em, I hoe them, early and
late I have an eye to them; and this is my day's work. It is a fine
broad leaf to look on. My auxiliaries are the dews and rains which water
this dry soil, and what fertility is in the soil itself, which for the
most part is lean and effete. My enemies are worms, cool days, and most
of all woodchucks. The last have nibbled for me a quarter of an acre
clean. But what right had I to oust johnswort and the rest, and break
up their ancient herb garden? Soon, however, the remaining beans will be
too tough for them, and go forward to meet new foes.

When I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston
to this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to
the pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now
to-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. The pines
still stand here older than I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked
my supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around,
preparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort
springs from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even I have at
length helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and
one of the results of my presence and influence is seen in these bean
leaves, corn blades, and potato vines.

I planted about two acres and a half of upland; and as it was only about
fifteen years since the land was cleared, and I myself had got out
two or three cords of stumps, I did not give it any manure; but in the
course of the summer it appeared by the arrowheads which I turned up in
hoeing, that an extinct nation had anciently dwelt here and planted corn
and beans ere white men came to clear the land, and so, to some extent,
had exhausted the soil for this very crop.

Before yet any woodchuck or squirrel had run across the road, or the
sun had got above the shrub oaks, while all the dew was on, though the
farmers warned me against it--I would advise you to do all your work
if possible while the dew is on--I began to level the ranks of haughty
weeds in my bean-field and throw dust upon their heads. Early in the
morning I worked barefooted, dabbling like a plastic artist in the dewy
and crumbling sand, but later in the day the sun blistered my feet.
There the sun lighted me to hoe beans, pacing slowly backward and
forward over that yellow gravelly upland, between the long green rows,
fifteen rods, the one end terminating