Go up Assabet for fuel. One old piece of oak timber looks as if it had been a brace in a bridge. I get up oak rails here and there, almost as heavy as lead, and leave them to dry somewhat on the bank. Stumps, partially burned, which were brought by the freshet from some newly cleared field last spring; bleached oak trees which were once lopped for a fence; alders and birches which the river ice bent and broke by its weight last spring. It is pretty hard and dirty work.
It grieves me to see how rapidly some great trees which have fallen or been felled waste away when left on the ground. There was the large oak by the Assabet, which I remember to have been struck by lightning, and afterward blown over, being dead. It used to lie with its top down-hill and partly in the water and its butt far up. Now there is no trace of its limbs, and the very core of its trunk is the only solid part, concealed within a spongy covering. Soon only a richer mould will mark the spot.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 26, 1855
Go up Assabet for fuel. See September 24, 1855 ("Brought home quite a boat-load of fuel . . . It would be a triumph to get all my winter’s wood thus"); September 25. 1857 (Brought home my first boat-load of wood."); October 21, 1857 ("I become a connoisseur in wood at last, take only the best.")
Thoreau wrote to Blake: "Mr. Ricketson of New Bedford has just made me a visit
of a day and a half, and I have had a quite good time
with him. He and Charming have got on particularly well
together . He is a man of very simple tastes, notwithstanding his wealth ; a lover of nature ; but, above all, singularly
frank and plain-spoken . I think that you might enjoy
meeting him. . . . I have just got a letter from Ricketson, urging me to
come to New Bedford, which possibly I may do. He says
I can wear my old clothes there." Letters to Blake, September 26, 1855. See September 29, 1855 ("Go to Daniel Ricketson’s, New Bedford")
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