The skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter part of October,when the severe frosts have come;and then and in November,usually,in a calm day,there is absolutely nothing to ripple the surface.One November afternoon,in the calm at the end of a rain-storm of several days'duration,when the sky was still completely overcast and the air was full of mist,I observed that the pond was remarkably smooth,so that it was difficult to distinguish its surface;though it no longer reflected the bright tints of October,but the sombre November colors of the surrounding hills.Though I passed over it as gently as possible,the slight undulations produced by my boat extended almost as far as I could see,and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections.But,as I was looking over the surface,I saw here and there at a distance a faint glimmer,as if some skater insects which had escaped the frosts might be collected there,or,perchance,the surface,being so smooth,betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom.Paddling gently to one of these places,I was surprised to find myself surrounded by myriads of small perch,about five inches long,of a rich bronze color in the green water,sporting there,and constantly rising to the surface and dimpling it,sometimes leaving bubbles on it.In such transparent and seemingly bottomless water,reflecting the clouds,I seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon,and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering,as if they were a compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level on the right or left,their fins,like sails,set all around them.There were many such schools in the pond,apparently improving the short season before winter would draw an icy shutter over their broad skylight,sometimes giving to the surface an appearance as if a slight breeze struck it,or a few rain-drops fell there.When I approached carelessly and alarmed them,they made a sudden plash and rippling with their tails,as if one had struck the water with a brushy bough,and instantly took refuge in the depths.At length the wind rose,the mist increased,and the waves began to run,and the perch leaped much higher than before,half out of water,a hundred black points,three inches long,at once above the surface.Even as late as the fifth of December,one year,I saw some dimples on the surface,and thinking it was going to rain hard immediately,the air being full of mist,I made haste to take my place at the oars and row homeward;already the rain seemed rapidly increasing,though I felt none on my cheek,and I anticipated a thorough soaking.But suddenly the dimples ceased,for they were produced by the perch,which the noise of my oars had seared into the depths,and I saw their schools dimly disappearing;so I spent a dry afternoon after all.
An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years ago,when it was dark with surrounding forests,tells me that in those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other water-fowl,and that there were many eagles about it.He came here a-fishing,and used an old log canoe which he found on the shore.It was made of two white pine logs dug out and pinned together,and was cut off square at the ends.It was very clumsy,but lasted a great many years before it became water-logged and perhaps sank to the bottom.He did not know whose it was;it belonged to the pond.He used to make a cable for his anchor of strips of hickory bark tied together.An old man,a potter,who lived by the pond before the Revolution,told him once that there was an iron chest at the bottom,and that he had seen it.Sometimes it would come floating up to the shore;but when you went toward it,it would go back into deep water and disappear.I was pleased to hear of the old log canoe,which took the place of an Indian one of the same material but more graceful construction,which perchance had first been a tree on the bank,and then,as it were,fell into the water,to float there for a generation,the most proper vessel for the lake.I remember that when I first looked into these depths there were many large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom,which had either been blown over formerly,or left on the ice at the last cutting,when wood was cheaper;but now they have mostly disappeared.
When I first paddled a boat on Walden,it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods,and in some of its coves grape-vines had run over the trees next the water and formed bowers under which a boat could pass.The hills which form its shores are so steep,and the woods on them were then so high that,as you looked down from the west end,it had the appearance of an amphitheatre for some kind of sylvan spectacle.I have spent many an hour,when I was younger,floating over its surface as the zephyr willed,having paddled my boat to the middle,and lying on my back across the seats,in a summer forenoon,dreaming awake,until I was aroused by the boat touching the sand,and I arose to see what shore my fates had impelled me to;days when idleness was the most attractive and productive industry.Many a forenoon have I stolen away,preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day;for I was rich,if not in money,in sunny hours and summer days,and spent them lavishly;nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk.But since I left those shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste,and now for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood,with occasional vistas through which you see the water.My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth.How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?
