d. She was
bitter against slavery. She used to call meetings at her house to talk
over ways of putting an end to it, and when slaves ran away from the
South, she often hid them in her home and helped them get further away.
She knew a great deal about nature, bought a good many books for her
children, and was determined that they should have good educations.
Henry, his brother John, and the two sisters, Helen and Sophia, all
taught school. And Helen helped Henry earn money to go to Harvard
College.

The whole Thoreau family were proud of Henry, and his mother never tired
of telling what fine letters and essays he could write. She and Sophia
went one day to call on an aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson's, Miss Mary
Emerson, who was eighty-four. Mrs. Thoreau began to talk about Henry
right away. Miss Emerson nodded her head and said: "Very true," now and
then, but kept her eyes shut every minute her callers stayed. When they
rose to go, Miss Emerson said: "Perhaps you noticed, Mrs. Thoreau, that
I kept my eyes closed during your call. I did so because I did not wish
to look on the ribbons you are wearing--so unsuitable for a child of God
and a woman of your years!" Poor Mrs. Thoreau was seventy, and her
bonnet was as bright and gay as it had been possible to buy, for she
loved rich colors and silks and velvets. She did not mind Miss Emerson's
rebuke a bit, but Sophia stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth to keep
from laughing aloud.

When Henry was a boy, he used to delight in his Uncle Charles Dunbar,
who paid the family a visit every year. Mr. Dunbar was not a worker like
his sister, Cynthia Thoreau. He did not have any business but drifted
about the country, living by his wits. One of his favorite tricks was to
pretend to swallow all the knives and forks, and a plate or two, at a
tavern, and offer to give them back if the landlord would not charge for
his dinner. He was a great wrestler and could do sleight-of-hand tricks.
Henry used to watch him and ask question after question, and he learned
how to do a few tricks himself.

Just as his mother hoped, when Henry grew up, he decided to be a writer.
To be sure he taught school a while and gave lectures which people did
not understand very well, for he had strange ideas for those times, but
he wrote page after page, sitting in the woods, and liked that better
than all else. He first wrote an account of a week's trip on the Concord
and Merrimac rivers. This book did not sell ve