I orms, and spent some cheerful
er evenings by my fireside, whe snow whirled wildly
, and even ting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks
I met no one in my to cut wood
and sled it to ts, ted me in
making a pat snohe woods, for when I had
once gone to my tracks, where
ted the snow,
and so not only made a my bed for my feet, but in t their
dark line o conjure
up ts of the memory of many
of my toands resounded h
tants, and t
cted tle gardens and
d in by t than
nohe pines would
scrape bot once, and women and children who
o go to Lincoln alone and on foot did it
en ran a good part of tance. though mainly
but a e to neighe woodmans
team, it once amused traveller more ts variety, and
lingered longer in retch
from to t through a maple swamp on
a foundation of logs, ts of ill
underlie t dusty ratton, nohe
Alms-o Bristers hill.
East of my bean-field, across to Ingraham,
slave of Duncan Ingraleman, of Concord village,
w o live in
alden oods; -- Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say
t tle
patcs, ill he should be old
and need t a younger and or got t last.
oo, present.
Catos erated cellar-ill remains, to
feraveller by a fringe of pines. It is
nohe
earliest species of goldenrod (Solidago stricta) grohere
luxuriantly.
ill nearer to town,
Zilptle house, where she spun linen
for toh her shrill
singing, for sable voice. At lengthe
war of 1812, on fire by English soldiers,
prisoners on parole, w and dog and hens
oget
iner of t as he
passed tering to herself over her
gurgling pot -- quot;Ye are all bones, bones!quot; I have seen bricks amid
there.
Do ers hill, lived
Brister Freeman, quot;a ; slave of Squire Cummings once --
till trees ed and
tended; large old trees no t still wild and ciderish
to my taste. Not long since I read aphe old Lincoln
burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unmarked graves of
some Britisreat from Concord --
;Sippio Bristerquot; -- Scipio Africanus he had some
title to be called -- quot;a man of color,quot; as if he were discolored.
It also told me, aring emp
an indirect
Fenda, able unes, yet pleasantly --
large, round, and black, blacker t,
such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.
Fart, on the
ratton family; whose
orcers was long
since killed out by pitcing a feumps, whose old
roots furnisill tocks of many a ty village tree.
Nearer yet to too Breeds location, on ther
side of t on the
pranks of a demon not distinctly named in old mythology, who has
acted a prominent and astounding part in our New England life, and
deserves, as mucer, to have his
biograpten one day; he guise of a friend
or he whole family --
Ne ory must not yet tell tragedies
enacted time intervene in some measure to assuage and lend
an azure tint to t indistinct and dubious
tradition says t once a tavern stood; the same, which
tempered travellers beverage and refreseed. here
ted one anotold t
their ways again.
Breeds anding only a dozen years ago, t had
long been unoccupied. It t on
fire by miscion nig mistake.
I lived on t lost myself
over Davenants quot;Gondibert,quot; t er t I labored h a
leto regard as a
family complaint, o sleep shaving himself,
and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to
keep atempt
to read Cion of Englisry skipping. It
fairly overcame my Nervii. I sunk my he
bells rung fire, and in e t way, led
by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among t, for
I it he woods
-- we wo fires before -- barn, shop, or dwelling-house,
or all toget;Its Bakers barn,quot; cried one. quot;It is the Codman
place,quot; affirmed anot up above the
ed quot;Concord to the
rescue!quot; agons s past h furious speed and crushing loads,
bearing, perc, t of the Insurance
Company, wo go he
engine bell tinkled be of all,
as it erhe fire and gave
t on like true idealists, rejecting the
evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the
crackling and actually felt t of the wall,
and realized, alas! t he
fire but cooled our ardor. At first to throw a frog-pond
on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so
ood round our engine, jostled one another,
expressed our sentiments trumpets, or in loone
referred to t conflagrations wnessed,
including Bascoms s t,
;tub,quot; and a full frog-pond by, we
could turn t tened last and universal one into another
flood. e finally retreated doing any miscurned
to sleep and quot;Gondibert.quot; But as for quot;Gondibert,quot; I
t passage in t being the souls powder --
quot;but most of mankind are strangers to , as Indians are to
po;
It c I he
follo
t, I drehe only survivor
of t I knos virtues and its
vices, ed in this burning, lying on his
stomac till smouldering
cinders beneattering to . he had been
he
first moments t o visit the home of his
fato the cellar from all sides and
points of vieurns, alo it, as if there was
some treasure, ones,
a heap of bricks and ashes.
t . he was
soothy which my mere presence, implied, and showed
me, as ted, whe well was covered
up; whank heaven, could never be burned; and he groped long
about to find t and
mounted, feeling for taple by which a burden had
been fastened to t o --
to convince me t it ;rider.quot; I felt it, and still
remark it almost daily in my ory of a
family.
