Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors
I weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful winter evenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks I met no one in my walks but those who came occasionally to cut wood and sled it to the village. The elements, however, abetted me in making a path through the deepest snow in the woods, for when I had once gone through the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, where they lodged, and by absorbing the rays of the sun melted the snow, and so not only made a my bed for my feet, but in the night their dark line was my guide. For human society I was obliged to conjure up the former occupants of these woods. Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now. In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines would scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who were compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it with fear, and often ran a good part of the distance. Though mainly but a humble route to neighboring villages, or for the woodman's team, it once amused the traveller more than now by its variety, and lingered longer in his memory. Where now firm open fields stretch from the village to the woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on a foundation of logs, the remnants of which, doubtless, still underlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratton, now the Alms-House Farm, to Brister's Hill.
East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village, who built his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in Walden Woods; -- Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present. Cato's half-obliterated cellar-hole still remains, though known to few, being concealed from the traveller by a fringe of pines. It is now filled with the smooth sumach (Rhus glabra), and one of the earliest species of goldenrod (Solidago stricta) grows there luxuriantly.
Here, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to town, Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen for the townsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for she had a loud and notable voice. At length, in the war of 1812, her dwelling was set on fire by English soldiers, prisoners on parole, when she was away, and her cat and dog and hens were all burned up together. She led a hard life, and somewhat inhumane. One old frequenter of these woods remembers, that as he passed her house one noon he heard her muttering to herself over her gurgling pot -- "Ye are all bones, bones!" I have seen bricks amid the oak copse there.
Down the road, on the right hand, on Brister's Hill, lived Brister Freeman, "a handy Negro," slave of Squire Cummings once -- there where grow still the apple trees which Brister planted and tended; large old trees now, but their fruit still wild and ciderish to my taste. Not long since I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell in the retreat from Concord -- where he is styled "Sippio Brister" -- Scipio Africanus he had some title to be called -- "a man of color," as if he were discolored. It also told me, with staring emphasis, when he died; which was but an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived. With him dwelt Fenda, his hospitable wife, who told fortunes, yet pleasantly -- large, round, and black, blacker than any of the children of night, such a dusky orb as never rose on Concord before or since.
Farther down the hill, on the left, on the old road in the woods, are marks of some homestead of the Stratton family; whose orchard once covered all the slope of Brister's Hill, but was long since killed out by pitch pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old roots furnish still the wild stocks of many a thrifty village tree.
Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed's location, on the other side of the way, just on the edge of the wood; ground famous for 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 much as any mythological character, to have his biography written one day; who first comes in the guise of a friend or hired man, and then robs and murders the whole family -- New-England Rum. But history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted here; let time intervene in some measure to assuage and lend an azure tint to them. Here the most indistinct and dubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the same, which tempered the traveller's beverage and refreshed his steed. Here then men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went their ways again.
Breed's hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied. It was about the size of mine. It was set on fire by mischievous boys, one Election night, if I do not mistake. I lived on the edge of the village then, and had just lost myself over Davenant's "Gondibert," that winter that I labored with a lethargy -- which, by the way, I never knew whether to regard as a family complaint, having an uncle who goes to sleep shaving himself, and is obliged to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of my attempt to read Chalmers' collection of English poetry without skipping. It fairly overcame my Nervii. I had just sunk my head on this when the bells rung fire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop of men and boys, and I among the foremost, for I had leaped the brook. We thought it was far south over the woods -- we who had run to fires before -- barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together. "It's Baker's barn," cried one. "It is the Codman place," affirmed another. And then fresh sparks went up above the wood, as if the roof fell in, and we all shouted "Concord to the rescue!" Wagons shot past with furious speed and crushing loads, bearing, perchance, among the rest, the agent of the Insurance Company, who was bound to go however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure; and rearmost of all, as it was afterward whispered, came they who set the fire and gave the alarm. Thus we kept on like true idealists, rejecting the evidence of our senses, until at a turn in the road we heard the crackling and actually felt the heat of the fire from over the wall, and realized, alas! that we were there. The very nearness of the fire but cooled our ardor. At first we thought to throw a frog-pond on to it; but concluded to let it burn, it was so far gone and so worthless. So we stood round our engine, jostled one another, expressed our sentiments through speaking-trumpets, or in lower tone referred to the great conflagrations which the world has witnessed, including Bascom's shop, and, between ourselves, we thought that, were we there in season with our "tub," and a full frog-pond by, we could turn that threatened last and universal one into another flood. We finally retreated without doing any mischief -- returned to sleep and "Gondibert." But as for "Gondibert," I would except that passage in the preface about wit being the soul's powder -- "but most of mankind are strangers to wit, as Indians are to powder."
It chanced that I walked that way across the fields the following night, about the same hour, and hearing a low moaning at this spot, I drew near in the dark, and discovered the only survivor of the family that I know, the heir of both its virtues and its vices, who alone was interested in this burning, lying on his stomach and looking over the cellar wall at the still smouldering cinders beneath, muttering to himself, as is his wont. He had been working far off in the river meadows all day, and had improved the first moments that he could call his own to visit the home of his fathers and his youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides and points of view by turns, always lying down to it, as if there was some treasure, which he remembered, concealed between the stones, where there was absolutely nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. The house being gone, he looked at what there was left. He was soothed by the sympathy which my mere presence, implied, and showed me, as well as the darkness permitted, where the well was covered up; which, thank Heaven, could never be burned; and he groped long about the wall to find the well-sweep which his father had cut and mounted, feeling for the iron hook or staple by which a burden had been fastened to the heavy end -- all that he could now cling to -- to convince me that it was no common "rider." I felt it, and still remark it almost daily in my walks, for by it hangs the history of a family.
