P. M. - Sail to Ball’s (?) Hill.
It is a strong but fitful northwest wind, stronger than before. Under my new sail, the boat dashes off like a horse with the bits in his teeth. Coming into the main stream below the island, a sudden flaw strikes me, and in my efforts to keep the channel I run one side under, and so am compelled to beach my boat there and bail it.
They are haying still in the Great Meadows; indeed, not half the grass is cut, I think.
I am flattered because my stub sail frightens a haymakers’ horse tied under a maple while his masters are loading. His nostrils dilate; he snorts and tries to break loose. He eyes with terror this white wind steed. No wonder he is alarmed at my introducing such a competitor into the river meadows. Yet, large as my sail is, it being low I can scud down for miles through the very meadows in which dozens of haymakers are at work, and they may not detect me.
The zizania is the greater part out of bloom; i. e., the yellowish-anthered (?) stamens are gone; the wind has blown them away. The Bidens Beckii has only begun a few days, it being rather high water. No hibiscus yet.
The white maples in a winding row along the river and the meadow’s edge are rounded hoary-white masses, as if they showed only the under sides of their leaves. Those which have been changed by water are less bright than a week ago. They now from this point (Abner Buttrick’s shore) are a pale lake, mingling very agreeably with the taller hoary-white ones. This little color in the hoary meadow edging is very exhilarating to behold and the most memorable phenomenon of the day. It is as when quarters of peach of this color are boiled with white apple-quarters. Is this anything like murrey color? In some other lights it is more red or scarlet.
Climbing the hill at the bend, I find Gerardia Pedicularia, apparently several days, or how long?
Looking up and down the river this sunny, breezy afternoon, I distinguish men busily haying in gangs of four or five, revealed by their white shirts, some two miles below, toward Carlisle Bridge, and others, still, further up the stream. They are up to their shoulders in the grassy sea, almost lost in it. I can just discern a few white specks in the shiny grass, where the most distant are at work. What an adventure, to get the hay from year to year from these miles on miles of river meadow! You see some carrying out the hay on poles, where it is too soft for cattle, and loaded carts are leaving the meadows for distant barns in the various towns that border on them.
I look down a straight reach of water to the hill by Carlisle Bridge, - and this I can do at any season, - the longest reach we have. It is worth the while to come here for this prospect, - to see a part of earth so far away over the water that it appears islanded between two skies. If that place is real, then the places of my imagination are real.