Page:Walden, or, Life in the Woods.djvu/69

 unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,—effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,—and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to $8 40¾ Oil and some household utensils,..... 2 00 So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received,—and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world,—were House,.............................. $28 12½ Farm one year,...................... 14 72½ Food eight months,.................. 8 74 Clothing, &c., eight months,........ 8 40¾ Oil, &c., eight months,............. 2 00                                     --- In all,............................. $61 99¾ I address myself now to those of my readers who have