under this south hill-side, and it seems a civilized and public spot. We
have such associations as when the traveller stands by the ruins of
Palmyra or Hecatompolis. Singing birds and flowers perchance have begun to
appear here, for flowers as well as weeds follow in the footsteps of man.
These hemlocks whispered over his head, these hickory logs were his fuel,
and these pitch-pine roots kindled his fire; yonder fuming rill in the
hollow, whose thin and airy vapor still ascends as busily as ever, though
he is far off now, was his well. These hemlock boughs, and the straw upon
this raised platform, were his bed, and this broken dish held his drink.
But he has not been here this season, for the phoebes built their nest
upon this shelf last summer. I find some embers left, as if he had but
just gone out, where he baked his pot of beans; and while at evening he
smoked his pipe, whose stemless bowl lies in the ashes, chatted with his
only companion, if perchance he had any, about the depth of the snow on
the morrow, already falling fast and thick without, or disputed whether
the last sound was the screech of an owl, or the creak of a bough, or
imagination only; and through this broad chimney throat, in the late
winter evening, ere he stretched himself upon the straw, he looked up to
learn the progress of the storm, and, seeing the bright stars of
Cassiopeia's chair shining brightly down upon him, fell contentedly
asleep. See how many traces from which we may learn the chopper's history.
From this stump we may guess the sharpness of his axe, and, from the slope
of the stroke, on which side he stood, and whether he cut down the tree
without going round it or changing hands; and, from the flexure of the
splinters, we may know which way it fell. This one chip contains inscribed
on it the whole history of the wood-chopper and of the world. On this
scrap of paper, which held his sugar or salt, perchance, or was the
wadding of his gun, sitting on a log in the forest, with what interest we
read the tattle of cities, of those larger huts, empty and to let, like
this, in High Streets and Broadways. The eaves are dripping on the south