"Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it." His house, when finished, was ten feet wide and fifteen long. The exact cost was twenty-eight dollars, twelve and one-half cents. In _Walden_ he gives an itemized account of the cost. And then he adds, with a twinkle of his eye, I think,--"I intend to build me a house which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than my present one." Thoreau also finds some satisfaction that his house cost him less than the year's rent of a college room at Harvard; for there the mere rent of a student's room, "which is only a little larger than my own, is thirty dollars each year, though the corporation had the advantage of building thirty-two side by side and under one roof." In this book he gives a very interesting account of what his food cost him during the eight months from July 4 to March 1. Here is his list: Rice $1.73-½ Molasses 1.73 Rye meal 1.04-¾ Indian meal .99-¾ Pork .22 Flour .88 Sugar .80 Lard .65 Apples .25 Dried apple .22 Sweet potatoes .10 One pumpkin .06 One watermelon .02 Salt .03 "Yes," says he, "I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print." In this connection one may call to mind a reported saying of Mrs. Emerson's to the effect that Henry never got very far away from the sound of the dinner horn. It is not hard to imagine that the hospitable Emerson often invited the kindred-spirited Thoreau into his house for a warm and abundant dinner. Another writer recently has advanced also this thought: Thoreau was not so much of a selfish hermit as it might appear. He went into the woods to make his house or hut a station on the underground railroad. If this be true, a new and different light is thrown upon Thoreau's conduct. Thoreau was a great lover of nature and the things of nature loved him. Dr. Channing gives us this glimpse of the man: