Page:Familiar letters of Henry David Thoreau.djvu/463

 J2T.43.] TO PARKER PILLSBURY. 437

tered over them, and you cannot tell whether they have blinds or not. Our pump has another pump, its ghost, as thick as itself, sticking to one side of it. The town has sent out teams of eight oxen each, to break out the roads ; and the train due from Boston at 8| A. M. has not ar rived yet (4 P. M.). All the passing has been a train from above at 12 M., which also was due at 8J A. M. Where are the bluebirds now, think you ? I suppose that you have not so much snow at New Bedford, if any.

TO PARKER PILLSBURY (AT CONCORD, N. H.). CONCORD, April 10, 1861.

FRIEND PILLSBURY, I am sorry to say that I have not a copy of &quot; Walden &quot; which I can spare ; and know of none, unless possibly Tick- nor & Fields may have one. I send, neverthe less, a copy of &quot; The Week,&quot; the price of which is one dollar and twenty-five cents, which you can pay at your convenience.

As for your friend, my prospective reader, I hope he ignores Fort Sumter, and &quot; Old Abe,&quot; and all that ; for that is just the most fatal, and, indeed, the only fatal weapon you can direct against evil, ever ; for, as long as you know of it, you are particeps criminis. What business have you, if you are &quot; an angel of light,&quot; to be pondering over the deeds of darkness, reading the &quot; New York Herald,&quot; and the like ?