After dinner, . . .Mr. Thoreau and I walked
up the bank of the river, and at a certain point he shouted for his boat. Forthwith
a young man paddled it across, and Mr. Thoreau and I voyaged farther up the
stream, which soon became more beautiful than any picture, with its dark and
quiet sheet of water, half shaded, half sunny, between high and wooded banks.
The late rains have swollen the stream so much that many trees are standing up
to their knees, as it were, in the water, and bough, which lately swung high in
air, now dip and drink deep of the passing wave. As to the poor cardinals which
glowed upon the bank a few days since, I could see only a few of their scarlet
hats peeping above the tide. Mr. Thoreau managed the boat so perfectly, either
with two paddles or with one, that it seemed instinct with his own will, and to
require no physical effort to guide it. He said that when some Indians visited
Concord a few years ago, he found that he had acquired, without a teacher,
their precise method of propelling and steering a canoe. Nevertheless, he was
desirous of selling the boat of which he was so fit a pilot, and which was
built by his own hands; so I agreed to take it, and accordingly became a
possessor of the “Musketaquid.” I wish I could acquire the aquatic skill of the
original owner.
From Passages from THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS
of NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Smith,
Elder and Co., 1868
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