HOUSE-WARMING. 
271 
bare hill-side, where a pitch-pine wood had formerly 
stood, and got out the fat pine roots. They are almost 
indestructible. Stumps thirty or forty years old, at 
least, will still be sound at the core, though the sap- 
wood has all become vegetable mould, as appears by 
the scales of the thick bark forming a ring level with 
the earth four or five inches distant from the heart. 
With axe and shovel you explore this mine, and follow 
the marrowy store, yellow as beef tallow, or as if you 
had struck on a vein of gold, deep into the earth. But 
commonly I kindled my fire with the dry leaves of the 
forest, which I had stored up in my shed before the 
snow came. Green hickory finely split makes the wood- 
chopper’s kindlings, when he has a camp in the woods. 
Once in a while I got a little of this. When the vil¬ 
lagers were lighting their fires beyond the horizon, I too 
gave notice to the various wild inhabitants of Walden 
vale, by a smoky streamer from my chimney, that I was 
awake. — 
Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird, 
Melting thy pinions in thy upward flight, 
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn, 
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest; 
Or else, departing dream, and shadowy form 
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts; 
By night star-veiling, and by day 
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun; 
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth, 
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame. 
Hard green wood just cut, though I used but little 
of that, answered my purpose better than any other. I 
sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk 
in a winter afternoon; and when I returned, three or 
four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing. 
