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17 - Walden - Henry David Thoreau · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Chapter twelve, Brute neighbors. Sometimes I had a companion in my fishing who
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came through the village to my house from the other side of town. And
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the catching of the dinner was as much a social exercise as the eating of
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it. Hermit, I wonder what the world is doing now? I have
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not heard so much as a locust over the sweet fern these three hours.
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The pigeons are all asleep upon their roosts, No flutter from them. Was
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that a farmer's noon horn which sounded from beyond the woods. Just now the
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hands are coming in to boiled salt beef and cider and Indian bread. Why
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will men worry themselves? So he that does not eat need not work?
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I wonder how how much they have reaped? Who would live there? Where
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a body can never think for the barking of boats, And oh the house
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keeping to keep bright? The devil's door knobs and scour his tubs this bright
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day. Better not keep a house, say some hollow tree. And then
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for morning calls and dinner parties, only a woodpecker tapping. Oh they swarm.
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The sun is too warm there. They are borne too far into life
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For me. I have water from the spring, and a loaf of brown
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bread on the shelf. Hark, I hear a rustling of the leaves?
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Is it some ill fed village hound yielding to the instinct of the chase?
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Or the lost pig which is said to be in these woods whose tracks I
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saw after the rain? It comes on apace, my sumacs and sweetbriars.
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Tremble eh, mister poet, is it you? How do you like the
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world to day? Poet? See those clouds, how they hang? That's
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the greatest thing I have seen to day. There's nothing like it in old
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paintings, nothing like it in foreign lands, unless when we were off the
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coast of Spain. That's a true Mediterranean sky. I thought, as I
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have my living to get and have not eaten to day, that I might
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go a fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only
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trade I have learned. Come that's along, hermit. I cannot resist.
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My brown bread will soon be gone. I will go with you gladly soon.
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But I am just concluding a serious meditation. I think that I am
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near the end of it. Leave me alone then for a while, but
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that we may not be delayed. You shall be digging the bait. Meanwhile,
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angle worms are rarely to be met with. In these parts, where
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the soil was never fattened with manure, the race is nearly extinct. The
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sport of digging the bait is nearly equal to that of catching the fish when
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one's appetite is not too keen, And this you may have all to yourself.
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To day, I would advise you to set in the spade down yonder
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among the ground nuts, where you see the Johnswart waving. I think that
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I may warrant you one worm to every three sods you turn up, if
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you look well and among the root of the grass as if you were weeding,
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or if you choose to go farther, it will not be unwise,
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for I have found the increase of fair bait to be very nearly as the
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squares of the distances hermit alone. Let me see where was I methinks I
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was nearly in this frame of mind the world lay about at this angle.
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Shall I go to heaven or of fishing? If I should soon bring this
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meditation to an end, would another so sweet occasion be likely to offer?
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I was as near being resolved into the essence of things as ever I was
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in my life. I fear my thoughts will not come back to me.
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If it would do any good, I would whistle for them when they make
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us an offer. Is it wise to say we will think of it?
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My thoughts have left no track, and I cannot find the path again.
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What was it that I was thinking of? And was a very hazy day?
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I will just try these three sentences of confutsy. They may fetch that
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state about again. I know not whether it was the dumps or a budding
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ecstasy. Mem There never is but one opportunity of a kind. Poet,
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How now, Hermit, is it too soon? I have got just thirteen
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whole ones, besides several which are imperfect or undersized. But they will do
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for the smaller fry. They do not cover up the hook so much.
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Those village worms are quite too large. A shiner may make a meal of
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one without finding the skewer. Hermit, Well, then let's be off,
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shall we to concord? There's good sport there, if the water be not
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too high. Why do precisely these objects which we behold make a world?
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Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors? As if nothing
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but a mouse could have filled this crevice. I suspect that pill Pay and
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company have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of
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burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.
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The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones which are said to
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have been introduced into the cuntry tree, but a wild native kind not found
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in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested
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him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath
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the house, and before I had laid the second floor and swept out the
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shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at
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my feet. It probably had never seen a man before, and it soon
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became quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes.
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It could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a
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squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned
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with my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes and
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along my sleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner.
