Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/71

Rh recounts their early morning strolls to Fairhaven and elsewhere, while his letters testify to common interest in Indian tradition and archeology. After John's death in 1842, in the poem first written in his journal and later transcribed in a letter to Helen, are pathetic memories of this nature-companionship:

There was a fearful tragedy connected with the death of John, the first rift in the Thoreau house hold. He died of lockjaw, due to tetanus poison in a cut upon the finger. A friend of Miss Sophia Thoreau, in a recent interview, said that the wound received instant and expert treatment from Boston, but no efforts could avail to avert the terrible sequel. She also verifies the tradition that Henry suffered sympathetically for a time during the hours of agony. His memory of that suffering never lightened; twelve years afterwards, when occasion