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 white 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. It was a pleasant hillside
where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on
the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories
were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though
there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated
with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days
that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the
railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming
in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I
heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence
another year with us.