Henry David Thoreau 179 



to count its victims by the score. In front of 

 every shop along this thoroughfare were groups 

 of clerks busy piling up dry goods in more or 

 less artistic shape, intended to impress the 

 passers. I saw hundreds of men, many of 

 them gray -headed and able-bodied, who seemed 

 to find nothing unpleasant about their work. 

 To one or two I ventured the remark as I went 

 along that it was going to be a very hot day, 

 and that the country boys had the advantage 

 of their city brothers. Even that, the few 

 clerks to whom I spoke were inclined to dis- 

 pute. The country lad, they argued, had his 

 troubles. It was hot in the cornfield as well as 

 on Grand Street, and while the dry-goods clerk 

 could retire into the depths of the shop, the 

 farm lad had to work away. I found no one 

 inclined to prefer the life of field work to which 

 I looked forward to that of the Grand Street 

 dry-goods shops. These young gentlemen 

 would carry nothing with them should they 

 abandon the shop and their equally empty- 

 headed associates. Why should they give up 

 the society they knew for the utter solitude of 

 a life on the farm, or the bay ? 