Once more, on the left, where are seen the well and lilac bushes by the wall, in the now open field, lived Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return toward Lincoln.
Farther in the woods than any of these, where the road approaches nearest to the pond, Wyman the potter squatted, and furnished his townsmen with earthenware, and left descendants to succeed him. Neither were they rich in worldly goods, holding the land by sufferance while they lived; and there often the sheriff came in vain to collect the taxes, and "attached a chip," for form's sake, as I have read in his accounts, there being nothing else that he could lay his hands on. One day in midsummer, when I was hoeing, a man who was carrying a load of pottery to market stopped his horse against my field and inquired concerning Wyman the younger. He had long ago bought a potter's wheel of him, and wished to know what had become of him. I had read of the potter's clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred to me that the pots we use were not such as had come down unbroken from those days, or grown on trees like gourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear that so fictile an art was ever practiced in my neighborhood.
The last inhabitant of these woods before me was an Irishman, Hugh Quoil (if I have spelt his name with coil enough), who occupied Wyman's tenement -- Col. Quoil, he was called. Rumor said that he had been a soldier at Waterloo. If he had lived I should have made him fight his battles over again. His trade here was that of a ditcher. Napoleon went to St. Helena; Quoil came to Walden Woods. All I know of him is tragic. He was a man of manners, like one who had seen the world, and was capable of more civil speech than you could well attend to. He wore a greatcoat in midsummer, being affected with the trembling delirium, and his face was the color of carmine. He died in the road at the foot of Brister's Hill shortly after I came to the woods, so that I have not remembered him as a neighbor. Before his house was pulled down, when his comrades avoided it as "an unlucky castle," I visited it. There lay his old clothes curled up by use, as if they were himself, upon his raised plank bed. His pipe lay broken on the hearth, instead of a bowl broken at the fountain. The last could never have been the symbol of his death, for he confessed to me that, though he had heard of Brister's Spring, he had never seen it; and soiled cards, kings of diamonds, spades, and hearts, were scattered over the floor. One black chicken which the administrator could not catch, black as night and as silent, not even croaking, awaiting Reynard, still went to roost in the next apartment. In the rear there was the dim outline of a garden, which had been planted but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible shaking fits, though it was now harvest time. It was overrun with Roman wormwood and beggar-ticks, which last stuck to my clothes for all fruit. The skin of a woodchuck was freshly stretched upon the back of the house, a trophy of his last Waterloo; but no warm cap or mittens would he want more.
Now only a dent in the earth marks the site of these dwellings, with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thimble-berries, hazel-bushes, and sumachs growing in the sunny sward there; some pitch pine or gnarled oak occupies what was the chimney nook, and a sweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was. Sometimes the well dent is visible, where once a spring oozed; now dry and tearless grass; or it was covered deep -- not to be discovered till some late day -- with a flat stone under the sod, when the last of the race departed. What a sorrowful act must that be -- the covering up of wells! coincident with the opening of wells of tears. These cellar dents, like deserted fox burrows, old holes, are all that is left where once were the stir and bustle of human life, and "fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute," in some form and dialect or other were by turns discussed. But all I can learn of their conclusions amounts to just this, that "Cato and Brister pulled wool"; which is about as edifying as the history of more famous schools of philosophy.
Still grows the vivacious lilac a generation after the door and lintel and the sill are gone, unfolding its sweet-scented flowers each spring, to be plucked by the musing traveller; planted and tended once by children's hands, in front-yard plots -- now standing by wallsides in retired pastures, and giving place to new-rising forests; -- the last of that stirp, sole survivor of that family. Little did the dusky children think that the puny slip with its two eyes only, which they stuck in the ground in the shadow of the house and daily watered, would root itself so, and outlive them, and house itself in the rear that shaded it, and grown man's garden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died -- blossoming as fair, and smelling as sweet, as in that first spring. I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful lilac colors.
But this small village, germ of something more, why did it fail while Concord keeps its ground? Were there no natural advantages -- no water privileges, forsooth? Ay, the deep Walden Pond and cool Brister's Spring -- privilege to drink long and healthy draughts at these, all unimproved by these men but to dilute their glass. They were universally a thirsty race. Might not the basket, stable-broom, mat-making, corn-parching, linen-spinning, and pottery business have thrived here, making the wilderness to blossom like the rose, and a numerous posterity have inherited the land of their fathers? The sterile soil would at least have been proof against a low-land degeneracy. Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape! Again, perhaps, Nature will try, with me for a first settler, and my house raised last spring to be the oldest in the hamlet.
I am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes necessary the earth itself will be destroyed. With such reminiscences I repeopled the woods and lulled myself asleep.
