Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/78

58 earlier. Already his skill with tools had won him a reputation among his mates. He was asked to whittle a bow and arrow for a friend but firmly declined, incurring unjust censure for obstinacy and selfishness. Later the real cause was revealed,—he lacked a knife. This proud reticence, remaining as a trait of manhood, caused those misunderstandings and yearnings for that ideal friendship which could comprehend without explanations, which seemed to him to detract from pure love. As a boy, he found delight in his home and a few companions with whom he was occasionally gay with the abandon of a Dunbar. He bore his part in home-duties, driving the cow to pasture, drawing the water from the well, and supplying the logs for the fireplace. His great pleasure was to wade through mud and stream for some cherished flower or brink-side bush, or to join his brother with fishing-line or gun, in those days before the poet had superseded the angler and hunter.

While at school at the local academy, he had part in a program of the Concord Academic Society, urging the negative on the subject, "Is a good memory preferable to a good understanding in order to be a distinguished scholar at school?" In the old Concord newspaper this note is appended to the