Thoreau writes in his journal:
Minott had two cats on his knee. One given away without his knowledge a fortnight before had just found its way back. He says he would not kill a cat for twenty dollars,—no, not for fifty. Finally he told his women folks that he would not do it for five hundred, or any sum. He thought they loved life as well as we. Johnny Vose would n’t do it. He used to carry down milk to a shop every day for a litter of kittens . . .
Rice says that that brook which crosses the road just beyond his brother Israel’s is called Cold Brook. It comes partly from Dunge Hole. When the river is rising it will flow up the brook a great way . . .