them in a hand-mill, and sugar he could extract from beet and pumpkins or from maples, which abound in that country. You could avoid, he said, going to any shops at all, and he was sure that to maintain yourself on the earth simply and wisely was not a hardship at all, but a pleasure.
Sometimes during this first year Thoreau did nothing at all but sit in his doorway dreaming, quite undisturbed and in silence, except for the flittering and twittering of birds. He would not realize how the time had flown until he saw the sunlight lighting up his west window, or heard the sound of some horse and wagon in the distance going home to rest. He did not feel this to be a waste of time, for he seemed, he said, to grow under these conditions like the corn in the night.
Not very far from where he lived was a railway line, and a train would pass at certain intervals. In spite of his love of solitude Thoreau liked the sound of it, and the whistle of the engine he likened to the cry of a hawk. He would listen to the passage of the moving train with the same feeling he had about the rising sun. It was so punctual and regular, and when the train had passed with its clang and clatter Thoreau felt more alone than ever, for it had made him feel the peacefulness and contrast of his own solitary yet not lonely life. On Sundays he would listen to the bells of distant towns, when the wind was
