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[102] UT [Reminiscences of Thoreau] (1878, 1881, and 1882) Joseph Hosmer Jr. Concord native Joseph Hosmer Jr. (1814–1886) was the older brother of Horace Hosmer and a close friend of Henry Thoreau’s brother, John. Hosmer helped his father on the family’s farm in Concord, which he sold in 1857 before moving to Chicago. In several reminiscences published in Concord newspapers in the 1870s and 1880s, Hosmer attempted to set the record straight about the Thoreau he had known and obviously admired, a man who “stood a living protest against the frivolities, fashions, humbugs, and pretences, of the social, political and religious age in which he lived” (qtd. in Hendrick, 135–36). Leonard N. Neufeldt observes that Hosmer’s version of “Thoreau . . . is shrewd, calculating, individualistic, quietly obstinate, perennially hopeful, and morally impeccable. . . . [as is] compatible with his own sense of what it means to be a product, indeed an epitome, of a Concord he liked to remember , a Concord unlike the one he had felt constrained to leave” (98). “An Hour with Thoreau,” 22 August 1878 As a ladies’ man and a dandy, Thoreau would not be deemed a success, but as a student of nature in its most subtle windings, he had few equals living or dead. He possessed a character and lived a life peculiar to himself, and when out of his sphere, was commonplace enough, but in nature’s undiscovered realm was the most interesting of men. It was his delight to study the habits of and become intimately acquainted with the lower animals, and they in turn seemed to understand and appreciate him. He would sit motionless for hours, and let the mice crawl over him and eat cheese out of his hand (and not scream; think of that girls). The fish and the mud turtles were the subjects of his patient study. The mud turtles he told me were the largest wild animals in Massachusetts, he having discovered and secured one in Fair Haven Bay that weighed nearly one hundred pounds. [103] On one of his accustomed rambles he came where I was at work near the river, and hearing a well known sound that is heard in the low land along the banks of the Assabet, a sound as of a bird, yet somewhat like the notes of a tree-toad, only more bird like, he entered into conversation about it. The noise alluded to always excited wonder especially with the older people, they believing it to be some kind of a bird, as nothing but a bird can sing so sweetly, yet on going where the sound came from, nothing could be discovered. It made its appearance in the last of summer and disappeared in the early autumn. It was the received opinion of the people fifty years ago that the swallows dove into the water and burrowed in the mud during the winter, and as they were first and last seen over the ponds and streams, and hence the mysterious sounds were supposed to emanate from some kind of a bird. Thoreau said it was a frog and he thought he could show it to me. He described it as apparently a green leaf, and when near it would point in the direction with the stick he held in his hand. After giving me minute directions how to proceed and to do in all things as he did, we started in the direction of the object we had in view, which was some eight or ten rods distant. When it sang we hastened on and just before the last note was uttered , we stopped till it began again and then on as before. When we were within a few rods of it, we dropped on our hands and knees, and worked up to it stealthily, but only when it sang. At last we were rewarded with a full view of it some twelve feet distant. It rose slowly, inflated itself and uttered its little song. It had planned a retreat in case of a surprise, and directly under the leaf it had a hole running down to the water and when we approached it disappeared. Thus was solved by the sagacity of Thoreau, what had been heretofore a wonder and a mystery. “In Praise of Concord Town,” 24 November 1881 Fair Haven Cliffs, one of the favorite resorts of the Thoreau’s, must be seen to be known and appreciated. The Concord river, with its serpentine figure pushing its...

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