about me; nor needed he, for the master of the house was at
when the ice and snow causing their limbs to droop, and so
is blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes necessary
East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham,
much better by the carriage road from Bristers Hill. For I came to
patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old
vague object or mote that interrupted his visions. At length, on
hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and
engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure; and rearmost of all,
to roost in the next apartment. In the rear there was the dim
absolute," in some form and dialect or other were by turns
whittled them, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish
plank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl
orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a
and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them, and house
bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led
soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing
for the townsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill
the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the
through which I floundered, where the busy northwest wind had been
I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there
their ways again.
biography written one day; who first comes in the guise of a friend
once gone through the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, where
I weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful
singing, for she had a loud and notable voice. At length, in the
the precision of a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks -- to such
drift, and so relieved the family. But no friendly Indian concerned
the earth itself will be destroyed. With such reminiscences I
cold, bracing weather, with clear heads; and when other dessert
and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was
of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with
blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which
meadow mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed to find, even in
remark it almost daily in my walks, for by it hangs the history of a
many a "bran new" theory of life over a thin dish of gruel, which
this spot, I drew near in the dark, and discovered the only survivor
an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived. With him dwelt
by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will
boisterous mirth and resound with the murmur of much sober talk,
raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet.
after I came to the woods, so that I have not remembered him as a
stomach and looking over the cellar wall at the still smouldering
Hugh Quoil (if I have spelt his name with coil enough), who occupied
fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the
and realized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the
thimble-berries, hazel-bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny
through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings.
deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head at
house, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens
routine the winter reduces us -- yet often they were filled with
then men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went
dawning of his day.
when the crust was harder, cut off the trees in the swamps, ten feet
human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! Again,
perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house
him. He could hear me when I moved and cronched the snow with my
tempered the travellers beverage and refreshed his steed. Here
worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another,
the oak copse there.
But this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail
occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient
act must that be -- the covering up of wells! coincident with the
home. The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to hear of! When the
a foundation of logs, the remnants of which, doubtless, still
felt a slumberous influence after watching him half an hour, as he
It chanced that I walked that way across the fields the
reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature
that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words
inhumane. One old frequenter of these woods remembers, that as he
some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a
Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip with its two
and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men
flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief -- returned
business have thrived here, making the wilderness to blossom like
vices, who alone was interested in this burning, lying on his
comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected
to convince me that it was no common "rider." I felt it, and still
and went grandly, like the clouds which float through the western
broken at the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol
furnished his townsmen with earthenware, and left descendants to
caravansary on the worlds highway, where philosophers of all
dark line was my guide. For human society I was obliged to conjure
carmine. He died in the road at the foot of Bristers Hill shortly
side of the way, just on the edge of the wood; ground famous for the
and poultry which are said to have survived for a long time buried
Catos half-obliterated cellar-hole still remains, though known to
and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last.
stable-broom, mat-making, corn-parching, linen-spinning, and pottery
never comes. The Vishnu Purana says, "The house-holder is to remain
opening of wells of tears. These cellar dents, like deserted fox
I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself
There was one other with whom I had "solid seasons," long to be
eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house
expressed our sentiments through speaking-trumpets, or in lower tone
had been a soldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made
mounted, feeling for the iron hook or staple by which a burden had
luxuriantly.
sky, and the mother-o-pearl flocks which sometimes form and
a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass; or it was covered deep
making a path through the deepest snow in the woods, for when I had
Breeds hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had
come to him for advice.
and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still
"but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to
orchard once covered all the slope of Bristers Hill, but was long
such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.
lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers
that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little
town still, like a friendly Indian, when the contents of the broad
tended; large old trees now, but their fruit still wild and ciderish
Sometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my
evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the
whole herd of cows, but did not see the man approaching from the
have spoken of -- we three -- it expanded and racked my little
rescue!" Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads,
Brister Freeman, "a handy Negro," slave of Squire Cummings once --
covered bythe great snow of 1717 when he was absent, and an Indian
bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think
sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having his
prisoners on parole, when she was away, and her cat and dog and hens
wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted "Concord to the
his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours,
deserves, as much as any mythological character, to have his
burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unmarked graves of
as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave
which philosophy requires.
cannot spare him.
large, round, and black, blacker than any of the children of night,
woods, are marks of some homestead of the Stratton family; whose
Scripture, but it had never occurred to me that the pots we use were
at a time, but there I lived as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle
every step; or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on my
sward there; some pitch pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the
But to return toward Lincoln.
sight, feeling his twilight way, as it were, with his sensitive
with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries,
team, it once amused the traveller more than now by its variety, and
or hired man, and then robs and murders the whole family --
already picked.
