A WEEK ON WALDEN'S RIDGE. 151 



not German in appearance, but looking, I 

 thought, like Thoreau, only grown a little 

 older. He had been on Walden's Ridge for 

 fifteen years. Before that he was in South 

 Carolina, but the yellow fever came along 

 and made him feel like getting out. Yes, 

 this was a healthy country. He had nothing 

 to complain of ; he was sixty-two years old 

 and his doctors' bills had never amounted to 

 " five dollar." 



" Do you like living here ? " I asked his 

 wife. 



" No," she answered promptly ; " I never 

 did. But then," she added, " we can't help 

 it. If you own something, you know, you 

 have to stay." 



The author of Walden would have appre- 

 ciated that remark. There was no shoe- 

 making to be done here, the man said, his 

 nearest neighbor being half a mile distant 

 through the woods ; and there was no clover, 

 so that his bees did not do very well ; and 

 the frost had just killed all his peach-trees ; 

 but when I asked if he never felt homesick 

 for Germany, the answer came like a pistol 

 shot, — " No." 



I inquired about a cave, of which I had 



