7 November 1853 – 13 November 1853

6.15 a. M. — To Cliffs. A clear, cold, as well as frosty, morning. I have towalk with my hands in my pockets. Hear a faint chip, proba- bly from a tree sparrow, which I do not see in the garden. I find the cistus or frostweed, abundantly surrounded with crystals by the Spring Path. How long? And also by the wall this side the orchard on Fair Haven the ground is spotted with it,—like little pouches [ ?] or fingers full of purest white cotton, tucked about the bases of their stems. ‘These crystals are low in the withered grass, close to the ground, and fast attached to the stems, as if they grew so. They extend about an inch upward, and are from one half to one inch wide. I saw them on no other plants, and not on all the cistuses. Those which had them had their bark invariably split up a short distance at the base and thrown off, as if forced up by the frost, and the crystals were close beneath this, adhering both to stem and bark. The others were sound in this respect. It appeared as if they were a vapor which had curled up from the root and clung about the stem in the night, frozen as it ascended, — shell-like, dimpled crystals, the frozen shells of vaporous whirlpools in the air. The stems were dead, with their seed-vessels and seeds still atop, though per- haps there was a little moisture or sap in them close to the ground; and directly beneath in the earth was a little reddish-green shoot, already started, ready to %FsrgiVWg« burst up in the spring. Oftenest it appeared as if two curls of vapor from different sides of the stem had united and frozen together at their extremities, forming little white, sugar-like horns, open upward and down- ward, or the crystals had the appearance of the bark of (UY the willow-herb, cracked about the base ) of the stem. A section looking thus: These were very beautiful on close in- spection, like the finest im- aginable white silk or glass, floss-like, of the finest staple, or like asbestos of a very fine and loose grain. It is not a particularly frosty morning. Whence does this vapor come from? ‘The cistus has thus not only its second flowering, but its third frost flowering. Will it form again about the same stem, the bark being rent? It is a sort of incense offering in behalf of the young shoot ready to spring. The notes of one or two small birds, this cold morn- ing, In the now comparatively leafless woods, sound like a nail dropped on an anvil, or a glass pendant tinkling against its neighbor. The sun now rises far southward. I see westward the earliest sunlight on the reddish oak leaves and the pines. The former appear to get more than their share. How soon the sun gets above the hills, as if he would accomplish his whole diurnal journey in a few hours at this rate! But it is a long way round, and these are nothing to the hill of heaven. Whether we are idle or industrious, the sun is constantly travelling through the sky, consuming arc after arc of this great circle at this same rapid pace. Nightshade berries still in water or over it. Great straggling flocks of crows still flying westerly. P. M. — To Conantum by boat, nutting. October 31st, when the river was at its height after the rains of the 24th and 28th, our first fall flood, the wreck of the river and meadow with an unusual quan- tity of cranberries was washed up, and is now left high and dry, forming the first water-mark of the season, an endless meandering light-brown line, further from or nearer to the river. It is now very fresh, and it is comparatively easy to distinguish the materials which compose it. But I love to see it even in midsummer, the old water-line of the last year, far away from the edge of the shrunken stream, in some meadow, per- chance in the woods, reminding me of the floods and the windy days of the fall and spring, of ducks and geese and gulls, of the raw and gusty days which I have spent on the then wilderness of water, of the origin of things, as it were, when water was a prevail- ing element. ‘The flood comes and takes all the sum- mer’s waste, all that lies loose, from the riverside and meadows and floats it, not to ocean, but as far toward the upland as the water reaches; there it plants again and again the seeds of fluviatile shrubs and trees and flowers. A new line of wreckage is formed every year. I looked this afternoon to see what it was com- posed of. Where I looked the most prominent part was different lengths of a large three-sided cellular reed (?), perchance the Sparganium ramosum (?),' for the most part faded, but some still a little juicy, pieces of rushes and eel-grass, and cranberry leaves which the rake has torn off with cranberries, I believe some flags, wool-grass and various sedges, pads, potamogeton, water ranunculus, and various other weeds of the riverside and meadows, the radical leaves (?) of heart- leaf very delicate and transparent (but this is more conspicuous, at least, still floating in water along the edge); and there was a quantity of what looked lke the stems of buttonwood leaves, which I now sus- pect were polygonum stems. ‘There was not much, if any, pontederia where I looked, for that, though long dead, still holds to the bottom. More of this in other places, however; also small flat shells?! © I perceive, when I look, that some of the most en- during of the river weeds are the Polygonum hydropi- peroides (one still in bloom), which stand withered still above the flood, and also wool-grass, and the Scirpus lacustris and Juncus militaris, both curved downward: But in other places, less open, there is an abundance of sere meadow-grasses standing. ‘The seeds of the sweet flag are now coming off by degrees, like coarse chaff. Under the warm south side of Bittern Cliff, where I moor my boat, I hear one cricket singing loudly and