Thoreau writes in his journal:
To-day I see Parker is out with horse and cart, collecting dead wood at the Rock and drawing it home over the meadow. I saw the English servant-girl with on of the children flat on the ice hard at work on the river cutting a hole with a hatchet, but as the ice was thick and the water gushed up too soon for her, I saw that she would fail and directed her to an open place. She was nearly beat out . . .
