Wednesday. Fair again.
To Great Sudbury Meadow by boat.
The river higher than before and rising. C. and I sail rapidly before a strong northerly wind, - no need of rowing upward, only of steering, - cutting off great bends by crossing the meadows. We have to roll our boat over the road at the stone bridge, Hubbard’s causeway, (to save the wind), and at Pole Brook (to save distance). It is worth the while to hear the surging of the waves and their gurgling under the stern, and to feel the great billows toss us, with their foaming yellowish crests. The world is not aware what an extensive navigation is now possible on our overflowed fresh meadows. It is more interesting and fuller of life than the sea bays and permanent ponds. A dozen gulls are circling over Fair Haven Pond, some very white beneath, with very long, narrow-pointed, black-tipped wings, almost regular semicircles like the new moon. As they circle beneath a white scud in this bright air, they are almost invisible against it, they are so nearly the same color. What glorious fliers! But few birds are seen; only a crow or two teetering along the water’s edge looking for its food, with its large, clumsy head, and on unusually long legs, as if stretched, or its pants pulled up to keep it from the wet, and now flapping off with some large morsel in its bill; or robins in the same place; or perhaps the sweet song of the tree sparrows from the alders by the shore, or of a song sparrow or blackbird. The phœbe is scarcely heard. Not a duck do we see! All the shores have the aspect of winter, covered several inches deep with snow, and we see the shadows on the snow as in winter; but it is strange to see the green grass burning up through in warmer nooks under the walls.