At this season I seldom had a visitor. When the snow lay deepest no wanderer ventured near my house for a week or fortnight at a time, but there I lived as snug as a meadow mouse, or as cattle and poultry which are said to have survived for a long time buried in drifts, even without food; or like that early settler's family in the town of Sutton, in this State, whose cottage was completely covered by the great snow of 1717 when he was absent, and an Indian found it only by the hole which the chimney's breath made in the drift, and so relieved the family. But no friendly Indian concerned himself about me; nor needed he, for the master of the house was at home. The Great Snow! How cheerful it is to hear of! When the farmers could not get to the woods and swamps with their teams, and were obliged to cut down the shade trees before their houses, and, when the crust was harder, cut off the trees in the swamps, ten feet from the ground, as it appeared the next spring.
In the deepest snows, the path which I used from the highway to my house, about half a mile long, might have been represented by a meandering dotted line, with wide intervals between the dots. For a week of even weather I took exactly the same number of steps, and of the same length, coming and going, stepping deliberately and with the precision of a pair of dividers in my own deep tracks -- to such routine the winter reduces us -- yet often they were filled with heaven's own blue. But no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines; when the ice and snow causing their limbs to droop, and so sharpening their tops, had changed the pines into fir trees; wading to the tops of the highest hills when the show was nearly two feet deep on a level, and shaking down another snow-storm on my head at every step; or sometimes creeping and floundering thither on my hands and knees, when the hunters had gone into winter quarters. One afternoon I amused myself by watching a barred owl (Strix nebulosa) sitting on one of the lower dead limbs of a white pine, close to the trunk, in broad daylight, I standing within a rod of him. He could hear me when I moved and cronched the snow with my feet, but could not plainly see me. When I made most noise he would stretch out his neck, and erect his neck feathers, and open his eyes wide; but their lids soon fell again, and he began to nod. I too felt a slumberous influence after watching him half an hour, as he sat thus with his eyes half open, like a cat, winged brother of the cat. There was only a narrow slit left between their lids, by which be preserved a pennisular relation to me; thus, with half-shut eyes, looking out from the land of dreams, and endeavoring to realize me, vague object or mote that interrupted his visions. At length, on some louder noise or my nearer approach, he would grow uneasy and sluggishly turn about on his perch, as if impatient at having his dreams disturbed; and when he launched himself off and flapped through the pines, spreading his wings to unexpected breadth, I could not hear the slightest sound from them. Thus, guided amid the pine boughs rather by a delicate sense of their neighborhood than by sight, feeling his twilight way, as it were, with his sensitive pinions, he found a new perch, where he might in peace await the dawning of his day.
As I walked over the long causeway made for the railroad through the meadows, I encountered many a blustering and nipping wind, for nowhere has it freer play; and when the frost had smitten me on one cheek, heathen as I was, I turned to it the other also. Nor was it much better by the carriage road from Brister's Hill. For I came to town still, like a friendly Indian, when the contents of the broad open fields were all piled up between the walls of the Walden road, and half an hour sufficed to obliterate the tracks of the last traveller. And when I returned new drifts would have formed, through which I floundered, where the busy northwest wind had been depositing the powdery snow round a sharp angle in the road, and not a rabbit's track, nor even the fine print, the small type, of a meadow mouse was to be seen. Yet I rarely failed to find, even in midwinter, some warm and springly swamp where the grass and the skunk-cabbage still put forth with perennial verdure, and some hardier bird occasionally awaited the return of spring.
Sometimes, notwithstanding the snow, when I returned from my walk at evening I crossed the deep tracks of a woodchopper leading from my door, and found his pile of whittlings on the hearth, and my house filled with the odor of his pipe. Or on a Sunday afternoon, if I chanced to be at home, I heard the cronching of the snow made by the step of a long-headed farmer, who from far through the woods sought my house, to have a social "crack"; one of the few of his vocation who are "men on their farms"; who donned a frock instead of a professor's gown, and is as ready to extract the moral out of church or state as to haul a load of manure from his barn-yard. We talked of rude and simple times, when men sat about large fires in cold, bracing weather, with clear heads; and when other dessert failed, we tried our teeth on many a nut which wise squirrels have long since abandoned, for those which have the thickest shells are commonly empty.
The one who came from farthest to my lodge, through deepest snows and most dismal tempests, was a poet. A farmer, a hunter, a soldier, a reporter, even a philosopher, may be daunted; but nothing can deter a poet, for he is actuated by pure love. Who can predict his comings and goings? His business calls him out at all hours, even when doctors sleep. We made that small house ring with boisterous mirth and resound with the murmur of much sober talk, making amends then to Walden vale for the long silences. Broadway was still and deserted in comparison. At suitable intervals there were regular salutes of laughter, which might have been referred indifferently to the last-uttered or the forth-coming jest. We made many a "bran new" theory of life over a thin dish of gruel, which combined the advantages of conviviality with the clear-headedness which philosophy requires.
I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of the philosophers -- Connecticut gave him to the world -- he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will come to him for advice.
"How blind that cannot see serenity!"
A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith making plain the image engraven in men's bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the thought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world's highway, where philosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed, "Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road." He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.
Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled together so smoothly, that the fishes of thought were not scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the bank, but came and went grandly, like the clouds which float through the western sky, and the mother-o'-pearl flocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. There we worked, revising mythology, rounding a fable here and there, and building castles in the air for which earth offered no worthy foundation. Great Looker! Great Expecter! to converse with whom was a New England Night's Entertainment. Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I have spoken of -- we three -- it expanded and racked my little house; I should not dare to say how many pounds' weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak; -- but I had enough of that kind of oakum already picked.
