to the woods
and became a wild cat, and, as I learned afterward, trod in a trap set
for woodchucks, and so became a dead cat at last.

I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and
removed it to the pond-side by small cartloads, spreading the boards
on the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early
thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I
was informed treacherously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley,
an Irishman, in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still
tolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his
pocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and
look freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at the devastation;
there being a dearth of work, as he said. He was there to represent
spectatordom, and help make this seemingly insignificant event one with
the removal of the gods of Troy.

I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where
a woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumach and
blackberry roots, and the lowest stain of vegetation, six feet square
by seven deep, to a fine sand where potatoes would not freeze in any
winter. The sides were left shelving, and not stoned; but the sun having
never shone on them, the sand still keeps its place. It was but two
hours' work. I took particular pleasure in this breaking of ground,
for in almost all latitudes men dig into the earth for an equable
temperature. Under the most splendid house in the city is still to be
found the cellar where they store their roots as of old, and long after
the superstructure has disappeared posterity remark its dent in the
earth. The house is still but a sort of porch at the entrance of a
burrow.

At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some of my
acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for neighborliness
than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever
more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined,
I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began
to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and
roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that
it was perfectly impervious to rain, but before boarding I laid the
foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up
the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my ho