Thoreau in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

From The Thoreau Family Two Generations Ago (1958)

[210] UT From The Thoreau Family Two Generations Ago (1958) Mabel Loomis Todd Author and editor Mabel Loomis Todd (1856–1932) was the daughter of Thoreau family friends Mary Alden Wilder and Eben Loomis, and the granddaughter of Mary Wales Fobes Jones Wilder, a close friend of Maria Thoreau and Prudence Ward. With her husband, David Peck Todd, Mabel Todd lived most of her adult life in Amherst, Massachusetts, where her husband was a professor of astronomy at Amherst College. With Thomas Wentworth Higginson , Todd later coedited the first volumes of Emily Dickinson’s poems. Her reminiscence of the Thoreau family, including observations about Henry, derives largely from her mother and father’s recollections. Especially insightful are Todd’s comments on Thoreau as a natural historian, likely drawn from Eben Loomis, who had often accompanied Thoreau on outdoor excursions. Loomis regarded Thoreau as “the most remarkable man in that Concord coterie . . . with a mind uniquely original, [who] faced the problems of life with a fixed determination to find a satisfactory solution” (1–2). Here Todd reflects Loomis’s admiration as she recalls Thoreau’s ability to imagine the full range of history and science offered through the study of a single leaf, tree, or berry. my memory goes back a long way, but it does not quite reach that day in Cambridge when my mother invited Henry Thoreau to come to the house to see her wonderful new baby. He came in, boldly enough, and so remained until, with mistaken zeal, the nurse placed me in his arms, doubtless thinking it would be an especial treat to the shy recluse. Far from it—he did not know which end was which! My terrified mother caught sight of two wildly waving little pink feet sticking out at the top, poor little head quite lost in the lower invisible end of the bundle. After one agonized moment the bewildered man, with a groan of relief, relinquished me to the giver. Apparently babies bore no large part in Henry’s scheme of life. [211] Henry Thoreau was an especial friend of my father and mother. They spent the first two or three summers after their marriage in 1853 at his mother’s house in Concord. One afternoon the three were taking a quiet rowing trip on the placid Concord River, a diversion to which they were greatly devoted when, as they were approaching a fine old oak on the river bank, Henry ceased rowing, stood up suddenly in the tiny skiff, looked up into the huge tree with something akin to adoration and said, as one inspired , “Why, there is enough in that tree alone to keep one man happily busy all his life!” His face was alight with fervour as he went on to tell of the rich reward awaiting him who would take the oak-tree for his lifework. “The whole story of creation and all of natural history is in that one tree! Why does anyone want to take long journeys to study anything? It is all here.” My mother was deeply impressed by his shining face turned upward , and often spoke of that rare evening when she had caught an instant glimpse of all futurity. Henry was wont to say that he had travelled a great deal—“in Concord,” he would add with a whimsical expression. Of genuine journeys he had taken few. One along the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, one down the length of Cape Cod, one through Maine,1 and one trip into Canada comprised most of his wanderings. But from those short journeys what a wealth of material afterward used in essays and his delightful journals—whole volumes of careful and accurate observation! All through my childhood when my father wished to impress upon my mind some bit of bird or butterfly or flower lore, he was apt to quote Henry, and incidents from their many rambles were part of my happy training. He and my father were both interested in Indian relics still to be found all over the country. My father once said to him as they walked along a country road, that it was unfortunate these reminders of the past were being gathered up by the general run of persons neither interested in them nor properly instructed. “Oh, well, there are always plenty left,” said Henry, stooping over at the moment to pick up a perfect stone arrow-head. During one of their happy and prolific summers with him, my parents became...