It was the day before Thanksgiving. The Old Manse was full of guests and relatives when he took his daughter Elizabeth and, filling his buggy with goodies, drove out to distribute them to his poor parishioners. The last gift delivered, they turned upon the road home, he remarking that the Widow Hall would certainly enjoy the two chickens he had left her. It was a rainy, bleak November night and Lizzie, snuggling into the robes, almost went to sleep, when, looking down, she noticed the reins were slipping. She spoke to him, but he did not answer. Even then she could not realize what the matter was, until, reaching to gather in the lines, she felt his hand cold beneath hers. He was already dead.
I often used to think of that drive—the tragedy of the young girl guiding the horse over miles of muddy road in a blinding rain, and the arrival at the brightly lighted house, full of laughter and merriment, with the sad burden by her side. How did she tell them? Did she call from the road, or did she leave him there and go into the house? How could one tell what to do under such circumstances? Perhaps the joyous crowd ran out to meet her and there was a great hush—they never told me that part. But I liked to believe that it was my grandmother Ripley, who, all alone, was watching from the doorway, and knowing intuitively that something was wrong, took the whole situation into her strong, capable hands.
Like all boys, I was intensely interested in birds and animals. One day I was playing in the grass in front of the Old Manse, when I suddenly looked up to see a short man with a blond beard leaning over me.
“What have you there, Eddie?”
“A great crested flycatcher’s egg,” I replied.
This was a very rare find.
He wanted me to give it to him, but I would not. Then he proposed a swap.
“If you will give it to me, I will show you a live fox,” he said. This was too much to resist. We made a rendezvous for the next Sunday.
Although descended from a line of parsons, I had already learned that Sunday was, for me, merely a holiday, and it was evidently the same for him. This man was Henry D. Thoreau.
Accordingly, the following Sabbath I trudged down to his place at Walden Pond, and he, who had “no walks to throw away on company,” proceeded to devote his entire afternoon to a boy of ten. After going a long way through the woods, we both got down on our bellies and crawled for miles, it seemed to me, through sand and shrubbery. But Mr. Fox refused to show himself—and worse luck than all, I never got my egg back! I have always had a grudge against Thoreau for this.