There was one other with whom I had "solid seasons," long to be remembered, at his house in the village, and who looked in upon me from time to time; but I had no more for society there.
There too, as everywhere, I sometimes expected the Visitor who never comes. The Vishnu Purana says, "The house-holder is to remain at eventide in his courtyard as long as it takes to milk a cow, or longer if he pleases, to await the arrival of a guest." I often performed this duty of hospitality, waited long enough to milk a whole herd of cows, but did not see the man approaching from the town.
我遭逢了几次快乐的风雪，在火炉边度过了一些愉快的冬夜，那时外面风雪狂放地旋转，便是枭鹰的叫声也给压下去了。好几个星期以来，我的散步中没有遇到过一个人，除非那些偶尔到林中来伐木的，他们用雪车把木料载走了。然而那些大风大雪却教会我从林中积雪深处开辟出一条路径来，因为有一次我走过去以后，风把一些橡树叶子吹到了被我踏过的地方；它们留在那里，吸收了太阳光，而溶去了积雪，这样我不但脚下有了干燥的路可走，而且到晚上，它们的黑色线条可以给我引路。至于与人交往，我不能不念念有辞，召回旧日的林中居民。照我那个乡镇上许多居民的记忆，我屋子附近那条路上曾响彻了居民的闲谈与笑声，而两旁的森林，到处斑斑点点，都曾经有他们的小花园和小住宅，虽然当时的森林，比起现在来，还要浓密得多。在有些地方，我自己都记得的，浓密的松材摩擦着轻便马车的两侧；不得不单独地步行到林肯去的女人和孩子，经过这里往往害怕得不得了，甚至狂奔上一段路。虽然主要他说来，这是到邻村去的一条微不足道的小径，或者说是只有樵夫在走的，但是它曾经迷惑了一些旅行家，当时它的花明柳暗，比现下更要丰富，在记忆之中也更可留恋。现在从村子到森林中间有一大片空旷的原野，当时是一个枫树林的沼泽地区，许多的木料是那里的小径的基础，现在成了多尘土的公路了，从现在已经是济贫院的斯特拉登，经过田庄，一直通到勃立斯特山的公路下，无疑还找得到它的痕迹。
在我的豆田之东，路的那一边，卡托·殷格拉汉姆曾居住过，他是康科德的乡绅邓肯·殷格拉汉姆老爷的奴隶；他给他的奴隶造了一座房子，还允许他住在瓦尔登林中，——这个卡托不是尤蒂卡的那个，而是康科德人。有人说他是几内亚的黑人。有少数人还记得他胡桃林中的一块小地，他将它培育成林了，希望老了以后，需要的时候可以有用处；一个年轻白种人的投机家后来买下了它。现在他也有一所狭长的房子。卡托的那个半已消失无踪的地窖窟窿至今还在，却很少人知道了，因为有一行松树遮去了旅行家的视线。现在那里满是平滑的黄栌树（学名Rhusglabra），还有很原始的一种黄色紫苑（学名 Solidagostricta），也在那里很茂郁地生长着。
就在我的豆田转角的地方，离乡镇更近了，一个黑种女人席尔发有着她的一幢小房屋，她在那里给地方上人织细麻布，她有一个响亮激越的嗓子，唱得瓦尔登林中口荡着她的尖锐的歌声。最后，一八一二年，她的住宅给一些英国兵烧掉了，他们是一些假释的俘虏，那时恰巧她不在家，她的猫、狗和老母鸡一起都给烧死了。她过的生活很艰苦，几乎是不像人过的。有个在这森林中可称为常客的老者还记得，某一个午间他经过她的家，他听到她在对着沸腾的壶喃喃自语，——“你们全是骨头，骨头啊！”我还看见过橡树林中留存着的砖头。
