BUILDING THE HOUSE. 
45 
clay or Hat stones. I speak understanding^ on this 
subject, for I have made myself acquainted with it both 
theoretically and practically. With a little more wit 
we might use these materials so as to become richer 
than the richest now are, and make our civilization a 
blessing. The civilized man is a more experienced 
and wiser savage. But to make haste to my own ex¬ 
periment. 
Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe 
and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest 
to where I intended to build my hojise, and began to cut 
down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, 
for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, 
but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to per¬ 
mit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enter¬ 
prise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold 
on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned 
it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside 
where I worked, covered with pine woods, through 
which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field 
in the woods where pines and hickories were springing 
up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though 
there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored 
and saturated with water. There were some slight flur¬ 
ries of snow during the days that I worked there; but 
for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on 
my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away 
gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in 
the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and 
other birds already come to commence another year 
with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the 
