rious English grains will probably disappear before a myriad of
foes, and without the care of man the crow may carry back even the
last seed of corn to the great cornfield of the Indian's God in the
southwest, whence he is said to have brought it; but the now almost
exterminated ground-nut will perhaps revive and flourish in spite of
frosts and wildness, prove itself indigenous, and resume its ancient
importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe. Some Indian
Ceres or Minerva must have been the inventor and bestower of it; and
when the reign of poetry commences here, its leaves and string of nuts
may be represented on our works of art.

Already, by the first of September, I had seen two or three small maples
turned scarlet across the pond, beneath where the white stems of three
aspens diverged, at the point of a promontory, next the water. Ah, many
a tale their color told! And gradually from week to week the character
of each tree came out, and it admired itself reflected in the smooth
mirror of the lake. Each morning the manager of this gallery substituted
some new picture, distinguished by more brilliant or harmonious
coloring, for the old upon the walls.

The wasps came by thousands to my lodge in October, as to winter
quarters, and settled on my windows within and on the walls overhead,
sometimes deterring visitors from entering. Each morning, when they were
numbed with cold, I swept some of them out, but I did not trouble myself
much to get rid of them; I even felt complimented by their regarding my
house as a desirable shelter. They never molested me seriously, though
they bedded with me; and they gradually disappeared, into what crevices
I do not know, avoiding winter and unspeakable cold.

Like the wasps, before I finally went into winter quarters in November,
I used to resort to the northeast side of Walden, which the sun,
reflected from the pitch pine woods and the stony shore, made the
fireside of the pond; it is so much pleasanter and wholesomer to be
warmed by the sun while you can be, than by an artificial fire. I thus
warmed myself by the still glowing embers which the summer, like a
departed hunter, had left.

When I came to build my chimney I studied masonry. My bricks, being
second-hand ones, required to be cleaned with a trowel, so that I
learned more than usual of the qualities of bricks and trowels. The
mortar on them was fifty years old, and was said to be still growing
harder; but thi