沿路走下去，右手边，在勃立斯特山上，住着勃立斯特，富理曼，“一个机灵的黑人”，一度是肯明斯老爷的奴隶，——这个勃立斯特亲手种植并培养的苹果树现在还在那里生长，成了很大很古老的树，可是那果实吃起来还是野性十足的野苹果味道。不久前，我还在林肯公墓里读到他的墓志铭，他躺在一个战死在康科德撤退中的英国掷弹兵旁边，——墓碑上写的是“斯伊比奥·勃立斯特”，——他有资格被叫做斯基比奥·阿非利加努斯——“一个有色人种”，好像他曾经是无色似的。墓碑上还异常强调似的告诉了我，他是什么时候死的；这倒是一个间接的办法，它告诉了我，这人是曾经活过的。和他住在一起的是他的贤妻芬达，她能算命，然而是令人非常愉快的，——很壮硕，圆圆的，黑黑的，比任何黑夜的孩子还要黑，这样的黑球，在康科德一带是空前绝后的。
沿着山再下去，靠左手，在林中的古道上，还留着斯特拉登家的残迹；他家的果树园曾经把勃立斯特山的斜坡全部都占了，可是也老早给苍松杀退，只除了少数树根，那些根上又生出了更繁茂的野树。
更接近乡镇，在路的另外一面，就在森林的边上，你到了勃里德的地方，那地方以一个妖怪出名，这妖怪尚未收入古代神话中：他在新英格兰人的生活中有极重要、极惊人的关系，正如许多神话中的角色那样，理应有那么一天，有人给他写一部传记的；最初，他乔装成一个朋友，或者一个雇工来到，然后他抢劫了，甚至谋杀了那全家老小，——他是新英格兰的怪人。可是历史还不能把这里所发生的一些悲剧写下来，让时间多少把它们弄糊涂一点，给它们一层蔚蓝的颜色吧。有一个说不清楚的传说，说到这里曾经有过一个酒店；正是这同一口井，供给了旅客的饮料，给他们的牲口解渴。在这里，人们曾经相聚一堂，交换新闻，然后各走各的路。
勃里德的草屋虽然早就没有人住了，却在十二年前还站着。大小跟我的一座房子差不多。如果我没有弄错的话，那是在一个选举大总统的晚上，几个顽皮小孩放火把它烧了。那时我住在村子边上，正读着德芙南特的《刚蒂倍尔特》读得出了神，这年冬天我害了瞌睡病，——说起来，我也不知道这是否家传的老毛病，但是我有一个伯父，刮刮胡子都会睡着，星期天他不得不在地窖里摘去土豆的芽，就是为了保持清醒，信守他的安息日；也许另外的一个原因是由于这年我想读查尔末斯编的《英国诗选》，一首也不跳过去，所以读昏了的。德芙南特的书相当征服了我的神经。我正读得脑袋越来越低垂，忽然火警的钟声响了，救火车狂热地奔上前去，前后簇拥着溃乱的男子和小孩，而我是跑在最前列的，因为我一跃而跃过了溪流。我们以为人烧的地点远在森林之南，——我们以前都救过火的，—— 兽厩啦，店铺啦，或者住宅啦，或者是所有这些都起了火。“是倍克田庄，”有人嚷道。“是考德曼的地方，”另外的人这样肯定。于是又一阵火星腾上了森林之上的天空，好像屋脊塌了下去，于是我们都叫起了“康科德来救火了！”在狂怒的速度下，车辆飞去如飞矢，坐满了人，其中说不定有保险公司代理人，不管火烧得离他如何远，他还是必须到场的；然而救火车的铃声却越落越后，它更慢更稳重了，而在殿军之中，后来大家窃窃私语他说，就有那一批放了火，又来报火警的人。就这样，我们像真正的唯心主义者向前行进，不去理会我们的感官提供的明证，直到在路上转了个弯，我们听到火焰的爆裂声，确确实实地感到了墙那边传过来的热度，才明白，唉！我们就在这个地方。接近了火只有使我们的热忱减少。起先我们想把一个蛙塘的水都浇在火上；结果却还是让它烧去，这房子已经烧得差不多了，又毫无价值。于是我们围住了我们的救火车，拥来拥去，从扬声喇叭中发表我们的观点，或者用低低的声音，谈谈有史以来世界上的大火灾，包括巴斯康的店铺的那一次，而在我们自己一些人中间却想到，要是凑巧我们有“桶”，又有个涨满水的蛙塘的话，我们可以把那吓人的最后一场大火变成再一次大洪水的。最后我们一点坏事也不做，都回去了，——回去睡觉，我回去看我的《刚蒂倍尔特》。说到这本书，序文中有一段话是关于机智是灵性的火药的，——“可是大部分的人类不懂得机智，正如印第安人不懂得火药，”我颇不以为然。
第二天晚上，我凑巧又走过了火烧地，差不多在同样的时候，那里我听到了低沉的呻吟声，我在黑暗中摸索着走近去，发现我认识这个人，他是那家的唯一的子孙；他承继了这一家人的缺点和优点；也惟有他还关心这火灾，现在他扑倒在地窖边上，从地窖的墙边望到里面还在冒烟的灰烬，一面喃喃自语，这是他的一个习惯。一整天来，他在远远的河边草地上干活，一有自己可以支配的时间，就立即来到他的祖先的家，他的童年时代就是在这里过的。他轮流从各个方向，各个地点，望着地窖，身子总躺着，好像他还记得有什么宝藏，藏在石块中间，但什么也没有，只有砖石和灰烬。屋子已经烧去了，他要看看留下来的部分。仅仅因为我在他的身边，他就仿佛有了同情者，而得到安慰，他指点给我看一口井，尽可能从黑暗中看到它被盖没的地方；他还沿着墙久久地摸索过去，找出了他父亲亲手制造和架起来的吊水架，叫我摸摸那重的一端吊重物用的铁钩或锁环，——现在他还能够抓到的只有这一个东西了，——他要我相信这是一个不平凡的架子。我摸了它，后来每次散步到这里总要看看它；因为它上面还钩着一个家族的历史。
