280 
WALDEN. 
discovered the only survivor of the family that I know, 
the heir of both its virtues and its vices, who alone was 
interested in this burning, lying on his stomach and 
looking over the cellar wall at the still smouldering cin¬ 
ders beneath, muttering to himself, as is his wont. He 
had been working far off in the river meadows all day, 
and had improved the first moments that he could 
call his own to visit the home of his fathers and his 
youth. He gazed into the cellar from all sides and 
points of view by turns, always lying down to it, as if 
there was some treasure, which he remembered, con¬ 
cealed between the stones, where there was absolutely 
nothing but a heap of bricks and ashes. The house 
being gone, he looked at what there was left. He was 
soothed by the sympathy which my mere presence im¬ 
plied, and showed me, as well as the darkness permitted, 
where the well was covered up; which, thank Heaven, 
could never be burned; and he groped long about the 
wall to find the well-sweep which his father had cut and 
mounted, feeling for the iron hook or staple by which a 
burden had been fastened to the heavy end, — all that 
he could now cling to, —- to convince me that it was no 
common “ rider.” I felt it, and still remark it almost 
daily in my walks, for by it hangs the history of a 
family. 
Once more, on the left, where are seen the well and 
lilac bushes by the wall, in the now open field, lived 
Nutting and Le Grosse. But to return toward Lincoln. 
Farther in the woods than any of these, where the 
road approaches nearest to the pond, Wyman the pot¬ 
ter squatted, and furnished his townsmen with earthen 
ware, and left descendants to succeed him. Neither 
were they rich in worldly goods, holding the land by 
