Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/418

 392 FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS. [1858,

who had seen him among the Penobscot rocks and rapids the Indian trusting his life and his canoe to Henry s skill, promptitude, and nerve would ever doubt it.&quot;

Channing says : l &quot;In his later journeys, if his companion was footsore or loitered, he stead ily pursued his road. Once, when a follower was done up with headache and incapable of motion, hoping his associate would comfort him and per haps afford him a sip of tea, he said, There are people who are sick in that way every morning, and go about their affairs, and then marched off about his. In such limits, so inevitable, was he compacted. . . . This tone of mind grew out of no insensibility ; or, if he sometimes looked coldly on the suffering of more tender natures, he sympathized with their afflictions, but could do nothing to admire them. He would not injure a plant unnecessarily. At the time of the John Brown tragedy, Thoreau was driven sick. So

1 Channing s Thoreau, pp. 3, 8, 9. Charming himself was, no doubt, the &quot; follower &quot; and &quot; companion &quot; here mentioned ; no person so frequently walked with Thoreau in his long- ex cursions. They were together in New Boston, N. H., when the minister mentioned in the Week reproved Thoreau for not going to meeting on Sunday. When I first lived in Concord (March, 1855), and asked the innkeeper what Sunday services the village held, he replied : &quot; There s the Orthodox, an the Unitarian, an th Walden Pond Association,&quot; meaning by the last what Emerson called &quot; the Walkers,&quot; those who rambled in the Walden woods on Sundays.