在左边，在可以看见井和墙边的丁香花丛的地方，在现在的空地里，曾经住过纳丁和勒·格洛斯。可是，让我们回到林肯去吧。
在森林里比上述任何一个地方还要远些，就在路最最靠近湖的地点，陶器工人魏曼蹲在那里，制出陶器供应乡镇人民，还留下了子孙来继续他的事业。在世俗的事物上，他们也是很贫穷的，活着的时候，勉勉强强地被允许拥有那块土地：镇长还常常来征税，来也是白来，只能“拖走了一些不值钱的东西”，做做形式，因为他实在是身无长物；我从他的报告里发现过上述的活。仲夏的一天，我正在锄地，有个带着许多陶器到市场去的人勒住了马，在我的田畔问我小魏曼的近况。很久以前，他向他买下了一个制陶器用的轮盘，他很希望知道他现在怎么样。我只在经文之中读到过制陶器的陶土和辘盘，我却从未注意过，我们所用的陶器并不是从那时留传到今天的丝毫无损的古代陶器，或者在哪儿像葫芦般长在树上的，我很高兴地听说，这样一种塑造的艺术，在我们附近，也有人干了。
在我眼前的最后一个林中居民是爱尔兰人休·夸尔（这是说如果我说他的名字舌头卷得够的活），他借住在魏曼那儿，——他们叫他夸尔上校。传说他曾经以士兵的身份参加过滑铁卢之战。如果他还活着，我一定要他把战争再打一遍。他在这里的营生是挖沟。拿破仑到了圣赫勒拿岛，而夸尔来到了瓦尔登森林。凡我所知道的他的事情都是悲剧。他这人风度很好，正是见过世面的人，说起话来比你所能听得到的还要文雅得多呢。夏天里，他穿了一件大衣，因为他患着震颤性谵妄症，他的脸是胭脂红色的。我到森林中之后不久，他就死在勃立斯特山下的路上，所以我没把他当作邻居来记忆了。在他的房子被拆以前，他的朋友都认为这是“一座凶险的堡垒”，都是避而不去的，我进去看了看，看到里面他那些旧衣服，都穿皱了，就好像是他本人一样，放在高高架起的木板床上。火炉上放着他的断烟斗，而不是在泉水边打破的碗。所谓泉水，不能作为逝世的象征而言，因为他对我说，虽然他久闻勃立斯特泉水之名，却没有去看过；此外，地板上全是肮脏的纸牌，那些方块。黑桃、红心的老K等等。有一只黑羽毛的小鸡，没有给行政官长捉去，黑得像黑夜，静得连咯咯之声也发不出来的，在等着列那狐吧，它依然栖宿在隔壁房间里。屋后有一个隐约像园子似的轮廓，曾经种过什么，但一次也没有锄过，因为他的手抖得厉害，现在不觉已是收获的时候了。罗马苦艾和叫化草长满了，叫化草的小小的果实都贴在我的衣服上。一张土拨鼠皮新近张绷在房屋背后，这是他最后一次滑铁卢的战利品，可是现在他不再需要什么温暖的帽子，或者温暖的手套了。
现在只有一个凹痕，作这些住宅的记认，地窖中的石头深深陷下，而草毒、木莓、覆盆子、榛树和黄栌树却一起在向阳的草地上生长；烟囱那个角落现在给苍松或多节的橡树占去了，原来是门槛的地方，也许还摇曳着一技馥郁的黑杨树。有时，一口井的凹痕看得很清楚，从前这里有泉水，现在是干燥无泪的草；也许它给长草遮蔽了，——要日久以后才有人来发现，——长草之下有一块扁平的石头，那是他们中间最后离开的一个人搬过来的。把井遮盖起来——这是何等悲哀的一件事！与它同时，泪泉开始涌流了。这些地窖的凹痕，像一些被遗弃了的狐狸洞，古老的窟窿，是这里曾经有过熙熙攘攘的人类的遗迹，他们当时多少也曾经用不同的形式，不同的方言讨论过，什么“命运、自由意志、绝对的预知”，等等。但是据我所知，他们所讨论的结果便是这个，“卡托和勃立斯特拉过羊毛”；这跟比较著名的哲学流派的历史同样地富于启发。
而在门框，门楣，门槛都消失了一世代之后，生机勃勃的丁香花还是生长着，每年春天展开它的芳香的花朵，给沉思的旅行者去摘；从前是一双小孩子的手种下的，在屋前的院子里——现在都生在无人迹的牧场上的墙脚边，并且让位给新兴的森林了；——那些了香是这一个家庭的唯一的幸存者，孑然一遗民。那些黑皮肤的小孩子料想不到，他们在屋前阴影里插在地上的只有两个芽眼的细枝，经过他们天天浇水，居然扎下这么深的根，活得比他们还长久，比在后面荫蔽了它们的屋子还长久，甚至比大人的花园果园还长久，在他们长大而又死去之后，又是半个世纪了，而丁香花却还在把他们的故事叙述给一个孤独的旅行者听，——而它们的花朵开得何等地美，香味何等甜蜜，正如在第一个春天里一样。我看到了依然柔和、谦逊而愉快的丁香结的色彩。