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While I kept the latter close and dodged and played at bo peep with it,
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and when it last I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb
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and finger. It came and nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and
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afterward cleaned its face and paws like a fly, and walked away. A
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phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine
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which grew against the house. In June, the partridge tetrau umbellus, which
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is so shy. A bird led her brood past my windows, from the
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woods in the rear to the front of my house, plucking and calling to
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them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of
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the woods. The young suddenly disperse on your approach at a signal from the
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mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, And they so exactly
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resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in
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the midst of a brood and heard the whir of the old bird as she
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flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her
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wings to attract his attention without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll
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and spin round before you in such a dishabille that you cannot, for a
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few moments detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and
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flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their mother's
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directions given from a distance. Nor will your approach make them run again and
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betray themselves. You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on
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them for a minute without discovering them. I have held them in my open
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hand at such a time, and still they are only care obedient to their
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mother, and their instinct was to squat there without fear or trembling. So
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perfect is this instinct that once, when I had lain them on the leaves
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again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the
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rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward. They are not callow like
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the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens.
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The remarkably adult, yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is
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very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the
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purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was
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not born when the bird was, but is coevil. With the sky reflects,
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the woods do not yield another such a gem. The traveler does not
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often look into such a limpid well. The ignorant or reckless sportsmen often shoots
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the parent at such a time, and leaves these innocents to fall a prey
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to some prowling beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the decaying leaves which
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they so much resemble. It is said that when hatched by a hen,
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they will directly disperse on some alarm, and so are lost, for they
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never hear the mother's call which gathers them again. These were my hens and
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chickens. It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free, though secret,
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in the woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighbors of towns suspected
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by hunters. Only how retired the otter manages to live here. He grows
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to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without
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any human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in
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the woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard there wintering
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at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at noon
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after planting, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring
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which was the source of a swamp and of a brook oozing from under Brister's
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Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this was through
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a succession of descending grassy hollows full of young pitch pineines into a larger wood
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about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under
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a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean firm sward to sit on.
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I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water
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where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it. And thither I went
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for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was warmest.
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Thither too, the woodcock led her brood to probe the mud for worms,
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flying but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in a
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troop beneath. But at last spying me, she would leave her young and
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circle round and round me, nearer and nearer, till within four or five
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feet, pretending broken wings and legs to attract my attention, and get off
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her young, who would already have taken up their march with faint, wiry
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peep single file through the swamp as she directed, or I heard the peep
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of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too,
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the turtle doves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bow to bow of
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the soft white pines over my head, or the red squirrel coursing down the
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nearest bough was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only need sit still long enough
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in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to
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you by turns. I was witnessed to events of a less peaceful character.
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One day, when I went out to my wood pile, or rather my
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pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the
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other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending
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with one another. Having once got hold, they never let go, but
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struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips, incessantly looking farther. I was
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surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants that it was not
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a dullum but a bellum, a war between two races of ants. The
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red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black
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The legions of these mere miduns covered all the hills and vales in my woodyard,
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and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red
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and black. It was the only battle which I I have ever witnessed,
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the only battlefield I ever trod. While the battle was raging inter nessine war,
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the Red Republicans on the one hand and the Black imperialists on the other.
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On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise
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that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched
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a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces in a little sunny valley
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amid the chips, now at noonday, prepared to fight till the sun went
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down or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a
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vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field,
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never for an instant and ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the
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root, having already caused the other to go by the board, while the
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stronger black one dashed him from side to side, And as I saw on
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looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought
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with more pertinacity than bull dogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat.
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It was evident that their battle cry was conquer or die in the Meanwhile,
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there came along a single red ant on the hill side of this valley,
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evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe or had not yet
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taken part in the battle, probably the latter, for he had lost none
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of his limbs, whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or
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upon it, or perchance he was some Achilles who had nourished his wrath apart,
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and had now come to avenge or rescue his patroclus. He saw this
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unequal combat from afar, for the Blacks were nearly twice the size of the
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red. He drew near with rapid pace, till he stood on his guard
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within half an inch of the combatants. Then, watching his opportunity, he
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sprang upon the black warrior and commenced his operations near the root of his right
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fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members. And so
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there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had
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been invented. Which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should
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not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands
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stationed on some eminent chip and playing their national airs, the while to excite
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the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited, and somewhat
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even as if they had been men. The more you think of it,
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the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord
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history, at least if in the history of America, they will bear a
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moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for
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the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage, it was an
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Austerlitz or Dresden Concord fight. Two killed on the patriot's side, and Luther
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Blanchard wounded. Why here every ant was a buttrick fire for God's sake,
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fire, and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not
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one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle. They
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fought for as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three penny
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tax on their tea and the results of this battle will be as important and
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memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the Battle of Bunker Hill.
