Chapter 83 Indoor Heating - 1

In mid-October, I went to the river bank to pick grapes, and I returned home full of education. The color was fragrant, and it was better than delicious.There, too, I admired the cranberries, those little wax jewels hanging from the blades of grass, shiny and red, but I did not gather them, the farmer raked them, the smooth grass was messy, they Just casually counting in bushels and gold dollars, selling the plunder of the meadows to Boston and New York; ordering jams to satisfy the tastes of the nature lovers there.Likewise, the butchers raked wild bugloss here and there in the meadows, ignoring the torn and withered plants.The glorious barberry fruit is only for my eyes: I have only picked a few wild apples and cooked them, and the landowners and travelers of this country have not yet noticed these things.The chestnuts were ripe, and I stashed half a bushel for the winter.What a joy it is to wander among the boundless chestnut groves around Lincoln at such a season—the chestnut trees are now buried under the railway—I carried a cloth sack on my shoulders then , holding a stick in my hand to open the prickly fruits, because I can never wait for the frost, wandering among the rustling of dead leaves and the chirping and scolding of red squirrels and jasmine birds, and sometimes I steal what they have eaten some of the nuts, because among the prickly fruits they selected, there must be some better ones.Occasionally I climb up a tree to shake the chestnut tree, which grows behind my house too, and one so big that it almost shades my house.When it blooms it is a huge bouquet, and its neighbors are sweet, but most of its fruit is eaten by squirrels and cherry birds; Pick it out.I gave these trees to them, and went to the further forest, which was full of chestnut trees.This fruit, I think, makes a good substitute for bread.Perhaps many other substitutes can be found.One day I was digging for bait and found bunches of wild beans (Apios tuberosa), a minority potato, a strange food, and I couldn't help but wonder if I had ever been like they told me, in my childhood Time has dug and eaten them, why do I never dream of them again.I have often seen their wrinkled, red velvet flowers supported by the stalks of other plants, without knowing them.Plowing has all but wiped them out.It has a sweet taste, like frosted potatoes, and I think it's better cooked than baked.This tuber seems to be a monopoly of nature, which will one day simply raise its young here, and feed them with these.In this age of fattened oxen and tumbling fields, the humble wild bean is forgotten, at most only its flowering vines can be seen, but once it was an Indian tribe's And the totems; indeed, if wild Nature were allowed to reign here again, those tender and luxurious English corns might perish before innumerable enemies, and the crows would pluck the last corn-seed without human aid. To the Southwest, to the great corn-field of the Indian god, from where he is said to have brought his seeds, when the wild pea, the now almost extinct fruit, may regenerate and multiply, fear not The frost and wildness proved itself indigenous, and was about to regain the importance and dignity it had in ancient times as a staple food of hunting peoples.It must have been invented by the Indian goddess of corn or wisdom, and later bestowed upon mankind, whose leaves and clusters of nuts will be represented in our works of art when the reign of poetry begins here.

On September 1st, I saw three or two small maple trees whose leaves were already red, across the lake, just under three forked poplars, on a lake corner, close to the water.what!Their colors tell such stories.Slowly, week by week, the character of each tree emerges, admiring its own reflection in the mirror of the lake.Every morning, the manager of this gallery, Mr., takes down the old paintings on the wall and replaces them with some new ones, which are more vivid or more harmonious in color, which is very good. In mid-October, wasps come to my house in thousands, as if for the winter, and live in my windows on the wall above my head, sometimes keeping visitors out.Every morning a few froze and I swept them outside, but I didn't want to bother myself to get rid of them.They are willing to come to the humble house to escape the winter, and I am proud of it.Although they slept with me, they never offended me seriously; gradually, they also disappeared, and I don't know in what crevice they hid themselves from the winter and the unspeakable cold.

By November, like the wasps, I went to the northeast shore of Walden, before I hid from winter, where the sun, reflected from pines and stony shores, was a hearth on the lake; When it is still possible, it is more pleasant and more hygienic to expose to the sun for warmth than to light a fire for warmth.Summer has departed like a hunter, and thus I burn the glowing embers it leaves.