可是这一个小村落，应该是可以发展的一个幼芽，为什么康科德还在老地方，它却失败了呢？难道没有天时地利，——譬如说，水利不好吗？啊，瓦尔登之深，勃立斯特泉水之冷，——何等丰富，喝了何等有益于健康，可是除了用来把他们的酒冲淡之外，这些人丝毫没有加以利用。他们都只是些口渴的家伙。为什么编篮子，做马棚扫帚，编席子，晒干包谷，织细麻布，制陶器，这些营生在这儿不能发展，使荒原像玫瑰花一样开放，为什么又没有子子孙孙来继承他们祖先的土地呢？硗薄的土地至少是抵挡得住低地的退化的。可叹啊！这些人类居民的回忆对风景的美竟无贡献！也许，大自然又要拿我来试试，叫我做第一个移民，让我去年春天建立的屋子成为这个村子的最古老的建筑。
我不知道在我占用的土地上，以前有什么人建筑过房屋。不要让我住在一个建筑于古城之上的城市中，它以废墟为材料，以墓地为园林。那里的土地已经惊惶失色，已经受到诅咒，而在这些成为事实之前，大地本身恐怕也要毁灭了。有这样的回忆在心头，我重新把这些人安置在森林中，以此催我自己入眠。
在这种季节里，我那儿难得有客人来。当积雪最深的时候，往往一连一星期，甚至半个月都没有一个人走近我的屋子，可是我生活得很舒服，像草原上的一只老鼠或者牛，或者鸡，据说它们即使长时期地埋葬在积雪中，没有食物吃，也能活下去哩；或者，我像本州的萨顿城中，那最早的一家移民，据说在一七一七年的大雪中，他自己不在家，可是大雪全部盖没了他的草屋，后来幸亏一个印第安人，认出了烟囱中喷出的热气在积雪中化出的一个窟窿，才把他的一家人救了出来。可是没有友好的印第安友人来关心我了，他也不必，因为屋子的主人现在在家里。大雪！听来这是多么的愉快啊！农夫们不能带了他们的驴马到森林或沼泽中来，他们不能不把门口那些遮蔽日光的树木砍伐下来了，而当积雪坚硬了，他们来到沼泽地区砍了一些树，到第二年春天去看看，他们是在离地面十英尺高的地方砍下了那些树的。
积雪最深时，从公路到我家有半英里长的那条路，好像是迂回曲折的虚线，每两点之间都有很大的空白。一连平静一星期的天气中，我总是跨出同样的步数，同样大小的步伐，谨慎地行走，像一只两脚规一样地准确，老在我自己的深深的足印上，——冬天把我们局限在这样的路线上了，——可是这些足印往往反映出天空的蔚蓝色。其实不管什么天气，都没有致命地阻挠过我的步行，或者说，我的出门，因为我常常在最深的积雪之中，步行八英里或十英里，专为了践约，我和一株山毛榉，或一株黄杨，或松林中的一个旧相识，是定了约会时间的，那时冰雪压得它们的四肢都挂下来了，树顶就更尖，松树的样子倒像铁杉木；有时，我跋涉在两英尺深的积雪中，到了最高的山顶，我每跨一步，都得把我头顶上的一大团雪摇落下来；有几次我索性手脚都扑在地上爬行了，因为我知道猎户都躲在家里过冬天。有一个下午，我饶有兴味地观察一个有条纹的猫头鹰（学名 Strixnebulosa），它坐在一株白松的下面的枯枝上，靠近了树干，在光天化日之下，我站在高它不到一杆的地方，当我移动时，步履踏在雪上的声音，它可以听到的，可是它看不清我。我发出了很大的声音来，它就伸伸脖子，竖起了它颈上的羽毛，睁大了眼睛；可是，立刻它又把眼皮阖上了，开始点头打瞌睡了。这样观察了半个小时之后，我自己也睡意蒙眬起来，它半开眼睛地睡着，真像一只猫，它是猫的有翅膀的哥哥。眼皮之间，它只开一条小缝，这样它和我保持了一个半岛形的关系；这样，从它的梦的土地上望我，极力想知道我是谁，是哪个朦胧的物体，或是它眼睛中的一粒灰尘在遮住它的视线。最后，或许是更响的声音，或许是我更接近了它使它不安了，在丫枝上蹒跚地转一个身，好像它的美梦被扰乱了，它颇不以为然；而当它展翅飞了起来，在松林中翱翔的时候，它的翅膀是出人意料地展开得很大，可我一点儿声音也听不到。就这样，它似乎不是用视觉，而是用感觉，在松枝之间缭绕，仿佛它那羽毛都有感觉一样，在阴暗之中，它找到了一个新的枝头，飞了上去，栖息在上页，在那儿它可以安静地等待他的一天的黎明了。
当我走过那贯穿了草原的铁路堤岸时，我遇到一阵阵刺人肌骨的冷风，因为冷风比在任何地方都刮得更自由；而当霜雪打击了我的左颊的时候，纵然我是一个异教徒，我却把右颊也给它吹打。从勃立斯特山来的那条马车路也不见得好多少。因为我还是要到乡镇上去的，像一个友好的印第安人一样，当时那宽阔的田野上的白雪积在瓦尔登路两侧的墙垣间，行人经过了之后，不要半小时，那足迹就看不见了。回来时候，又吹了一场新的风雪，使我在里面挣扎，那忙碌的西北风就在路的一个大转弯处积起了银粉似的雪花，连一只兔子的足迹也看不到，一只田鼠的细小脚迹更是不可能看到了。可是，甚至在隆冬，我还看到了温暖、松软的沼泽地带上，青草和臭菘依然呈露常青之色，有一些耐寒的鸟坚持着，在等待春天的归来。
