hes or
plaster. It was a cheap sort of top dressing in which I had
entire faith.

What lessons he got in botany in the hoeing!

Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes
with various kinds of weeds,--it will bear some iteration in
the account, for there was no little iteration in the
labor,--disturbing their delicate organizations so
ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his
hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously
cultivating another. That's Roman worm-wood,--that's
pigweed,--that's sorrel,--that's pipergrass,--have at him,
chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don't let him
have a fibre in the shade, if you do he'll turn himself t'
other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long
war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had
sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me
come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of
their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many
a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above
his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in
the dust.

I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when
the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an
old settler and original proprietor, who is reported to
have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with
pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new
eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful
evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even
without apples or cider,--a most wise and humorous friend,
whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever
did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is thought to be dead,
none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too,
dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in
whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes,
gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she has a
genius of unequalled fertility, and her memory runs back
farther than mythology, and she can tell me the original of
every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the
incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old
dame, who delights in all weathers and seasons, and is
likely to outlive all