In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to
of his death, for he confessed to me that, though he had heard of
roots furnish still the wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree.
tender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.
dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than
where he is styled "Sippio Brister" -- Scipio Africanus he had some
become of him. I had read of the potters clay and wheel in
deepest no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or fortnight
first moments that he could call his own to visit the home of his
now filled with the smooth sumach (Rhus glabra), and one of the
Farther in the woods than any of these, where the road
its first hoeing, owing to those terrible shaking fits, though it
All I know of him is tragic. He was a man of manners, like one who
earth offered no worthy foundation. Great Looker! Great Expecter!
Once more, on the left, where are seen the well and lilac bushes
Here, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to town,
from the ground, as it appeared the next spring.
stretch out his neck, and erect his neck feathers, and open his eyes
low-land degeneracy. Alas! how little does the memory of these
Fenda, his hospitable wife, who told fortunes, yet pleasantly --
bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance
miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech
these, all unimproved by these men but to dilute their glass. They
fathers and his youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides and
fictile an art was ever practiced in my neighborhood.
there where grow still the apple trees which Brister planted and
tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same, which
following night, about the same hour, and hearing a low moaning at
nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed,
neighbor. Before his house was pulled down, when his comrades
As I walked over the long causeway made for the railroad through
heavens own blue. But no weather interfered fatally with my walks,
they lodged, and by absorbing the rays of the sun melted the snow,
to sleep and "Gondibert." But as for "Gondibert," I would except
but a humble route to neighboring villages, or for the woodmans
seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to
affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was the color of
cheek, heathen as I was, I turned to it the other also. Nor was it
nowhere has it freer play; and when the frost had smitten me on one
scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the bank, but came
talked of rude and simple times, when men sat about large fires in
referred to the great conflagrations which the world has witnessed,
long since abandoned, for those which have the thickest shells are
sought my house, to have a social "crack"; one of the few of his
or all together. "Its Bakers barn," cried one. "It is the Codman
"Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have
the same length, coming and going, stepping deliberately and with
each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and
dissolve there. There we worked, revising mythology, rounding a
this, that "Cato and Brister pulled wool"; which is about as
longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest." I often
week of even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of
was still and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals there
slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village,
a professors gown, and is as ready to extract the moral out of
him fight his battles over again. His trade here was that of a
crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall,
cat. There was only a narrow slit left between their lids, by which
and half an hour sufficed to obliterate the tracks of the last
been fastened to the heavy end -- all that he could now cling to --
fable here and there, and building castles in the air for which
close to the trunk, in broad daylight, I standing within a rod of
under the sod, when the last of the race departed. What a sorrowful
Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings,
were all burned up together. She led a hard life, and somewhat
from my door, and found his pile of whittlings on the hearth, and my
war of 1812, her dwelling was set on fire by English soldiers,
ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods.
he could lay his hands on. One day in midsummer, when I was hoeing,
The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest
the door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once
some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy and
pulled together so smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not
long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on
or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten
where there was absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes.
Nearer yet to town, you come to Breeds location, on the other
house; I should not dare to say how many pounds weight there was
had seen the world, and was capable of more civil speech than you
together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A
skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial verdure, and some
church or state as to haul a load of manure from his barn-yard. We
discussed. But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just
with fear, and often ran a good part of the distance. Though mainly
It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died; which was but
Bristers Spring, he had never seen it; and soiled cards, kings of
indifferently to the last-uttered or the forth-coming jest. We made
looking out from the land of dreams, and endeavoring to realize me,
from time to time; but I had no more for society there.
the rose, and a numerous posterity have inherited the land of their
the town of Sutton, in this State, whose cottage was completely
a rabbits track, nor even the fine print, the small type, of a
while Concord keeps its ground? Were there no natural advantages --
One afternoon I amused myself by watching a barred owl (Strix
depositing the powdery snow round a sharp angle in the road, and not
and so not only made a my bed for my feet, but in the night their
including Bascoms shop, and, between ourselves, we thought that,
working far off in the river meadows all day, and had improved the
that passage in the preface about wit being the souls powder --
as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though
repeopled the woods and lulled myself asleep.
walk at evening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading
me, as well as the darkness permitted, where the well was covered
skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the
by the step of a long-headed farmer, who from far through the woods
vocation who are "men on their farms"; who donned a frock instead of
underlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratton, now the
Alms-House Farm, to Bristers Hill.
scholars, and entertains the thought of all, adding to it commonly
Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen
He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house atpresent.
