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1In October I went a-graping to the river meadows, and loaded myself with clusters more precious for their beauty and
2fragrance than for food. There too I admired, though I did not gather, the cranberries, small waxen gems, pendants of
3the meadow grass, pearly and red, which the farmer plucks with an ugly rake, leaving the smooth meadow in a snarl,
4heedlessly measuring them by the bushel and the dollar only, and sells the spoils of the meads to Boston and New York;
5destined to be jammed, to satisfy the tastes of lovers of Nature there. So butchers rake the tongues of bison out of the
6prairie grass, regardless of the torn and drooping plant. The barberry's brilliant fruit was likewise food for my eyes
7merely; but I collected a small store of wild apples for coddling, which the proprietor and travellers had overlooked.
8When chestnuts were ripe I laid up half a bushel for winter. It was very exciting at that season to roam the then
9boundless chestnut woods of Lincoln,--they now sleep their long sleep under the railroad,--with a bag on my shoulder,
10and a stick to open burrs with in my hand, for I did not always wait for the frost, amid the rustling of leaves and the
11loud reproofs of the red-squirrels and the jays, whose half-consumed nuts I sometimes stole, for the burrs which they
12had selected were sure to contain sound ones. Occasionally I climbed and shook the trees. They grew also behind my
13house, and one large tree, which almost overshadowed it, was, when in flower, a bouquet which scented the whole
14neighborhood, but the squirrels and the jays got most of its fruit; the last coming in flocks early in the morning and
15picking the nuts out of the burrs before they fell. I relinquished these trees to them and visited the more distant
16woods composed wholly of chestnut. These nuts, as far as they went, were a good substitute for bread. Many other
17substitutes might, perhaps, be found. Digging one day for fish-worms, I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on
18its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and
19eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it. I had often since seen its crimpled red velvety blossom
20supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same. Cultivation has well nigh exterminated it. It
21has a sweetish taste, much like that of a frostbitten potato, and I found it better boiled than roasted. This tuber
22seemed like a faint promise of Nature to rear her own children and feed them simply here at some future period. In these
23days of fatted cattle and waving grain-fields this humble root, which was once the totem of an Indian tribe, is quite
24forgotten, or known only by its flowering vine; but let wild Nature reign here once more, and the tender and luxurious
25English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of foes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even
26the last seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian's God in the south-west, whence he is said to have brought
27it; but the now almost exterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of frosts and wildness, prove
28itself indigenous, and resume its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some Indian Ceres or
29Minerva must have been the inventor and bestower of it; and when the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves and
30string of nuts may be represented on our works of art. Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small
31maples turned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three aspens diverged, at the point of a
32promontory, next the water. Ah, many a tale their color told! And gradually from week to week the character of each tree
33came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth mirror of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery
34substituted some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious coloring, for the old upon the walls. The
35wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to winter quarters, and settled on my windows within and on the walls
36over-head, sometimes deterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were numbed with cold, I swept some of
37them out, but I did not trouble myself much to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my house as
38a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, though they bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into
39what crevices I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold. Like the wasps, before I finally went into winter
40quarters in November, I used to resort to the north-east side of Walden, which the sun, reflected from the pitch-pine
41woods and the stony shore, made the fire-side of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be warmed by the
42sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus warmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer,
43like a departed hunter, had left. When I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. My bricks being second-hand ones
44required to be cleaned with a trowel, so that I learned more than usual of the qualities of bricks and trowels. The
45mortar on them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing harder; but this is one of those sayings which men
46love to repeat whether they are true or not. Such sayings themselves grow harder and adhere more firmly with age, and it
47would take many blows with a trowel to clean an old wiseacre of them. Many of the villages of Mesopotamia are built of
48second-hand bricks of a very good quality, obtained from the ruins of Babylon, and the cement on them is older and
49probably harder still. However that may be, I was struck by the peculiar toughness of the steel which bore so many
50violent blows without being worn out. As my bricks had been in a chimney before, though I did not read the name of
51Nebuchadnezzar on them, I picked out as many fire-place bricks as I could find, to save work and waste, and I filled the
52spaces between the bricks about the fire-place with stones from the pond shore, and also made my mortar with the white
53sand from the same place. I lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house. Indeed, I worked so
54deliberately, that though I commenced at the ground in the morning, a course of bricks raised a few inches above the
55floor served for my pillow at night; yet I did not get a stiff neck for it that I remember; my stiff neck is of older
56date. I took a poet to board for a fortnight about those times, which caused me to be put to it for room. He brought his
57own knife, though I had two, and we used to scour them by thrusting them into the earth. He shared with me the labors of
58cooking. I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid by degrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded
59slowly, it was calculated to endure a long time. The chimney is to some extent an independent structure, standing on the
60ground and rising through the house to the heavens; even after the house is burned it still stands sometimes, and its
61importance and independence are apparent. This was toward the end of summer. It was now November.
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