Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/143

 a wet snow storm counting the growth-rings on the stumps of some old trees. The family infection became active. He lived a year and a half after this exposure and made a trip to Minnesota in vain for health. For the last months he was confined to the house, he was affectionate, and utterly brave, and worked on his manuscript until the last days. When his neighbour, Reverend Mr. Reynolds, came in he found him so employed, and he looked up cheerfully and, with a twinkle in his eye, whispered — his voice was gone — “you know it's respectable to leave an estate to one's friends.”1 His old acquaintance Staples, once his jailor, coming out, meeting Mr. Emerson coming in, reported that he “never saw a man dying with so much pleasure and peace.” To his Calvinistic Aunt who felt obliged to ask, “Henry, have you made your peace with God?”