Thoreau writes in his journal:
Melvin says he has heard snipe some days, but thinks them scarce . . . As I go by the site of Staple’s new barn on the Kettle place, I see that they have just dug a well on the hillside and are bricking it up . . . Humphrey Buttrick, the sportsman, was at the bottom, bricking up the well; a Clark who had been mining lately in California, and who had dug the well, was passing down brick and mortar to him; and Melvin, with a bundle of apple scions in his hand, was sitting close by and looking over into the well from time to time . . .