Thoreau's Journal: 26-Jan-1856

Walked as far as the Flint’s Bridge with Abel Hunt, where I took to the river. I told him I had come to walk on the river as the best place, for the snow had drifted somewhat in the road, while it was converted into ice almost entirely on the river. “But,” asked he, “are you not afraid that you will get in?” “Oh, no, it will bear a load of wood from one end to the other.” “But then there may be some weak places.” Yet he is some seventy years old and was born and bred immediately on its banks. Truly one half the world does not know how the other half lives.