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I weathered sos by my fireside, while the snohirled wildly without, and even the hooting of the oas hushed For many weeks I met no one in my walks but those who cae The eleh the deepest snow in the woods, for when I had once gone through the wind blew the oak leaves intothe rays of the sun melted the snow, and so not only ht their dark line was ed to conjure up the former occupants of these woods Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which ossip 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 woo this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it with fear, and often ran a good part of the distance Though es, or for the woodman&039;s team, it once aered longer in his e to the woods, it then ran through a s, the remnants of which, doubtless, still underlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratton, now the Alms-House Farm, to Brister&039;s Hill

East of rahaentleave him permission to live in Walden Woods; -- Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis Soro There are a feho rerow up till he should be old and need theot them at last He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present Cato&039;s half-obliterated cellar-hole still re concealed froe of pines It is now filled with the slabra), 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, , 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 ay, 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 herpot -- "Ye are all bones, bones!" I have seen bricks amid the oak copse there

Down the road, on the right hand, on Brister&039;s Hill, lived Brister Frees once -- there where grow still the apple trees which Brister planted and tended; large old trees now, but their fruit still wild and ciderish tosince I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unrenadiers 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 toldemphasis, when he died; which was but an indirect way of infor 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&039;s Hill, but was long since killed out by pitch pines, excepting a few stumps, whose old roots furnish still the wild stocks of e tree

Nearer yet to town, you come to Breed&039;s location, on the other side of the way, just on the edge of the wood; ground famous for the pranks of a dey, who has acted a proland life, and deserves, as raphy written one day; who first couise of a friend or hired land Ruedies enacted here; let tie and lend an azure tint to them Here the most indistinct and dubious tradition says that once a tavern stood; the well the sae and refreshed his steed Here then men saluted one another, and heard and told the news, and went their ways again

Breed&039;s hut was standing only a dozen years ago, though it had long been unoccupied It was about the size of ht, if I do not e then, and had just lost myself over Davenant&039;s "Gondibert," that winter that I labored with a lethargy -- which, by the way, I never knehether to regard as a fa hied to sprout potatoes in a cellar Sundays, in order to keep awake and keep the Sabbath, or as the consequence of lish poetry without skipping It fairly overcamefire, and in hot haste the engines rolled that way, led by a straggling troop ofthe foreht it was far south over the woods -- ho had run to fires before -- barn, shop, or dwelling-house, or all together "It&039;s Baker&039;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, aent of the Insurance Coo however far; and ever and anon the engine bell tinkled behind, more slow and sure; and rearmost of all, as it was afterhispered, caave the alar 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 ere 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 senti-trurations which the world has witnessed, including Bascoht that, e 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&039;s powder -- "but ers to wit, as Indians are to powder"

It chanced that I walked that way across the fields the following night, about the sa 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 sto cinders beneath,far off in the river meadows all day, and had improved the first moments that he could call his own to visit the hoazed into the cellar fro 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 as covered up; which, thank Heaven, could never be burned; and he groped long about the wall to find the well-shich his father had cut andfor 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 res 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 hi the land by sufferance while they lived; and there often the sheriff came in vain to collect the taxes, and "attached a chip," for for nothing else that he could lay his hands on One day ina load of pottery to ainst er He had long ago bought a potter&039;s wheel of him, and wished to knohat had become of him I had read of the potter&039;s clay and wheel in Scripture, but it had never occurred to me that the pots we use were not such as had coourds somewhere, and I was pleased to hear that so fictile an art was ever practiced in hborhood

The last inhabitant of these woods before h Quoil (if I have spelt his nah), who occupied Wyman&039;s tenement -- Col Quoil, he was called Rumor said that he had been a soldier at Waterloo If he had lived I should have ain His trade here was that of a ditcher Napoleon went to St Helena; Quoil caic He was a man of manners, like one who had seen the world, and was capable of reatcoat indelirium, and his face was the color of carmine He died in the road at the foot of Brister&039;s Hill shortly after I cahbor Before his house was pulled dohen 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 syh he had heard of Brister&039;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 adht and as silent, not even croaking, awaiting Reynard, still went to roost in the next apartarden, which had been planted but had never received its first hoeing, owing to those terrible shaking fits, though it was now harvest tiar-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 s, with buried cellar stones, and strawberries, raspberries, thi in the sunny sward there; sonarled oak occupies as the chimney nook, and a sweet-scented black birch, perhaps, waves where the door-stone was So 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 actup 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 hue 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 farows 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 thetraveller; planted and tended once by children&039;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 therown arden and orchard, and tell their story faintly to the lone wanderer a half-century after they had grown up and died -- blosso I mark its still tender, civil, cheerful lilac colors