undauntedly still, in the warm rock-side. I shook two mocker-nut trees; one just ready to drop its nuts, and most came out of the shells. But the other tree was not ready; only a part fell, and those mostly of thzs, still greenish, in the water where I keep my boat, six feet high ! It lasts longer than flags, which it resembles. in the shells. This is the time for our best walnuts; the smallest, say the last of October. Got a peck and a half shelled. I did not wish to slight any of Nature’s gifts. I am partial to the peculiar and wholesome sweetness of a nut, and I think that some time is profit- ably spent every autumn in gathering even such as our pignuts. Some of them are a very sizable, rich- looking, and palatable fruit. How can we expect to understand Nature unless we accept like children these her smallest gifts, valuing them more as her gifts than for their intrinsic value? I love to get my basket full, however small and comparatively worthless the nut. It takes very severe frosts, and sun and wind there- after, to kill and open the shells so that the nuts will drop out. Many hold on all winter. I climbed to the tops of the trees, and then found that shaking would not do, only jarring the limbs with my feet. It is re- markable how these nuts are protected, some with an outer shell about a quarter of an inch thick, and an inner nearly as thick as the other, and when cracked open the meat is still hard to extract. I noticed, how- ever, that the nuts on one tree, the second, notwith- standing these thick shells, were now full of fine cracks, as if, now that they were ripe, they had made them- selves ready to be cracked by man or squirrels or the frost. They really crack much easier. It is a hard, tough tree, whose fruit is stones, fit to have been the food of man in the iron age. I should like to see a man whose diet was berries and nuts alone. Yet I would not rob the squirrels, who, before any man, are the true owners. I am pretty sure I heard a striped squirrel in the wall near me, as if he blowed a short blast on a dry leaf. They will not be in a hurry to go into winter quarters until they have laid up some of these nuts. The shallow pools in woods were skimmed over this morning, and there was a little ice along the river- side, which can still be detected at sundown. Three bluebirds still braving the cold winds, — Acton Blues, not gone into winter quarters. Their blue uniform makes me think of soldiers who have received orders to keep the field and not go into winter quarters. A muskrat-house on the top of a rock, too thin round the sides for a passage beneath, yet a small cavity at top, which makes me think that they use them merely as a sheltered perch above water. They seize thus many cores to build on, as a hummock left by the ice. (Red clover.) The wads of which this muskrat- house was composed were about six inches by four, rounded and massed at one end, flaking off at the other, and were composed chiefly of a little green (for the most part withered dark-brown) moss-like weed, and had the strong odor of the fresh-water sponge and conferva.

Mayweed and shepherd’s-purse. 10 a. ms—Our first snow, the wind southerly, the air chilly and moist; a very fine snow, looking like a mist toward the woods or horizon, which at 2 o’clock has not whitened the ground. The children greet it with a shout when they come out at recess. P. M. — To riverside as far down as near Peter’s, to look at the water-line before the snow covers it. By Merrick’s pasture it is mainly a fine, still more or less green, thread-like weed or grass of the river bottom (?), sedges, utricularias (that coarse one espe- cially, whose name I am not sure of, with tassels (?)),' yellow water ranunculus, potamogeton’s translucent leaves, a few flags and pontederia stems. By Peter’s there was much of that coarse triangular cellular stem mentioned yesterday as sparganium (?). I would not have thought it so common. There is not so much meadow grass or hay as I expected, for that has been raked and carried off. ‘The pads, too, have wasted away and the pontederias’ leaves, and the stems of the last for the most part still adhere to the bottom. Three larks rise from the sere grass on Minott’s Hill before me, the white of their outer tail-feathers very conspicuous, reminding me of arctic snowbirds by their size and form also. The snow begins to whiten the plowed ground now, but it has not overcome the russet of the grass ground. Birds generally wear the russet dress of nature at this season. They have their fall no less than the plants; the bright tints depart from their foliage or feathers, and they flit past like withered leaves in rustling flocks. The sparrow is a withered leaf.? ; The Stellaria media still blooms in Cheney’s garden, and the shepherd’s[-purse] looks even fresher. This must be near the end of the flower season. Perchance I heard the last cricket of the season yesterday. They chirp here and there at longer and longer intervals, till the snow quenches their song. And the last striped squirrel, too, perchance, yesterday. ‘They, then, do not go into winter quarters till the ground is covered with snow. The partridges go off with a whir, and then sail a long way level and low through the woods with that impetus they have got, displaying their neat forms perfectly. The yellow larch leaves still hold on, — later than those of any of our pines. I noticed the other day a great tangled and netted mass of an old white pine root lying upon the surface, nearly a rod across and two feet or more high, too large even to be turned up for a fence. It suggested that the roots of trees would be an interesting study. There are the small thickly interwoven roots of the swamp white oaks on the Assabet. At evening the snow turned to rain, and the sugar- ing soon disappeared.

