BRUTE NEIGHBORS. 
Sometimes I had a companion in my fishing, who 
came through the village to my house from the other 
side of the town, and the catching of the dinner was as 
much a social exercise as the eating of it. 
Hermit . I wonder what the world is doing now. I 
have not heard so much as a locust over the sweet-fern 
these three hours. The pigeons are all asleep upon 
their roosts, — no flutter from them. Was that a farm¬ 
er’s noon horn which sounded from beyond the woods 
just now ? The hands are coming in to boiled salt beef 
and cider and Indian bread. Why will men worry 
themselves so ? He that does not eat need not work* 
I wonder how much they have reaped. Who would 
live there where a body can never think for the barking 
of Bose ? And O, the housekeeping! to keep bright the 
devil’s door-knobs, and scour his tubs this bright day! 
Better not keep a house. Say, some hollow tree; and 
then for morning calls and dinner-parties ! Only a wood¬ 
pecker tapping. O, they swarm ; the sun is too warm 
there; they are born too far into life for me. I have 
water from the spring, and a loaf of brown bread on the 
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