notes. The repose is never complete. The
wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and
skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are
Nature's watchmen--links which connect the days of animated life.

When I return to my house I find that visitors have been there and left
their cards, either a bunch of flowers, or a wreath of evergreen, or a
name in pencil on a yellow walnut leaf or a chip. They who come rarely
to the woods take some little piece of the forest into their hands
to play with by the way, which they leave, either intentionally or
accidentally. One has peeled a willow wand, woven it into a ring, and
dropped it on my table. I could always tell if visitors had called in
my absence, either by the bended twigs or grass, or the print of their
shoes, and generally of what sex or age or quality they were by some
slight trace left, as a flower dropped, or a bunch of grass plucked and
thrown away, even as far off as the railroad, half a mile distant, or by
the lingering odor of a cigar or pipe. Nay, I was frequently notified of
the passage of a traveller along the highway sixty rods off by the scent
of his pipe.

There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite
at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but
somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and
fenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I
this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest,
for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile
distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within
half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself;
a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one
hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But
for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It
is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun
and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was
never a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if
I were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long
intervals some came from the village to fish for pouts--they plainly
fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited
their hooks with darkness--but they soon retreated, usually with li