Chapter 62 the village

After hoeing, I may read or write in the morning, and I usually have to take another bath in the lake and swim through a small bay. With the last wrinkle left by reading, I'm free in the afternoon.Every day or every other day, I go for a walk to the village, and listen to the endless gossip, or word of mouth, or reprinted in the newspapers, such as accepting them with small doses of homeopathy, it is indeed very fresh , like the rustling of leaves and the clucking of frogs.Just as I love to see birds and squirrels when I walk in the forest, I love to see some men and children when I walk in the village; instead of hearing the sound of pines and wind, I hear the rumble of chariots and horses.Looking from my house in one direction, there was a colony of muskrats on the meadows by the river, and on the other horizon, under the elms and plane trees, a village full of busy people, which aroused my curiosity. heart, as if they were dogs of the prairie, either sitting in their dens, or running off to gossiping next door.From time to time I went to the village to observe their habits.The village seemed to me like a gigantic newsroom, supported on one side, as in the case of the Riding Publishing Company on State Street, by their sale of dried fruit, raisins, salt, cornmeal, and other Grocery.There are people who have such a big appetite and an equally big digestive capacity for the former commodity, news, that they can sit forever motionless in the street, listening to the news boil and whisper past them like a Mediterranean monsoon. , or it can be said that they seem to have inhaled some ether that only produces local anesthesia, so the consciousness is still awake, but the pain is paralyzed—or else there are some news, which will make people suffer when they hear it.Whenever I wandered through the village, I never failed to see these babes sitting in rows on the stone steps basking in the sun, leaning forward slightly, their eyes flicking to one side or the other with lustful expressions from time to time. A glance, or leaning against a barn, hands in trouser pockets, like caryatids supporting it.Since they are usually in the open air, they can hear everything blown by the phoenix.These are the coarsest mills, through which all gossip, long and short, is first run through, and then, inside, poured into finer funnels.I observed that the most lively things in the village were the grocery store, the bar, the post office, and the bank; besides the necessary parts of the machine, there was a big clock, a cannon, and a fire engine, all in place; In order to make the best use of human characteristics, the houses are lined up facing each other in alleys, and any traveler has to be whipped in the lane, and men, women, and children can beat him up.Naturally, some people who were placed closest to the entrance of the alley were the first to see and be seen first, and were the first to beat him up, so they had to pay the highest rent; Residents outside the village, where there is a long gap at the beginning, travelers can jump over the wall, or escape by taking a small road, and they naturally pay only a small amount of ground rent or window tax.Signs were hung on all sides to lure him, and some caught him by appetite, that is, hotels and food stores; some caught his illusion, such as dry goods stores and jewelry stores, and some caught him Hair, or his feet, or his hem, those are barber shops, shoe shops, and tailors.Besides, there is the still more dire danger of always calling you from house to house, and there are always many people on such occasions.In the main, all these dangers, I managed to avoid them skilfully, or I went straight ahead to my destination, without hesitation, those who were flogged in the lane really should do it, or I wholeheartedly Thinking of sublime things, like Orpheus, "playing the lyre, and singing the hymns of the gods, drowning the nymphs' songs, so that there is no trouble." Sometimes I slip away like lightning, and no one knows Where am I, because I don't care much for manners, and there's a hole in the fence, and I don't feel the need to hesitate.I've even gotten into the habit of breaking into some people's homes, and I've been treated well there, just after hearing the last select news, knowing what's just calming down, the prospect of war and peace, and the world being able to co-operate After a while, I slipped away from the back roads and slipped into the middle of my forest again.

