Canoeing in the wilderness

by Henry David Thoreau

He prepared to camp as usual between his moose-hide and the fire, but it beginning to rain suddenly he took refuge under the tent with us, and gave us a song before falling asleep. It rained hard in the night and spoiled another box of matches for us, which the Indian had left out, for he was very careless; but we had so much the better night for the rain, since it kept the mosquitoes down.

Sunday, a cloudy and unpromising morning. One of us observed to the Indian, “You did not stretch your moose-hide last night, did you, Mr. Polis?”

Whereat he replied in a tone of surprise, though perhaps not of ill humor: “What you ask me that question for? Suppose I stretch ’em, you see ’em. May be your way talking, may be all right, no Indian way.”

I had observed that he did not wish to answer the same question more than once, and was often silent when it was put again, as if he were moody. Not that he was incommunicative, for he frequently commenced a longwinded narrative of his own accord—repeated at length the tradition of some old battle, or some passage in the recent history of his tribe in which he had acted a prominent part, from time to time drawing a long breath, and resuming the thread of his tale, with the true story-teller’s leisureliness. Especially after the day’s work was over, and he had put himself in posture for the night, he would be unexpectedly sociable, and we would fall asleep before he got through.

The Indian was quite sick this morning with the colic. I thought that he was the worse for the moose meat he had eaten.

We reached the Mattawamkeag at half past eight in the morning, in the midst of a drizzling rain, and, after buying some sugar, set out again.

The Indian growing much worse, we stopped in the north part of Lincoln to get some brandy for him, but, failing in this, an apothecary recommended Brandreth’s pills, which he refused to take because he was not acquainted with them. He said, “Me doctor—first study my case, find out what ail ’em—then I know what to take.”

We stopped at mid-forenoon on an island and made him a dipper of tea. Here, too, we dined and did some washing and botanizing, while he lay on the bank. In the afternoon we went on a little farther. As a thunder-shower appeared to be coming up we stopped opposite a barn on the west bank. Here we were obliged to spend the rest of the day and night, on account of our patient, whose sickness did not abate. He lay groaning under his canoe on the bank, looking very woebegone. You would not have thought, if you had seen him lying about thus, that he was worth six thousand dollars and had been to Washington. It seemed to me that he made a greater ado about his sickness than a Yankee does, and was more alarmed about himself. We talked somewhat of leaving him with his people in Lincoln,—for that is one of their homes,—but he objected on account of the expense, saying, “Suppose me well in morning, you and I go Oldtown by noon.”

As we were taking our tea at twilight, while he lay groaning under his canoe, he asked me to get him a dipper of water. Taking the dipper in one hand, he seized his powderhorn with the other, and, pouring into it a charge or two of powder, stirred it up with his finger, and drank it off. This was all he took to-day after breakfast beside his tea.

To save the trouble of pitching our tent, when we had secured our stores from wandering dogs, we camped in the solitary half-open barn near the bank, with the permission of the owner, lying on new-mown hay four feet deep. The fragrance of the hay, in which many ferns, etc., were mingled, was agreeable, though it was quite alive with grasshoppers which you could hear crawling through it. This served to graduate our approach to houses and feather beds. In the night some large bird, probably an owl, flitted through over our heads, and very early in the morning we were awakened by the twittering of swallows which had their nests there.