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At least. I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly
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described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a
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tumbler on my window sill in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope
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to the first mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously
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gnawing at the near fore leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler,
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his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there
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to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for
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him to pierce, and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity
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such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the
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tumbler, and when I looked again, the black soldier had severed the heads
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of his foes from their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on
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either side of him like ghastly trophies. At his saddle bow, still apparently
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as firmly fastened as ever, and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being
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without feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not
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how many other wounds, to divest himself of them, which at length,
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after half an hour more he accomplished. I raised the glass, and he
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went off over the window sill in that crippled state. Whether he finally survived,
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that combatant spent the remainder of his days in some hotel des invalides,
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I do not know, but I thought that his industry would not be worth
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much thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the cause of
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the war. But I felt for the rest of that day as if I
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had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the struggle, the ferocity and
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carnage of a human battle before my door. Kirby and Spence tell us that
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the battles of ants have long been celebrated and the date of them recorded,
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though they say that Hugh Uber is the only modern author who appears to have
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witnessed them. Annius Silvius say they, after giving a very circumstantial account of
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one contested with great obstinacy by a great and small species on the trunk of
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a pear tree, adds that this action was fought in the pontificate of Eugenius
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the Fourth, in the presence of Nicholas Pistorienus, an eminent lawyer, who
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related the whole history of the battle with the greatest fidelity. A similar engagement
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between great and small ants is recorded by Olaus Magnus, in which the small
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ones, being victorious, are said to have buried the bodies of their own
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soldiers, but left those of their giant enemies a prey to the birds.
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This event happened previous to the expulsion of the tyrant Christierne the second from Sweden.
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The battle which Eye witnessed took place in the presidency of Polk, five
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years before the passage of Webster's Fugitive Slave Bill. Many a village bows fit
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only to course a mud turtle in a victulling cellar sported his heavy quarters in
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the woods without the knowledge of his master, and ineffectually smelled at old fox
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burrows and wood chuck's holes, led perchance by some slight cur which nimbly threaded
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the wood and might still inspire a natural terror in its denizens. Now far
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behind his guide, barking like a canine bull towards some small squirrel which had
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treat itself for scrutiny, then cantering off, bending the bushes with his weight,
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imagining that he is on the track of some stray member of the Gerbilla
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family. Once I was surprised to see a cat walking along on the stony
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shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far from the home.
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The surprise was mutual. Nevertheless, the most domestic cat, which is lain
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on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods,
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and by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the
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regular inhabitants. Once, when burying, I met with a cat with young
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kittens in the woods, quite wild, and they all, like their mother,
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had their backs up and were fiercely spitting at me. A few years
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before I lived in the woods, there was what was called a winged cat,
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and one of the farm houses in Lincoln nearest the pond, mister Gillian
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Baker's. When I called to see her in June eighteen forty two, she
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was gone a hunting in the woods, as was her wont I am not
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sure whether it was a male or female, and so used the more common
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pronoun. But her mistress told me that she came into the neighborhood a little
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more than a year before in April, and was finally taken into their house.
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That she was of a dark brownish gray color, with a white spot
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on her throat and white feet, and had a large bushy tail like a
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fox. That in the winter the fur grew thick and flatted out along her
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sides, forming stripes ten or twelve inches long by two and a half wide,
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and under her chin like a muff, the upper side loose, the
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under matted like felt, and in the spring these appendages dropped off. They
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gave me a pair of her wings, which I keep still there is no
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appearance of a membrane about them. Some thought it was part flying squirrel or
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some other wild animal, which is not impossible, for according to naturalists,
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prolific hybrids have been produced by the union of the marten and domestic cat.
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This would have been the right kind of cat for me to keep, if
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I had kept any, for why should not a poet's cat be winged as
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well as his horse. In the fall, the loon Columbus glacialis came as
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usual to molt and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his
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wild laughter. Before I had risen at rumor of his arrival, all the
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mill damned sportsmen are on the alert in gigs in on foot two by two
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and three by three, with patent rifles and conical balls and spyglasses. They
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come, rustling through the woods like autumn leaves, at least ten men to
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one loon. Some station themselves on this side of the pond, some on
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that, For the poor bird cannot be omnipresent. If he dive here,
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he must come up there. But now the kind october wind rises, rustling
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the leaves and rippling the surface of the water, so that no loon can
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be heard or seen. Though his foes sweep the pond with spy glasses and
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make the woods resound with their discharges. The waves generously rise and dash angrily,
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taking sides with all water fowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat
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to town and shop and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful.
