276 
WALDEK. 
scrape both sides of a chaise at once, and women and 
children who were compelled to go this way to Lincoln 
alone and on foot did it with fear, and often ran a good 
part of the distance. Though mainly but a humble 
route to neighboring villages, or for the woodman’s 
team, it once amused the traveller more than now by its 
variety, and lingered longer in his memory. Where 
now firm open fields stretch from the village to the 
woods, it then ran through a maple swamp on a founda¬ 
tion of logs, the remnants of which, doubtless, still un¬ 
derlie the present dusty highway, from the Stratten, 
now the Alms House, Farm, to Brister’s Hill. 
East of my bean-field, across the road, lived Cato In¬ 
graham, slave of Duncan Ingraham, Esquire, gentleman 
of Concord village; who built his slave a house, and 
gave him permission to live in Walden Woods; — Cato, 
not Uticensis, but Concordiensis. Some say that he 
was a Guinea Negro. There are a few who remember 
his little patch among the walnuts, which he let grow up 
till he should be old and need them; but a younger and 
whiter speculator got them at last. He too, however, 
occupies an equally narrow house at present. Cato’s 
half-obliterated cellar hole still remains, though known 
to few, being concealed from the traveller by a fringe 
of pines. It is now filled with the smooth sumach, 
(Rhus glabra,) and one of the earliest species of golden- 
rod (Solidago stricta) grows there luxuriantly. 
Here, by the very corner of my field, still nearer to 
town, Zilpha, a colored woman, had her little house, 
where she spun linen for the townsfolk, making the 
Walden Woods ring with her shrill singing, for she had 
a loud and notable voice. At length, in the war of 
1812, her dwelling was set on fire by English soldiers, 
