Sunday. P. M. - Clears off cold after rain.
Cross Fair Haven Pond at sunset. The western hills, these bordering it, seen through the clear, cold air, have a hard, distinct edge against the sunset sky. The distant hills are impurpled. I have seen but one or two small birds, - chickadees and probably tree sparrows.
Young Weston said that they found, in redeeming a meadow, heaps of chestnuts under the grass, fifteen rods from the trees, without marks of teeth. Probably it was the work of the meadow mice.
7 A. M. - How can we spare to be abroad in the morning red, to see the forms of the leafless eastern trees against the dun sky and hear the cocks crow, when a thin low mist hangs over the ice and frost in meadows? I have come along the riverside in Merrick’s pasture to collect for kindling the fat pine roots and knots which the spearers dropped last spring, and which the floods have washed up. Get a heaping bushel-basketful. The thin, trembling sheets of imperfectly cemented ice or ice-crystals, loosened by the warmth of the day, now go floating down the stream, looking like dark ripples in the twilight and grating against the edges of the firm ice. They completely fill the river where it is bridged with firmer ice below.
Layard, at the lake of Wan, says: “Early next morning I sought the inscriptions which I had been assured were graven on the rocks near an old castle, standing on a bold projecting promontory above the lake. After climbing up a dangerous precipice by the help of two or three poles, in which large nails had been inserted to afford a footing, I reached a small natural cave in the rock. A few crosses and ancient Armenian letters were rudely cut near its entrance. There was nothing else, and I had to return as I best could, disappointed, as many a traveller has been under similar circumstances before me.” They were not old enough; that was all. Wait a thousand years and you will not be disappointed.
Sunday. The coldest day yet, clear with considerable wind, after the first cloudless morning for a week or two. Goose Pond apparently froze over last night, all but a few rods, but not thick enough to bear. I see a lizard [sic] on the bottom under the ice. No doubt I have sometimes mistaken them for tadpoles. (Flint’s Pond only skimmed a little at the shore, like the river.) The ice of Goose Pond already has a dusty look. It shows the crystals distinctly.
Cattle still abroad in the fields, though there is little to be got there. They say that young cattle can stand the cold and starvation best. If I am not mistaken, their coats have less sleekness than in the spring; they have a shaggy, frowzy, and nipped look, their hair standing on end, and the sorrel color seems to predominate. Their pastures look as barren of nutriment as their own backs.
Monday. Saw boys skating in Cambridgeport, - the first ice to bear. Settled with J. Munroe & Co., and on a new account placed twelve of my books with him on sale. I have paid him directly out of pocket since the book was published two hundred and ninety dollars and taken his receipt for it. This does not include postage on proof-sheets, etc., etc. I have received from other quarters about fifteen dollars. This has been the pecuniary value of the book. Saw at the Natural History rooms the skeleton of a moose with horns. The length of the spinal processes (?) over the shoulder was very great. The hind legs were longer than the front, and the horns rose about two feet above the shoulders and spread between four and five, I judged.
I observe on some muskrat-cabins much of that bleached and withered long grass, strewn as if preparatory to raising them, for almost all are covered with water now. It apparently is used as a binder. I find, washed up with the cranberries and also floating over the meadow and about the cabins, many fragments of a root, often with that green, somewhat pellucid, roundish pad attached. This appears to be the muskrats’ principal vegetable food now. It is not flagroot, but either yellow lily, pontederia, white lily, - or can it be heart-leaf root?
Brought home one of those little shells found in the shore wreck, which look like a bugle-horn. I notice that at the bridges there is now a slight rapid, and the water is perceptibly several inches lower on the down-stream side, the piers acting as a dam, the stream being somewhat narrowed there withal by the abutments. What is the peculiarity of the Indian summer? From the 14th to the 21st October inclusive, this year, was perfect Indian summer; and this day the next? Methinks that any particularly pleasant and warmer weather after the middle of October is thus called. Has it not fine, calm spring days answering to it? Autumnal dandelion quite fresh. Tansy very fresh yesterday.
7 A. M. - To Hubbard Bathing-Place.
A fine, calm, frosty morning, a resonant and clear air except a slight white vapor which escaped being frozen or perchance is the steam of the melting frost. Bracing cold, and exhilarating sunlight on russet and frosty fields. I wear mittens now. Apples are frozen on the trees and rattle like stones in my pocket. Aster puniceus left. A little feathery frost on the dead weeds and grasses, especially about water, - spring and brooks (though now slightly frozen), - where was some vapor in the night. I notice also this little frostwork about the mouth of a woodchuck’s hole, where, perhaps, was a warm, moist breath from the interior, perchance from the chuck!
What is Nature unless there is an eventful human life passing within her? Many joys and many sorrows are the lights and shadows in which she shows most beautiful.