Once more, on t, whe well and lilac bushes
by tting and Le Grosse.
But to return toward Lincoln.
Farthe road
approac to tter squatted, and
furniso descendants to
succeed he
land by sufferance he sheriff
came in vain to collect taxes, and quot;attac; for forms
sake, as I s, t
he could lay his hands on. One day in midsummer, when I was hoeing,
a man o market stopped his horse
against my field and inquired concerning yman the younger. he had
long ago bougters wo know w had
become of ters clay and wheel in
Scripture, but it o me t ts we use were
not suchose days, or grown on
trees like gourds somewo so
fictile an art iced in my neighborhood.
t inant of these woods before me was an Irishman,
h coil enough), who occupied
ymans tenement -- Col. Quoil, he
aterloo. If he had lived I should have made
tles over again. rade of a
ditc to St. o alden oods.
All I know of ragic. he was a man of manners, like one who
han you
could tend to. coat in midsummer, being
affected rembling delirium, and he color of
carmine. t of Bristers ly
after I came to t I remembered him as a
neighbor. Before his house was pulled down, when his comrades
avoided it as quot;an unlucky castle,quot; I visited it. there lay his old
clothey were himself, upon his raised
plank bed. ead of a bowl
broken at tain. t could never he symbol
of o me t, though he had heard of
Bristers Spring, ; and soiled cards, kings of
diamonds, spades, and s, tered over the floor. One
black crator could not catch, black as
nig, not even croaking, aing Reynard, still
to roost in t apartment. In the dim
outline of a garden, had never received
its first o terrible ss, t
ime. It h Roman wormwood and
beggar-ticks, uck to my clot. the
skin of a che
rop aterloo; but no tens
would more.
No in te of these dwellings,
ones, and strawberries, raspberries,
the sunny
sc he
c-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where
tone imes t is visible, where once
a spring oozed; noearless grass; or it was covered deep
-- not to be discovered till some late day -- stone
under t of ted. a sorrowful
act must t be -- t he
opening of ears. ts, like deserted fox
burro wir
and bustle of ;fate, free will, foreknowledge
absolute,quot; in some form and dialect or oturns
discussed. But all I can learn of ts to just
t quot;Cato and Brister pulled ;; w as
edifying as tory of more famous schools of philosophy.
Still groion after the door and
lintel and ts s-scented flowers
eaco be plucked by traveller; planted and
tended once by c-yard plots -- noanding
by ired pastures, and giving place to new-rising
forests; -- t of t stirp, sole survivor of t family.
Little did t ts two
eyes only, he house
and daily ered, itself so, and outlive them, and house
itself in t s, and grown mans garden and
orcell tory faintly to the lone wanderer a
ury after they had grown up and died -- blossoming as fair,
and smelling as s, as in t first spring. I mark its still
tender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.
But t fail
ural advantages --
no er privileges, forsoothe deep alden Pond and cool
Bristers Spring -- privilege to drink long and s at
t to dilute they
y race. Mig t,
stable-broom, mat-making, corn-parctery
business o blossom like
terity ed their
faterile soil least a
lole does these
ants eny of the landscape! Again,
perure ry, settler, and my house
raised last spring to be t in t.
I am not a any man on t which I
occupy. Deliver me from a city built on te of a more ancient
city, he soil
is blanc becomes necessary
tself royed. ith such reminiscences I
repeopled the woods and lulled myself asleep.
At tor. he snow lay
deepest no ured near my night
at a time, but ttle
and poultry wo ime buried
in drifts, even food; or like t early settlers family in
toton, in tate, ely
covered by t snow of 1717 w, and an Indian
found it only by the
drift, and so relieved t no friendly Indian concerned
me; nor needed er of t
Snoo he
farmers could not get to teams, and
o cut dorees before their houses, and,
rees in ten feet
from t appeared t spring.
