Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/94

 under the side of our acquaintances, we quietly promised, if they would throw us a rope, to take them in tow. Thus we gradually overhauled each boat in succession until we had the river to ourselves again.

Thursday, September 5.

When we awoke this morning we heard the ominous, still deliberate, sound of raindrops on our cotton roof. The rain had pattered all night, and now the whole country wept,—the drops falling in the river and on the alders, and on the pastures; but, instead of any bow in the heavens, there were the trills of the tree-sparrow all the morning. The cheery faith of this little bird atoned for the silence of the whole woodland quire. It was a cloudy, drizzling day, with occasional brightenings in the mist, when the trill of the tree-sparrows seemed to be ushering in sunny hours.

We learned afterward that we had pitched our camp upon the very spot which a few summers before had been occupied by a roving party of Penobscots, as if we had at [46]