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When I went to get a pail of water hurly in the morning, I
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frequently saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove. Within a few rods.
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If I endeavored to overtake him in a boat in order to see how
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he would maneuver. He would dive and be completely lost, so that I
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did not discover him again, sometimes till the latter part of the day.
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But I was more than a match for him on the surface. He commonly
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went off in a rain as I was paddling along the north shore one very
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calm October afternoon. For such days especially, they settle on to the lakes
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like the milkweed down, having looked in vain over the pond for a loon.
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Suddenly, one, sailing out from the shore toward the middle a few
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rods in front of me, set up his wild laugh and betrayed himself.
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I pursued with a paddle, and he dived, But when he came up
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I was nearer than before he died. But I miscalculated the direction he would
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take, and we were fifty rods apart when he came to the surface this
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time, for I had helped to widen the interval. And again he laughed
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long and loud, and with more reason than before. He maneuvered so cunningly
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that I could not get within half a dozen rods of him. Each time
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when he came to the surface, turning his head this way and that,
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he coolly surveyed the water and the land, and apparently chose his course so
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that he might come up where there was the widest expanse of water, and
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at the greatest distance from the boat. It was surprising how quickly he made
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up his mind and put his resolve into execution. He led me at once
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to the widest part of the pond, and could not be driven from it.
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While he was thinking one thing in his brain. I was endeavoring to
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divine his thought in mind. It was a pretty game played on the smooth
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surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly your adversary's checker
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disappears beneath the board, and the problem is to place yours nearest to where
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his will appear again. Sometimes he would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side
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of me, having apparently passed directly under the boat. So long winded was
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he and so unweariable, that when he had swum farthest, he would immediately
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plunge again. Nevertheless, and then no wit could divine where in the deep
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pond, beneath the smooth surface he might be speeding his way like a fish,
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for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in
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its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New
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York Lakes eighty feet beneath the sne surface with hooks set for trout, though
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Walden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see this
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ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools. Yet he appeared
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to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam
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much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the
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surface, just put his head out to reconnoiter, and instantly dived again.
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I found that it was as well for me to rest on my oars and
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wait his reappearing, as to endeavor to calculate where he would rise for again
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and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one way,
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I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why,
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after displaying so much cunning did he invvery betray himself the moment he came up
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by that loud laugh, did not his white breast enough betray him. He
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was indeed a silly loon. I thought I could commonly hear the splash of
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the water when he came up, and so also detected him. But after
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an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly, and swam
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yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he sailed
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off, with unruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing all the
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work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter,
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yet somewhat like that of a water fowl. But occasionally, when he had
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bulked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a
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long, drawn, unearthedly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than
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any bird, as when a beast puts his muzzle to the ground and deliberately
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howls. This was his looning, perhaps the wildest sound that is ever heard
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here, making the woods ring far and wide. I concluded that he laughed
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in derision of my efforts, confident of his own resources. Though the sky
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was by this time overcast, the pond was so smooth that I could see
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where he broke the surface. When I did not hear him his white breast,
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the stillness of the air, and the smoothness of the water were all
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against him. At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered
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one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to
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aid him. And immediately there came a win from the east and rippled the
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surface and filled the whole air with misty rain. And I was impressed,
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as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his God was
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angry with me, and so I left him, disappearing far away on the
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tumultuous surface. For hours in fall days, I watched the ducks cunningly tack
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and veer and hold the middle of the pond far from the sportsmen, tricks
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which they will have less need to practice in Louisiana Bayous. When compelled to
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rise, they would sometimes circle round and round and over the pond at a
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considerable height, from which they could easily see to other ponds in the river,
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like black moats in the sky. And when I thought they had gone
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off thither long since, they would settle down, by a slanting flight of
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a quarter of a mile on to a distant part which was left free But
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what besides safety they got by sailing in the middle of Walden, I do
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not know, unless they love its water for the same reason that I do.
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End of Chapter twelve.