or the axe, I was advised to get the village
blacksmith to "jump" it; but I jumped him, and, putting a hickory helve
from the woods into it, made it do. If it was dull, it was at least hung
true.

A few pieces of fat pine were a great treasure. It is interesting to
remember how much of this food for fire is still concealed in the bowels
of the earth. In previous years I had often gone prospecting over some
bare hillside, where a pitch pine wood had formerly stood, and got out
the fat pine roots. They are almost indestructible. Stumps thirty or
forty years old, at least, will still be sound at the core, though the
sapwood has all become vegetable mould, as appears by the scales of
the thick bark forming a ring level with the earth four or five inches
distant from the heart. With axe and shovel you explore this mine, and
follow the marrowy store, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you had struck
on a vein of gold, deep into the earth. But commonly I kindled my fire
with the dry leaves of the forest, which I had stored up in my shed
before the snow came. Green hickory finely split makes the woodchopper's
kindlings, when he has a camp in the woods. Once in a while I got a
little of this. When the villagers were lighting their fires beyond the
horizon, I too gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden
vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was awake.--

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight,
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.

Hard green wood just cut, though I used but little of that, answered my
purpose better than any other. I sometimes left a good fire when I went
to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or four
hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. My house was not
empty though I was gone. It was as if I had left a cheerful housekeeper
behind. It was I and Fire that lived there; and commonly my housekeeper
proved trustworthy. One day, however, as I was splitting wood, I thought
that I would just look in at the wind