Walden

to-night, he to vacate at five to-morrow morning, selling to nobody
else meanwhile: I to take possession at six. It were well, he said, to
be there early, and anticipate certain indistinct but wholly unjust
claims on the score of ground rent and fuel. This he assured me was the
only encumbrance. At six I passed him and his family on the road. One
large bundle held their all,—bed, coffee-mill, looking-glass, hens,—all
but the cat, she took to the woods and became a wild cat, and, as I
learned afterward, trod in a trap set for woodchucks, and so became a
dead cat at last.

I took down this dwelling the same morning, drawing the nails, and
removed it to the pond side by small cartloads, spreading the boards on
the grass there to bleach and warp back again in the sun. One early
thrush gave me a note or two as I drove along the woodland path. I was
informed treacherously by a young Patrick that neighbor Seeley, an
Irishman, in the intervals of the carting, transferred the still
tolerable, straight, and drivable nails, staples, and spikes to his
pocket, and then stood when I came back to pass the time of day, and
look freshly up, unconcerned, with spring thoughts, at the devastation;