These beans have
results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for
woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely
speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the
husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is
not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I
not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the
granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the
fields fill the farmer's barns. The true husbandman will cease from
anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will
bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every
day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and
sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.
The Village
After hoeing, or perhaps reading and writing, in the forenoon, I
usually bathed again in the pond, swimming across one of its coves
for a stint, and washed the dust of labor from my person, or
smoothed out the last wrinkle which study had made, and for the
afternoon was absolutely free.
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