High wind and rain in the night. Still more strong and gusty but remarkably warm south- west wind during the day. P. M. — To Fair Haven Hill by boat with W. E. C. We rowed against a very powerful wind, sometimes scarcely making any headway. It was with difficulty often that we moved our paddles through the air for a new stroke. As C. said, it seemed to blow out of a hole. We had to turn our oars edgewise to it. But we worked our way slowly upward, nevertheless, for we came to feel and hear it blow and see the waves run. ‘There was quite a sea running on the lee shore, — broad black waves with white crests, which made our boat toss very pleasantly. They wet the piers of the railroad bridge for eighteen inches up. I should guess that the whole height from the valley between to the top of a wave was nearer fifteen inches. The muskrats have added a new story to their houses since the last flood which covered them; I mean that of October 31st and thereabouts. They are uncom- monly high, methinks, full four feet by five or more in diameter, a heaping ox-cart load. There are at least eight such within half a mile from Clamshell Hill to Hubbard’s Wood. It is remarkable how little effect the waves have on them, while a heap of manure or a haycock would be washed away or undermined at once. I opened one. It was composed of coarse grass, pontederia stems, etc., etc., not altogether in mouthfuls. This was three feet and a half above water, others quite four. After taking off a foot I came to the chamber. It was a regularly formed oval or elliptical chamber, about eighteen inches the longest way and seven or eight inches deep, shaped like a pebble, ~\. with smooth walls of the weeds, and bottomed or bedded with a very little drier grass, a mere coat- ing of it. It would hold four or five, closely packed. The entrance, eight or nine inches wide, led directly from this to the water at an angle of 45°, and in the water there I saw some green and white stub ends of pontederia (?) stems, I think, looking like flagroot. That thick wall, a foot quite or more above and eighteen inches or two feet around, being of these damp mate- rials, soon freezes and makes a tight and warm house. The walls are of such [thickness at] the bottom that the water in the gallery probably never freezes. If the height of these houses is any sign of high or low water, this winter it will be uncommonly high. Soon after, we saw a mink swimming in the agitated water close to the shore, east side, above Nut Meadow Brook. It showed the whole top of the back and part of the tail, unlike the muskrat, and did not dive. Stopped a moment when we headed toward it, and held up its head at the end of its long neck toward us, reminding me of pictures of the otter, then turned and swam and ran the other way; dark-brown. We see no birds, unless one crow; the wind is too strong for them. I must know what that tall, coarse grass is which stands withered so abundantly amid the button-bushes al] along the shore. It escapes the mower by its position. The water milkweed stands withered amid the button- bushes, the pods still erect, though open and empty. Landed and walked over Conant’s Indian rye-field, and I picked up two good arrowheads. ‘The river with its waves has a very wild look southward, and I see the white caps of the waves in Fair Haven Bay. Went into the woods by Holden Swamp and sat down to hear the wind roar amid the tree-tops. What an incessant straining of the trees! It is a music that wears better than the opera, methinks. This reminds me how the telegraph-wire hummed coarsely in the tempest as we passed under it. Hitherto it had only rained a little from time to time, but now it began suddenly in earnest. We hastily rowed across to the firm ground of Fair Haven Hill- side, drew up our boat and turned it over in a twinkling on to a clump of alders covered with cat-briars which kept up the lee side, and crawled under it. There we lay half an hour on the damp ground and cat-briars, hardly able to see out to the storm which we heard on our roof, through the thick alder stems, much pleased with the tightness of our roof, which we frequently remarked upon. We took immense satisfaction in the thoroughness of the protection against the rain which it afforded. Remembered that such was the origin of the Numidian architecture and, as some think, of the nave (ship) in Gothic architecture, and if we had had a dry bed beneath us, and an ugly gap under the wind- ward side of the boat through [which] the wind drew had been stopped, we should have lain there longer. At length, as it threatened to be an all-night storm, we crawled out again and set sail homeward. It now began to