Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/76

56 negro, freed and sent northward from Virginia, built his cabin on what was then known as "The Plains." Gradually, a footpath thence was trodden to the town. As the negro was known as "Old Virginia," his narrow, twisted path took the name of "Old Virginia Lane." In memory of Thoreau's active efforts against slavery and his last potent words in behalf of John Brown, the tradition assumes a romantic and prophetic significance.

Biographers always repeat Thoreau's entry in his journal,—"I was baptized in the old meeting-house by Dr. Ripley, when I was three months old and did not cry." Perchance this foretold later stoicism and indifference to the spectacular! He was christened David Henry, and his names were not reversed until college days, although his home-name was always Henry. After the removal of his father's business to Chelmsford and Boston, as already noted, the family returned to Concord when he was six years old. He recalled a dim, childish memory of an adventure with a cow, which, enraged by his flannel gown of red, gave him a violent toss before he was rescued. Mr. Joseph Hosmer, the friend of his boyhood, says that Thoreau disliked street parades and noisy "shows," though interested in the sham-fights on musters and "Cornwallis Days." He preferred to