me to look
at what was called the towel I passed it by and wiped my
hands on the air, and thereafter I resorted to the pump. I
worked there hard three days, charging only a dollar a day.

About the same time I also contracted to build a wood-shed
of no mean size, for, I think, exactly six dollars, and
cleared about half of it by a close calculation and swift
working. The tenant wanted me to throw in a gutter and
latch, but I carried off the board that was left and gave
him no latch but a button. It stands yet,--behind the Kettle
house. I broke up Johnny Kettle's old "trow," in which he
kneaded his bread, for material. Going home with what nails
were left in a flower [_sic!_] bucket on my arm, in a rain,
I was about getting into a hay-rigging, when my umbrella
frightened the horse, and he kicked at me over the fills,
smashed the bucket on my arm, and stretched me on my back;
but while I lay on my back, his leg being caught under the
shaft, I got up, to see him sprawling on the other side.
This accident, the sudden bending of my body backwards,
sprained my stomach so that I did not get quite strong there
for several years, but had to give up some fence-building
and other work which I had undertaken from time to time.

I built the common slat fence for $1.50 per rod, or worked
for $1.00 per day. I built six fences.

These homely and laborious occupations show the dreamer and
transcendentalist of Walden in a very interesting light. In his
practical life he was a ready and resourceful man and could set his
neighbors a good example, and no doubt give them good advice. But what
fun he had with his correspondents when they wrote him for practical
advice about the conduct of their lives! One of them had evidently
been vexing his soul over the problem of Church and State: "Why not
make a very large mud pie and bake it in the sun? Only put no Church
nor State into it, nor upset any other pepper box that way. Dig out a
woodchuck--for that has nothing to do with rotting institutions. Go
ahead."

Dear, old-fashioned Wilson Flagg, who wrote pleasantly, but rather
tamely, about New England birds and seasons, could not profit much
from Thoreau's criticism: "He wants stirring up with a pole. He should
practice turning a series of summer-sets rapidly, or jump up and see
how many times he can strike his feet together bef