rain harder than ever, and the wind was so strong and gusty, and blew so nearly at nght angles with the river, that we found it impossible to keep the stream long at a time with our sail set, sitting on one side till the water came in plentifully, that the side might act as a keel, but were repeatedly driven ashore amid the button-bushes, and then had to work our way to the other side slowly and start again. What ,with water in the boat and in our clothes, we were now indifferent to wet. At length it began to rain so much harder than before, the great drops seeming to flat down the waves and suppress the wind, and feeling like hail on our hands and faces, that, as we remembered, it had only sprinkled before. By this time of course we were wet quite through and through, and C. began to inquire and jest about the condition of our money —a singular prudence methought — and buried his wallet in his pocket-handkerchief and returned it to his pocket again. He thought that bank-bills would be spoiled. It had never occurred to me if a man got completely wet through how it might affect the bank- bills in his wallet, it is so rare a thing for me to have any there. At length we both took to rowing vigor- ously to keep ourselves warm, and so got home just after candlelight.

7 a. mM. — 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. Iwear mittens now. Apples are frozen on the trees and rattle like stones in my pocket. Aster pu- niceus left. A little feathery frost on the dead weeds and grasses, especially about water, — springs 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! a 9 a. M.— To Fair Haven Pond by boat. The morning is so calm and pleasant, winter-like, that I must spend the forenoon abroad. The river is smooth as polished silver. A little ice has formed along the shore in shallow bays five or six rods wide. It is for the most part of crystals imperfectly united, shaped like birds’ tracks, and breaks with a pleasant crisp sound when it feels the undulations produced by my boat. I hear a linaria-like mew from some birds that fly over. Some muskrat-houses have received a slight &ddition in the night. The one I opened day before yesterday has been covered again, though not yet raised so high as before. The hips of the late rose still show abundantly along the shore, and in one place nightshade berries. I hear a faint cricket (or locust ?) still, even after the slight snow. I hear the cawing of crows toward the distant wood through the clear, echoing, resonant air, and the lowing of cattle. It is rare that the water is smooth in the forenoon. It is now as smooth as in a summer evening or a Septem- ber or October afternoon. There is frost on all the weeds that rise above the water or ice. The Poly- gonum EHydropiper is the most conspicuous, abundant, and enduring of those in the water. I see the spire of one white with frost-crystals, a perfect imitation at a little distance of its loose and narrow spike of white flowers, that have withered. I have noticed no turtles since October 31st, and no frogs for a still longer time. At the bathing[-place] I looked for clams, in summer almost as thick as paving-stones there, and . found none. They have probably removed into deeper water and into the mud (?). When did they move? The jays are seen and heard more of late, their plumage apparently not dimmed at all. I counted nineteen muskrat-cabins between Hub- bard Bathing-Place and Hubbard’s further wood, this side the Hollowell place, from two to four feet high. They thus help materially to raise and form the river-bank. I opened one by the Hubbard Bridge. The floor of chamber was two feet or more beneath the top and one foot above the water. It was quite warm from the recent presence of the inhabitants. I heard the peculiar plunge of one close by. The instant one has put his eyes noiselessly above water he plunges like a flash, showing tail, and with a very loud sound, the first notice you have of his proximity, — that he has been there, — as loud as if he had struck a solid substance. This had a sort of double bed, the whole about two feet long by one foot wide and seven or eight inches high, floored thinly with dry meadow- grass. There were in the water green butts and roots of the pontederia, which I think they eat. I find the roots gnawed off. Do they eat flagroot? A good deal of a small green hypnum-like river-weed forms the mouthfuls in their masonry. It makes a good sponge to mop the boat with. The wind has risen and sky overcast. I stop at Lee’s Cliff, and there is a Veronica serpyllifolia out. Sail back. Scared up two small ducks, perhaps teal. I had not seen any of late. They have probably almost all gone south.

