19 November 1855 – 25 November 1855

<A cold, gray day, once spitting snow. Water froze in tubs enough to bear last night. Minott had two cats on his knee. One given away without his knowledge a fortnight before had just found its way back. He says he would not kill a cat for twenty dollars, — no, not for fifty. Finally he told his women folks that he would not do it for five hundred, or any sum. He thought they loved life as well as we. Johnny Vose would n’t do it. He used to carry down milk to a shop every day for a litter of kittens. Speaking of geese, be says that Dr. Hurd told a tough story once. He said that when he went out to the well there came a flock of geese flying so low that they had to nse to clear the well-sweep. M. says that there used to be a great many more geese formerly; he used to hear a great many flocks in a day go “ yelling” over. Brant, too, he used to see. Told me of his fishing for pickerel once in the brook, when a mink leaped into the water toward his bait (a frog), but, seeing the end of his pole, he dived and made off. Some years ago he saw a mink steal out of the brook, which, being disturbed, dropped a pout half grown which it had caught. This was in his rye, then five or six inches high. Presently it returned and carried the pout to the wall by the elm at R. W. E.’s bound. He followed, looked under a rock, and saw two young minks. He has taken the jackets off many a one, but they smell so rank it is unpleasant work. Rice says that that brook which crosses the road just beyond his brother Israel’s is called Cold Brook. It comes partly from Dunge Hole. When the river is rising it will flow up the brook a great way. Rice told his turtle story the other night: “One day I was going through Boston market and I saw a huddle of men around something or other. I edged my way between them and saw that they had got a great mud turtle on a plank, and a butcher stood over him with a cleaver in his hand. ‘Eh,’ said I, “what are you trying to do?’ ‘We are waiting for him to put out his head so that we may cut it off. Look out,’ they said; “don’t come so near, or he'll bite you.’ “Look here,’ said I, ‘let metry. I guess I can make him put his head out.’ ‘Let him try. Let him try,’ they said, with a laugh. So I stepped into the ring and stood astride of the turtle, while they looked on to see the sport. After looking at him a moment, I put down my hands and turned him over on to his back, where- upon he immediately ran out his head and pushed against the plank to turn himself back, but, as they were not ready to cut at once, or his neck was not in a good position, I seized his head in both hands and, putting my feet against his breast-bone, drew his head out the full length of his neck and said, ‘Now cut away. Only take care you don’t cut my fingers.’ They cut, and I threw the head down on the floor. As I walked away, some one said, ‘I guess that fellow has seen mud turtles before to-day.’ ”

Again I hear that sharp, crackling, snap- ping sound and, hastening to the window, find that another of the pitch pine cones gathered November 7th, lying in the sun, or which the sun has reached, has separated its scales very slightly at the apex. It is only discoverable on a close inspection, but while I look the whole cone opens its scales with a smart crackling and rocks and seems to bristle up, scatter- ing the dry pitch on the surface. ‘They all thus fairly loosen and open, though they do not at once spread wide open. It is almost like the disintegration of glass. As soon as the tension is relaxed in one part, it is re- laxed in every part. A cold day. The snow that fell November 17th in the evening is still seen on the ground.

Geese went over on the 13th and 14th, on the 17th the first snow fell, and the 19th it began to be cold and blustering. That first slight snow has not yet gone off! and very little has been added. The last three or four days have been quite cold, the side- walks a glare of ice and very little melting. To-day has been exceedingly blustering and disagreeable, as I found while surveying for Moore. The farmers now bring the apples they have engaged (and the cider); it is time to put them in the cellar, and the turnips. Ice has frozen pretty thick in the bottom of my boat.