ch it was wrapt, at
noon, sitting amid the green pine boughs which I had cut off, and to
my bread was imparted some of their fragrance, for my hands were
covered with a thick coat of pitch. Before I had done I was more the
friend than the foe of the pine-tree, tho I had cut down some of them,
having become better acquainted with it. Sometimes a rambler in the
wood was attracted by the sound of my ax, and we chatted pleasantly
over the chips which I had made....

I dug my cellar in the side of a hill sloping to the south, where a
woodchuck had formerly dug his burrow, down through sumac 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 will
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 hoeing in the fall,
before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the
meanwhile out-of-doors, on the ground, early in the morning; which
mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable
than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixt
a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and
passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands
were much employed, I read b