I cannot but regard it as a kindness in those who have the steering of me that, by the want of pecuniary wealth, I have been nailed down to this my native region so long and steadily, and made to study and love this spot of earth more and more. What would signify in comparison a thin and diffused love and knowledge of the whole earth instead, got by wandering? ‘The traveller’s is but a barren and com- fortless condition. Wealth will not buy a man a home in nature, — house nor farm there. The man of busi- ness does not by his business earn a residence in nature, but is denaturalized rather. What is a farm, house and land, office or shop, but a settlement in nature under the most favorable conditions? It is insignifi- cant, and a merely negative good fortune, to be pro- vided with thick garments against cold and wet, an unprofitable, weak, and defensive condition, compared with being able to extract some exhilaration, some warmth even, out of cold and wet themselves, and to clothe them with our sympathy. The rich man buys woollens and furs, and sits naked and shivering still in spirit, besieged by cold and wet. But the poor Lord of Creation, cold and wet he makes to warm him, and be his garments. Tansy is very fresh still in some places. Tasted to-day a black walnut, a spherical and corrugated nut with a large meat, but of a strong oily taste. 8 p. M. — Up river to Hubbard Bathing-Place. Moon nearly full. A mild, almost summer evening after a very warm day, alternately clear and overcast. The meadows, with perhaps a little mist on them, look as if covered with frost in the moonlight. At first it is quite calm, and I see only where a slight wave or piece of wet driftwood along the shore reflects a flash of light, suggesting that we have come to a sea- son of clearer air. This occasional slight sparkling on either hand along the water’s edge attends me. I come out now on the water to see our little river broad and stately as the Merrimack or still larger tides, for though the shore be but a rod off, the meeting of land and water being concealed, it is as good as if a quarter of a mile distant, and the near bank is like a distant hill. There is now and of late months no smell of muskrats, which is probably confined to the spring or rutting season. While the sense of seeing is partly slumbering, that of hearing is more wide awake than by day, and, now that the wind is rising, I hear distinctly the chopping of every little wave under the bow of my boat. Hear no bird, only the loud plunge of a muskrat from time to time. The moon is wad- ing slowly through broad squadrons of clouds, with a small coppery halo, and now she comes forth trium- phant and burnishes the water far and wide, and makes the reflections more distinct. Trees stand bare against the sky again. This the first month in which they do. I hear one cricket singing still, faintly deep in the bank,’ now after one whitening of snow. His theme is life immortal. The last cricket, full of cheer and faith, piping to himself, as the last man might. The dark squadrons of hostile clouds have now swept over the face of the moon, and she ap- pears unharmed and riding triumphant in her chariot. Suddenly they dwindle and melt away in her mild and all-pervading light, dissipated like the mists of the morning. They pass away and are forgotten like bad dreams. Landed at the bathing-place. There is no sound of a frog from all these waters and meadows which a few months ago resounded so with them; not even a cricket or the sound of a mosquito. I can fancy that I hear the sound of peeping hylodes ringing in my ear, but it is all fancy. How short their year! How early they sleep! Nature is desert and iron-bound ; she has shut her door. How different from the muggy nights of summer, teeming with hfe! That resounding life is now buried in the mud, returned into Nature’s womb, and most of the birds have retreated to the warm belt of the earth. Yet still from time to time a pickerel darts away. And still the heavens are un- changed; the same starry geometry looks down on their active and their torpid state. And the first frog that puts his eye forth from the mud next spring shall see the same everlasting starry eyes ready to play at bo-peep with him, for they do not go into the mud. However, you shall find the muskrats lively enough now at night, though by day their cabins appear like deserted cabins. When I paddle near one, I hear the sudden plunge of one of its inhabitants, and some- times see two or three at once swimming about it. Now is their day. It is remarkable that these peculiarly aboriginal and wild animals, whose nests are perhaps the largest of any creatures’ hereabouts, should still so abound in the very midst of civilization and erect their large and conspicuous cabins at the foot of our gardens. However, I notice that unless there is a strip of meadow and water on the garden side they erect their houses on the wild side of the stream. The hylodes, as it is the first frog heard in the spring, so it is the last in the autumn. I heard it last, me- thinks, about a month ago. I do not remember any hum of insects for a long time, though I heard a cricket to-day.

Rain all day.