Page:Thoreau - As remembered by a young friend.djvu/56

 business from Mrs. Thoreau and carried it on for years,—and with others who knew something of the matter. The evidence is strong that Henry's mind and hand were active in the rapid carrying of this humble business to the front. It seems to be probable that, whether the father thought out the plan alone or with Henry, it was the latter's mechanical skill that put it into working shape. Henry is said also to have made the machine used in making their last and best pencil, which drilled a round hole into a solid wood and cut lead to fit it, as an axle does a wheel-box, instead of the usual method of having the wood in two parts glued together after filling.1

A friend who attended, in 1849, a fashionable school in Boston, kept by an English lady, tells me that the drawing-teacher used to direct the pupils to "ask at the art store for a Thoreau pencil, for