"IN childhood I had a friend, -- not a house friend, domestic, stuffy in association; nor yet herdsman, or horseman, or farmer, or slave of bench, or shop, or office; nor of letters, nor art, nor society; but a free, friendly, youthful-seeming man, who wandered in from unknown woods or fields without knocking, --
'Between the night and day
When the fairy king has power,' --
as the ballad says, passed by the elders' doors, but straightway sought out the children, brightened up the wood-fire forthwith; and it seemed as if it were the effect of a wholesome brave north wind, more than of the armful of "cat-sticks" which he would bring in from the yard."

From Preface to Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend by Edward Emerson.


http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/youngfriend.html