Note 76 — III FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS (continued 2)

When, in 1855 or 1856, Thoreau started to wade across from Duxbury to Clark's Island, and was picked up by a fishing-boat in the deep water, and landed on the "back side" of the island (see letter to Mr. Watson of April 25, 1858), Edward Watson ("Uncle Ed") was "saggin' round" to see that everything was right alongshore, and encountered the unexpected visitor. "How did you come here?" "Oh, from Duxbury," said Thoreau, and they walked to the old Watson house together. "You say in one of your books," said Uncle Ed, "that you once lost a horse and a hound and a dove,—now I should like to know what you meant by that?" "Why, everybody has met with losses, haven't they?" "H'm,—pretty way to answer a fellow!" said Mr. Watson; but it seems this was the usual answer. In the long dining-room of the old house that night he sat by the window and told the story of the Norse voyagers to New England,—perhaps to that very island and the Gurnet near by,—as Morton fancies in his review of Thoreau in the Harvard Magazine (January, 1855).