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 gohrough the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, where
they lodged, and by abs the rays of the sued 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 jure
up the former octs of these woods. Within the memory of many
of my towhe 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 remembrahe pines would
scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who
were pelled to go this way to Lin alone and on foot did it
with fear, and often ran a good part of the distahough mainly
but a humble route to neighb villages, or for the woodmans
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 s 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 Bristers Hill.
East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham,
slave of Dun Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of cord village,
who built his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in
Walden Woods; -- Cato, not Utisis, but cordiensis. 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
ahem; but a younger and whiter speculatot them at last.
He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present.
Catos half-obliterated cellar-hole still remains, though known to
few, being cealed 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 er of my field, still o town,
Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen
for the townsfolk, making the Walden Wo 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 Bristers Hill, lived
Brister Freeman, "a handy Negro," slave of Squire Cummings once --