Your letter reached me in due time, but I had already heard the bluebirds. They were here on the 26th of February at least,—but not yet do the larks sing or the flickers call, with us. The Bluebirds come again, as does the same spring, but it does not find the same mortals here to greet it. You remember Minott’s cottage on the hillside,—well, it finds some change there, for instance. The little gray hip-roofed cottage was occupied at the beginning of February, this year, by George Minott and his sister Mary, respectively 78 and 80 years old, and Miss Porter, 74. These had been its permanent occupants for many years. Minott had been on his last legs for some time,—at last off his legs, expecting weekly to take his departure,—a burden to himself and friends,—yet dry and natural as ever. His sister took care of him, and supported herself and family with her needle, as usual. He lately willed his little property to her, as a slight compensation for her care. Feb 13 their sister, 86 or 87, who lived across the way, died. Miss Minott had taken cold in visiting her, and was so sick that she could not go to her funeral. She herself died of a lung fever on the 18th (which was said to be the same disease that her sister had),—having just willed her property back to George, and added her own mite to it. Miss Potter too, had now become ill,—too ill to attend the funeral,—and she died of the same disease on the 23d. All departed as gently as the sun goes down, leaving George alone.

  I called to see him the other day,—the 27th of February, a remarkably pleasant spring day,—and as I was climbing the sunny slope to his strangely deserted house, I hear the first bluebirds upon the elm that hangs over it. They had come as usual, though some who used to hear them were gone. Even Minott had not heard them, though the door was open,—for he was thinking of other things Perhaps there will be a time when the bluebirds themselves will not return anymore.

  I hear that George, a few days after this, called out to his niece, who had come to take care of him, and was in the next room, to know if she did not feel lonely? “Yes, I do,” she said. “So do I,” added he. He said he was like an old oak, all shattered and decaying. “I am sure, Uncle,” said his niece, “that I am like an oak or any other tree, inasmuch as I cannot stir from where I am.”

  Either this topic was too pathetic for Thoreau to finish the letter, or perchance he thought it not likely to interest his friend; for he threw aside this draft for three days, and then, with the same beginning, wrote a very different letter. The Minotts were old familiar acquaintance, and related to that Captain Minott whom Thoreau’s grandmother married as a second husband. George was his “old man of Verona,” who had not left Concord for more than forty years, except to stray over the town bounds in hunting or wood-ranging; and Mary was the “tailoress” who for years made Thoreau’s garments.