有时虽然有雪，我散步回来，还发现樵夫的深深的足印从我门口通出来，在火炉上我看到他无目的地削尖的木片，屋中还有他的烟斗的味道。或者在一个星期日的下午，如果我凑巧在家，我听见了一个踏在雪上的悉索之声，是一个长脸的农夫，他老远穿过了森林而来聊天的；是那种“农庄人物”中的少数人物之一；他穿的不是教授的长袍，而是一件工人服；他引用教会或国家的那些道德言论，好比是他在拉一车兽厩中的肥料一样。我们谈到了纯朴和粗野的时代，那时候的人在冷得使人精神焕发的气候中，围着一大堆火焰坐着，个个头脑清楚；如果没有别的水果吃，我们用牙齿来试试那些松鼠早已不吃的坚果，因为那些壳最硬的坚果里面说不定是空的呢。
从离得最远的地方，穿过最深的积雪和最阴惨惨的风暴来到我家的是一位诗人。便是一个农夫，一个猎户，一个兵或一个记者，甚至一个哲学家都可能吓得不敢来的，但是什么也不能阻止一个诗人，他是从纯粹的爱的动机出发的。谁能预言他的来去呢？他的职业，便是在医生都睡觉的时候，也可以使他出门。我们使这小小的木屋中响起了大笑声，还喃喃地作了许多清醒的谈话，弥补了瓦尔登山谷长久以来的沉默。相形之下，百老汇也都显得寂静而且荒凉了。在相当的间歇之后，经常有笑声出现，也可能是为了刚才出口的一句话，也可能是为了一个正要说的笑话。我们一边喝着稀粥，一边谈了许多“全新的”人生哲学，这碗稀粥既可飨客，又适宜于清醒地作哲学的讨论。
我不能忘记，我在湖上居住的最后一个冬天里，还有一位受欢迎的访客，有个时期他穿过了雪、雨和黑暗，直到他从树丛间看见了我的灯火，他和我消磨了好几个长长的冬夜。最后一批哲学家中的一个，——是康涅狄格州把他献给世界的，——他起先推销那个州的商品，后来他宣布要推销他的头脑了。他还在推销头脑，赞扬上帝，斥责世人，只有头脑是他的果实，像坚果里面的果肉一样。我想，他必然是世界上有信心的活人中间信心最强的一人。他的话，他的态度总意味着一切都比别人所了解的好，随着时代的变迁，他恐怕是感到失望的最后一个，目前他并没有计划。虽然现在比较不受人注意，可是，等到他的日子来到，一般人们意想不到的法规就要执行，家长和统治者都要找他征求意见了。
“不识澄清者是何等盲目！”
人类的一个忠诚之友；几乎是人类进步的唯一朋友。一个古老的凡人，不如说是一个不朽的人吧，怀着不倦的耐心和信念，要把人类身上铭刻着的形象说明白，现在人类的神，还不过是神的损毁了的纪念碑，已经倾斜欲坠了。他用慈祥的智力，拥抱了孩子、乞丐、疯子、学者，一切思想都兼容并包，普遍地给它增加了广度以及精度。我想他应该在世界大路上开设一个大旅馆，全世界的哲学家都招待，而在招牌上应该写道：“招待人，不招待他的兽性。有闲暇与平静心情的人有请，要寻找一条正路的人进来。”他大约是最清醒的人，我所认识的人中间最不会勾心斗角的一个；昨天和今天他是同一个人。从前我们散步，我们谈天，很有效地把我们的世界遗弃在后边了，因为他不属于这世界的任何制度，生来自由，异常智巧。不论我们转哪一个弯，天地仿佛都碰了头，固为他增强了风景的美丽。一个穿蓝衣服的人，他的最合适的屋顶便是那苍穹，其中反映着他的澄清。我不相信他会死；大自然是舍不得放他走的。
各自谈出自己的思想，好像把木片都晒干那样，我们坐下来，把它们削尖，试试我们的刀子，欣赏着那些松木的光亮的纹理。我们这样温和地、敬重地涉水而过，或者，我们这样融洽地携手前进，因此我们的思想的鱼并不被吓得从溪流中逃跑，也不怕岸上的钓鱼人，鱼儿庄严地来去，像西边天空中飘过的白云，那珠母色的云有时成了形，有时又消散。我们在那儿工作，考订神话、修正寓言，造空中楼阁，因为地上找不到有价值的基础。伟大的观察者！伟大的预见者！和他谈天是新英格兰之夜的一大享受。啊，我们有这等的谈话，隐士和哲学家、还有我说起过的那个老移民，——我们三个，——谈得小屋子扩大了，震动了：我不敢说，这氛围有多少磅的重量压在每一英寸直径的圆弧上；它裂开的缝，以后要塞进多少愚钝才能防止它漏；——幸亏我已经拣到了不少这一类的麻根和填絮了。
另外还有一个人，住在村中他自己的家里，我跟他有过“极好的共处时间”，永远难忘，他也不时来看我；可是再没有结交别人了。
正如在别处一样，有时我期待那些绝不会到来的客人。毗瑟奴浦蓝那说，“屋主人应于黄昏中，逡巡在大门口，大约有挤一条牛的牛乳之久，必要时可以延长，以守候客来。”我常常这样隆重地守候，时间都够用以挤一群牛的牛乳了，可是总没有看见人从乡镇上来。