Chapter 14

FORMER INHABITANTS AND WINTER VISITORS

I weathered some merry snow-storms, and spent some cheerful
winter evenings by my fireside, while the snow whirled wildly
without, and even the hooting of the owl was hushed. For many weeks
I met no one in my walks but those who came occasionally to cut wood
and sled it to the village. The elements, however, abetted me in
making a path through the deepest snow in the woods, for when I had
once gone through the wind blew the oak leaves into my tracks, where
they lodged, and by absorbing the rays of the sun melted the snow,
and so not only made a my bed for my feet, but in the night their
dark line was my guide. For human society I was obliged to conjure
up the former occupants of these woods. Within the memory of many
of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with
the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it
were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and
dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than
now. In some places, within my own remembrance, the pines would
scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and children who
were compelled to go this way to Lincoln alone and on foot did it
with fear, and often ran a good part of the distance. Though mainly
but a humble route to neighboring villages, or for the woodman's
team, it once amused the traveller more than now by its variety, and
lingered longer in his memory. Where now firm open fields stretch
from the village to the woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on
a foundation of logs, the remnants of which, doubtless, still
underlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratton, now the
Alms-House Farm, to Brister's Hill.
East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato Ingraham,
slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman, of Concord village,
who built his slave a house, and gave him permission to live in
Walden Woods; -- Cato, not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say
that he was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember his little
patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up till he should be old
and need them; but a younger and whiter speculator got them at last.
He too, however, occupies an equally narrow house at present.
Cato's half-obliterated cellar-hole still remains, though known to
few, being concealed from the traveller by a fringe of pines. It is
now filled with the smooth sumach (Rhus glabra), and one of the
earliest species of goldenrod (Solidago stricta) grows there
luxuriantly.
Here, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to town,
Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, where she spun linen
for the townsfolk, making the Walden Woods ring with her shrill
singing, for she