Thoreau writes in his journal:
[Alek] Therien said this morning (July 16th, Wednesday), “If those beans were mine, I should n’t like to hoe them till the dew was off.” He was going to his wood chopping. “Ah!” said I, “that is one of the notions the farmers have got, but I don’t believe it.” “How thick the pigeons are!” said he. “If working every day were not my trade, I could get all the meat I should want by hunting,—pigeons, woodchucks, rabbits, partridges,—by George! I could get all I should want for a week in one day.” . . . Here is [a mouse] has had her nest under my house, and came when I took my luncheon to pick the crumbs at my feet. It had never seen the race of man before, and so the sooner became familiar. It ran over my shoes and up my pantaloons inside, clinging to my flesh with its sharp claws. It would run up the side of the room by short impulses like a squirrel, which [it] resembles, coming between the house mouse and the former. Its belly is a little reddish, and its ears a little longer. At length, as I leaned my elbow on the bench, it ran over my arm and round the paper which contained my dinner. And when I held it a piece of cheese, it came and nibbled between my fingers, and then cleaned its face and paws like a fly.