It is pleasant when I stay late in the city and set out back into the night, especially on those dark, stormy nights when I sail from a lighted cottage or lecture hall, Carrying a sack of rye or Indian corn meal on my shoulder, sailed into my safe harbor in the woods, all secure outside, retreated below deck with merry thoughts, leaving only my exterior to hold the rudder, but if the channel was calm, I would have tied the rudder dead with a rope.Thoughts of joy have come to me while I sail, with the cabin fire warming.I have neither melancholy nor pathos in any climate, though I have encountered a few vicious landscapes.Even on ordinary nights, the forest is darker than you think.In the darkest night, I often just have to look at the sky in the gaps in the leaves, while walking, I know the way, and when I go to some places without driveways, I can only use my feet to explore the road I have walked out, sometimes I felt for a few familiar trees with my hands, so that I could steer the course, for example, between two pines, separated by no more than eighteen inches, always in the middle of the forest.Sometimes, on a dark and damp night, coming back late, my feet groping for a way my eyes couldn't see, while my mind was absent all the way, as if in a dream, suddenly I had to reach out and open the door, which I just woke up, I can't remember how I got here, I thought maybe my body, even after the soul abandoned it, can still find its way back, just like the hand can always touch the mouth without Any help is appreciated.Several times, when a visitor stayed until late at night, which happened to be dark, I had to walk him out to the drive from the back of the house.At the same time, he pointed out the direction he was going to, and advised him not to rely on his eyes, but to feel his way forward with his two legs.One very dark evening I thus directed the way of two young men who were fishing by the lake.They lived about a mile out of the forest, and knew their way well.A day or two later, one of them told me that they had been wandering about the neighborhood of their place most of the night, and did not return home until dawn, during which there had been several heavy rains which had left the leaves wet, and they were very wet. The skin is all wet.I've heard that many people in the village get lost walking the streets, and that's when the darkness is at its thickest, so dark as the old saying goes, that you can cut it off piece by piece with a knife.Some people live in the suburbs and drive to the village to do goods, but they have to stay in the village overnight; On the sidewalk, I don't know when to turn.Getting lost in the forest anytime is a thrilling and memorable, precious experience.In a snowstorm, even in the daytime, one can get lost on a well-traveled road, not knowing where one leads to the village.Although he knew he had walked this road a thousand times, he recognized nothing, it was as foreign as a road in Siberia.If it is at night, it is naturally much more difficult.In our daily walks we often, though unconsciously, like pilots, follow such and such a lighthouse, or such and such a cape, if we are not on our accustomed course , we still have in our minds some of the nearby capes; unless we are altogether lost, or turn once, as in the woods you have only to close your eyes, turn once, and you are lost,--there Only then did we discover the vastness and wonder of nature.Whether it is sleep or other distractions, everyone should always look at the direction on the compass after waking up.It is not until we have lost our way, in other words, not until we have lost the world, that we begin to discover ourselves, to recognize our situation, and to recognize the limitless limits of our connections.

One afternoon, towards the end of my first summer, I went into the village to get a shoe from the shoemaker, and I was arrested and thrown into prison, because, as I have said in another article, As stated in it, I refuse to pay taxes to, or even recognize the power of, a country that buys and sells men, women and children like cattle and horses at the gates of parliament.I was going to the forest for something else.But wherever a man goes, the dirty institutions of the world follow him, reach out to grab him, and if they can, force him back to the Masonic society to which he belongs. middle.Indeed, I could have resisted violently, with some success, I could have raged against society, but I would rather have society raged against me, for it is the desperate side.I was released the next day, however, with the patched shoe, and returned to the woods just in time to munch on lingonberries on Fair Haven Hill.I have not been harassed by anyone other than those who represent the country.Except on the table upon which my manuscripts rested, I used no lock or bar, nor did I have a single nail on either side of my window.I left my door open day and night, though I was away for several days; nor did I spend a fortnight the following fall in the woods of Maine.Yet my house is more respected than soldiers stationed around it.The weary idler may rest and be warmed by my fire, and the few books on my table may be read by lovers of literature, or the curious, having opened my cupboard, may see what I have left. What meal to order, and I can know what I will have for dinner.Although many people of all classes came to the lake, I was not much inconvenienced by it, and I lost nothing except a small book, which was a volume of Homer, probably because the cover was gilded. Broken, I think it was taken by a soldier in the barracks.I do believe that if all men lived as simply as I do, theft and robbery would never happen.This happens because some people in society get more than enough and others get less than enough.Pope's translation of Homer should be properly circulated at once...

"Nec bella fuerunt, Faginus astabat dum scyphus ante dapes. " "The world does not fight, When all you need is beech dishes. " "The son is governing. How can he use killing. The son wants to be good, but the people are good. The virtue of a gentleman. The virtue of a villain is the grass. The wind on the grass must die."