132 
WALDEN. 
existence. As the Orientals say, “ A cur’s tail may be 
warmed, and pressed, and bound round with ligatures, 
and after a twelve years’ labor bestowed upon it, still it 
will retain its natural form.” The only effectual cure 
for such inveteracies as these tails exhibit is to make 
glue of them, which I believe is what is usually done 
with them, and then they will stay put and stick. Here 
is a hogshead of molasses or of brandy directed to John 
Smith, Cuttingsville, Vermont, some trader among the 
Green Mountains, who imports for the farmers near his 
clearing, and now perchance stands over his bulk-head 
and thinks of the last arrivals on the coast, how they 
may affect the price for him, telling his customers this 
moment, as he has told them twenty times before this 
morning, that he expects some by the next train of 
prime quality. It is advertised in the Cuttingsville 
Times. 
While these things go up other things come down. 
Warned by the whizzing sound, I look up from my 
book and see some tall pine, hewn on far northern hills, 
which has winged its way over the Green Mountains and 
the Connecticut, shot like an arrow through the town¬ 
ship within ten minutes, and scarce another eye be¬ 
holds it; going 
“ to be the mast 
Of some great ammiral.” 
And hark ! here comes the cattle-train bearing the 
cattle of a thousand hills, sheepcots, stables, and cow- 
yards in the air, drovers with their sticks, and shep¬ 
herd boys in the midst of their flocks, all but the 
mountain pastures, whirled along like leaves blown 
from the mountains by the September gales. The 