In t snoo
my ed by a
meandering dotted line, ervals bets. For a
ook exactly teps, and of
tepping deliberately and h
tracks -- to such
routine ter reduces us -- yet often th
no erfered fatally h my walks,
or ratly tramped eigen
miles t snoo keep an appointment h a beech
tree, or a yellohe pines;
wo droop, and so
sops, o fir trees; wading
to tops of t
deep on a level, and sorm on my
every step; or sometimes creeping and floundering ther on my
ers o er quarters.
One afternoon I amused myself by crix
nebulosa) sitting on one of te pine,
close to trunk, in broad dayliganding hin a rod of
h my
feet, but could not plainly see me. noise he would
stretc hers, and open his eyes
to nod. I too
felt a slumberous influence after ching him half an hour, as he
sat t, he
cat. t left betheir lids, by which
be preserved a pennisular relation to me; t eyes,
looking out from to realize me,
vague object or mote t interrupted length, on
some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy and
sluggisurn about on ient at having his
dreams disturbed; and when he launched himself off and flapped
to unexpected breadth, I
could not est sound from the
pine bouge sense of than by
sigive
pinions, in peace a the
dawning of his day.
As I hrough
tered many a blustering and nipping wind, for
noen me on one
curned to it t
mucter by ters o
toill, like a friendly Indian, s of the broad
open fields he alden road,
and o obliterate tracks of t
traveller. And s would have formed,
t wind had been
depositing t
a rabbits track, nor even t, type, of a
meadoo be seen. Yet I rarely failed to find, even in
mider, some warm and springly swamp whe
skunk-cabbage still put forth perennial verdure, and some
ed turn of spring.
Sometimes, notanding turned from my
evening I crossed tracks of a woodchopper leading
from my door, and found tlings on th, and my
ernoon,
if I co be at he snow made
by tep of a long-he woods
sougo ;crackquot;; one of the few of his
vocation ;; wead of
a professors goo extract t of
cate as to haul a load of manure from his barn-yard. e
talked of rude and simple times, large fires in
cold, bracing
failed, ried our teet which wise squirrels have
long since abandoned, for t shells are
commonly empty.
t to my lodge, t
sno dismal tempests, . A farmer, a er, a
soldier, a reporter, even a ped; but nothing
can deter a poet, for uated by pure love.
at all hours,
even small h
boisterous mirtalk,
making amends to alden vale for the long silences. Broadway
ill and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals there
es of laug have been referred
indifferently to t-uttered or t. e made
many a quot;bran ne; thin dish of gruel, which
combined tages of conviviality he clear-headedness
which philosophy requires.
I s forget t during my last er at there
or, ime came the
village, till he saw my lamp
trees, and ser evenings.
One of t of ticut gave o the
world -- erwards, as he declares, his
brains. till, prompting God and disgracing man,
bearing for fruit its kernel. I think
t be t faith of any alive. his words
and attitude alter state of ther men
are acquainted man to be disappointed
as ture in t. But though
comparatively disregarded now, wed
by most ake effect, and masters of families and rulers will
come to him for advice.
quot; cannot see serenity!quot;
A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An
Old Mortality, say ratality, ience
and faithe God
of s. ith his
able intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and
scertains t of all, adding to it commonly
some breadt he should keep a
caravansary on the worlds highway, where philosophers of all
nations mig up, and on ed,
quot;Entertainment for man, but not for . Enter ye t have
leisure and a quiet mind, road.quot; he is
per man and crotcs of any I chance
to knoerday and tomorrow. Of yore we ered
and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was
pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. hichever way
urned, it seemed t t
togety of the landscape. A
blue-robed man, roof is the overarching sky which
reflects y. I do not see ure
cannot spare him.
and
rying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish
grain of tly and reverently, or we
pulled toget t
scared from tream, nor feared any angler on t came
and grandly, like t tern
sky, and times form and
dissolve thology, rounding a
fable les in the air for which
eartion. Great Looker! Great Expecter!
to converse s Entertainment. Ah!
suc and ptler I
expanded and racked my little
dare to say there was
above tmosp opened its
seams so t to be calked er to
stop t leak; -- but I kind of oakum
already picked.
t;solid seasons,quot; long to be
remembered, at he village, and who looked in upon me
from time to time; but I y there.
too, as everyed tor who
never comes. t;to remain
at eventide in yard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or
longer if o a t.quot; I often
performed ty of ality, ed long enougo milk a
see the
town.