A Victim of Thoreau. 65 



" Do you live near by ?" I asked, ignoring his 

 remarks. 



" My home, if you can call it so, is the range of 

 my rambling; but why are you curious about 

 me ? Such a corner as this ought to be no man's 

 land, except his who rests for a time here, on his 

 way to nowhere." 



" I'm sure I have no claim to your cozy seat, 

 and am only too glad to have met you. You are 

 a stranger about here, I take it?" I remarked, 

 without any definite reason for speaking at all. 



" Yes, I am," and, turning towards me, he said, 

 in most inviting tones, " and yet not altogether. I 

 was here sixty years ago, and sat under this same 

 tree, and again thirty-five years ago, when I read a 

 book that turned my head, and I've been won- 

 dering where the mistake was ever since." 



I was thoroughly interested in the old man now, 

 and could scarcely wait until he had finished 

 speaking to ask what book had so marred his 

 fortunes. 



" Thoreau's ' Walden,' " he replied ; " there are 

 pages of it I can repeat, and often do so, wonder- 

 ing all the time where's the hitch in his phi- 

 e 6* 



