I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans. Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes on a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at my west window, or the noise of some traveller's waggon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realised what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works. Instead of singing like the birds I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. This was sheer idleness to my fellow townsmen, no doubt, but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard I should not have been found wanting.
Night Sounds
Regularly at half past seven, in one part of the summer, the whip-poor-wills chanted their vespers for half an hour, sitting on a stump by my door, or upon the ridge pole of the house. When other birds were still the screech owls took up the strain, like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Wise midnight hags! I love to hear their wailing, their doleful responses, trilled along the woodside. They give me a new sense of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I had never been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs one on this side of the pond, and circles, with the restlessness of despair to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then: That I had never been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the further side with tremulous sincerity, and bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from far in the Lincoln woods. I require that there are owls. They represent the stark twilight and unsatisfied thoughts which all have.
I am not sure that ever I heard the sound of cock crowing from my clearing, and I thought that it might be worth the while to keep a cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and if they could be naturalised without being domesticated it would soon become the most famous sound in our woods.
I kept neither dog, cat, cow, pig, nor hens, so that you would have said there was a deficiency of domestic sounds, neither the churn nor the spinning wheel, nor even the singing of the kettle, nor the hissing of the urn, nor children crying, to comfort me; only squirrels on the roof, a whip-poor-will on the ridge pole, a bluejay screaming beneath the window, a woodchuck under the house, a laughing loon on the pond, and a fox to bark in the night.
This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled, but not ruffled. Though it is now dark the wind still blows and roars in the woods, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose but seek their prey now. They are Nature's watchmen—links which connect the days of animated life.
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. I never found the companion that was never so companionable as solitude. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud. God is alone, but the devil, he is far from being alone; he sees a great deal of company; he is legion. I am no more lonely than a single dandelion in a pasture, or a humble bee, or the North Star, or the first spider in a new house.
Visitors
In my house I have three chairs: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. My best room, however—my withdrawing room—always ready for company, was the pine wood behind my house. Thither in Summer days, when distinguished guests came, I took them, and a priceless domestic swept the floor and kept the things in order.
I could not but notice some of the peculiarities of my visitors. Girls and boys, and young women generally, seemed glad to be in the woods. They looked in the pond and at the flowers, and improved their time. Men of business, even farmers, thought only of solitude and employment, and of the great distance at which I dwelt from something or other; and though they said that they loved a ramble in the woods occasionally, it was obvious that they did not. Restless, committed men, whose time was all taken up in getting a living, or keeping it, ministers, who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a monopoly of the subject, and who could not bear all kinds of opinions, doctors, lawyers, and uneasy housekeepers, who pried into my cupboard and bed when I was out, young men who had ceased to be young, and had concluded that it was safest to follow the beaten track of the professions—all these generally said that it was not possible to do as much good in my position.