There too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor who
city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil
through the pines, spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I
Farther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the
Bristers Spring -- privilege to drink long and healthy draughts at
can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict
black chicken which the administrator could not catch, black as
pinions, he found a new perch, where he might in peace await the
keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt
long ago bought a potters wheel of him, and wished to know what had
and bustle of human life, and "fate, free will, foreknowledge
clothes curled up by use, as if they were himself, upon his raised
passed her house one noon he heard her muttering to herself over her
Wymans tenement -- Col. Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he
sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir trees; wading
night and as silent, not even croaking, awaiting Reynard, still went
outline of a garden, which had been planted but had never received
were regular salutes of laughter, which might have been referred
open fields were all piled up between the walls of the Walden road,
world -- he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his
could not hear the slightest sound from them. Thus, guided amid the
combined the advantages of conviviality with the clear-headedness
lingered longer in his memory. Where now firm open fields stretch
of the family that I know, the heir of both its virtues and its
The house being gone, he looked at what there was left. He was
by wallsides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising
New-England Rum. But history must not yet tell the tragedies
to converse with whom was a New England Nights Entertainment. Ah!
The last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman,
gurgling pot -- "Ye are all bones, bones!" I have seen bricks amid
found it only by the hole which the chimneys breath made in the
Walden Woods; -- Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say
feet, but could not plainly see me. When I made most noise he would
an azure tint to them. Here the most indistinct and dubious
house filled with the odor of his pipe. Or on a Sunday afternoon,
pine boughs rather by a delicate sense of their neighborhood than by
I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods
itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown mans garden and
and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to
diamonds, spades, and hearts, were scattered over the floor. One
some treasure, which he remembered, concealed between the stones,
cinders beneath, muttering to himself, as is his wont. He had been
hands and knees, when the hunters had gone into winter quarters.
and sled it to the village. The elements, however, abetted me in
few, being concealed from the traveller by a fringe of pines. It is
could turn that threatened last and universal one into another
dreams disturbed; and when he launched himself off and flapped
some British grenadiers who fell in the retreat from Concord --
avoided it as "an unlucky castle," I visited it. There lay his old
sat thus with his eyes half open, like a cat, winged brother of the
grain of the pumpkin pine. We waded so gently and reverently, or we
meandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. For a
edifying as the history of more famous schools of philosophy.
farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with their teams, and
we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met
were obliged to cut down the shade trees before their houses, and,
At this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay
land by sufferance while they lived; and there often the sheriff
in drifts, even without food; or like that early settlers family in
brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man,
against my field and inquired concerning Wyman the younger. He had
of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his
beggar-ticks, which last stuck to my clothes for all fruit. The
to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered
could well attend to. He wore a greatcoat in midsummer, being
are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed
failed, we tried our teeth on many a nut which wise squirrels have
points of view by turns, always lying down to it, as if there was
family.
about the wall to find the well-sweep which his father had cut and
were we there in season with our "tub," and a full frog-pond by, we
wide; but their lids soon fell again, and he began to nod. I too
forests; -- the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family.
I am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I
enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to assuage and lend
A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An
and faith making plain the image engraven in mens bodies, the God
up the former occupants of these woods. Within the memory of many
the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it
now. In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines would
were compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it
trees like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear that so
I met no one in my walks but those who came occasionally to cut wood
village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp
-- not to be discovered till some late day -- with a flat stone
chimney nook, and a sweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where
to the tops of the highest hills when the show was nearly two feet
burrows, old holes, are all that is left where once were the stir
a man who was carrying a load of pottery to market stopped his horse
winter evenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly
over Davenants "Gondibert," that winter that I labored with a
hardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring.
title to be called -- "a man of color," as if he were discolored.
remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me
nebulosa) sitting on one of the lower dead limbs of a white pine,
Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and
since killed out by pitch pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old
fathers? The sterile soil would at least have been proof against a
-- we who had run to fires before -- barn, shop, or dwelling-house,
powder."
place," affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the
above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its
who built his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in
perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance
family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself,
sake, as I have read in his accounts, there being nothing else that
succeed him. Neither were they rich in worldly goods, holding the
came in vain to collect the taxes, and "attached a chip," for forms
lethargy -- which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a
be preserved a pennisular relation to me; thus, with half-shut eyes,
commonly empty.
