8 December 1856 – 14 December 1856

Thermometer at 8 A. M. 8° above zero. Prob- ably the coldest day yet. Bradford, in his “ History of the Plymouth Plantation,” remembering the condition of the Pilgrims on their arrival in Cape Cod Bay the 11th of November, 1620, O. S. (page 79): “ Which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face; and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.” Such was a New England November in 1620 to Bradford’s eyes, and such, no doubt, it would be to his eyes in the country still. However, it required no little courage to found a colony here at that season of the year. The earliest mention of anything like a glaze in New England that I remember is in Bradford’s “History of the Plymouth Plantation,”’ page 83, where he describes the second expedition with the shallop from Cape Cod Harbor in search of a settlement, the 6th of December, O.S. “The weather was very cold, and it froze so hard as the spray of the sea lighting on their coats, they were as if they had been glazed.” Bradford was one of the ten principal ones. That same night they reached the bottom of the Bay and saw the Indians cutting up a blackfish. Nature has not changed one iota.

P. M.— Railroad to Lincoln Bridge and back by road. There is scarcely a particle of ice in Walden yet, and that close to the edge, apparently, on the west and northwest sides. Yet Fair Haven was so solidly frozen on the 6th that there was fishing on it, and yesterday I met Goodwin bringing a fine lot of pickerel from Flint’s, which was frozen at least four inches thick. This is, no doubt, owing solely to the greater depth of Walden. As I stand on the railroad against Heywood’s meadow, the sun now getting low in the west, the leaves of the young oaks in Emerson’s sprout-land on the side of the hill make a very agreeable thick, rug-like stuff for the eye to rest on. The white oak leaves are a very pale brown, but the scarlet oaks are quite red now in the sun. Near at hand they are conspicuously ruddy in any light, the scarlet oaks. (Those black oaks which I examine near at hand afterward are a pure, somewhat yellowish brown.) This slight difference of shading makes a very pleasing variety on this densely covered hillside, like a rich embroidered stuff. One species does not stand by itself, but they are dispersed and intimately mingled. ‘These oak leaves have more distinct characters now at this distance than in summer. It is as if a rich rug, with stuff six or eight feet deep, had been dropped over this hill, opening the stuff on the brow, dyed of various shades of enduring brown, the wholesome and strong color which Nature loves; and here and there the now dark green of a pine is seen. When the wind rises, the leaves rustle their content. The sunlight reveals no redness in the white oak leaves. The bright colors of autumn are transient; these browns are permanent. These are not so much withered leaves, for they have a wintry life in them still, and the tanned or bronzed color of assured health. They are a sort of epidermis or bark, not at once thrown off, serving, perhaps, to protect the trees as well as the quadrupeds and birds. Coming through the Walden woods, I see already great heaps of oak leaves collected in certain places on the snow-crust by the roadside, where an eddy deposited them. It suggests that a certain law las attended their movements, which appeared so lawless, even as with the iron filings under the influence of music. The greater part that have fallen are deposited in clear and crispy heaps in particular places. They are beds which invite the traveller to repose on them, even in this wintry weather.

A fine, clear, cold winter morning, with a small leaf frost on trees, etc. The thermometer at 7.15 and at 7.30 3°. Going to the post-office at the — former hour, I notice those level bars, as it were, of frozen mist against the Walden wood. When I return, the sun is rising and the smokes from the chimneys, which slant from northwest to southeast, though it seems quite still, blush lke sunset clouds. It is remarkable how suggestive the shghtest drawing as a memento of things seen. For a few years past I have been accustomed to make a rude sketch in my | journal of plants, ice, and various natural phenomena. and though the fullest accompanying description may fail to recall my experience, these rude outline drawings do not fail to carry me back to that time and scene. It is as if I saw the same thing again, and I may again attempt to describe it in words if I choose. Yesterday I walked under the murderous Lincoln Bridge, where at least ten men have been swept dead from the cars within as many years. I looked to see if their heads had indented the bridge, if there were sturdy blows given as well as received, and if their brains lay about. But I could see neither the one nor the other. The bridge is quite uninjured, even, and straight, not even the paint worn off or discolored. The ground is clean, the snow spotless, and the place looks as innocent as a bank whereon the wild thyme grows. It does its work in an artistic manner. We have another bridge of exactly the same character on the other side of the town, which has killed one, at least, to my knowledge. Surely the approaches to our town are well guarded. These are our modern Dragons of Wantley. Boucaniers of the Fitchburg Railroad, they lie in wait at the narrow passes and decimate the em- | | | i : | ployees. The Company has signed a bond to give up one employee at this pass annually. The Vermont mother commits her son to their charge, and when she asks for him, again the Directors say: “I am not your son’s keeper. Go look beneath the ribs of the Lincoln Bridge.” It is a monster which would not have minded Perseus with his Medusa’s head. If he could be held back only four feet from where he now crouches, all 7 travellers might pass in safety and laugh him to scorn. This would require but a little resolution in our legis- lature, but it is preferred to pay tribute still. I felt a curiosity to see this famous bridge, naturally far greater than my curiosity to see the gallows on which Smith was hung, which was burned in the old court- house, for the exploits of this bridge are ten times as memorable. Here they are killed without priest, and the bridge, unlike the gallows, is a fixture. Besides, the gallows bears an ill name, and I think deservedly. No doubt it has hung many an innocent man, but this Lincoln Bridge, long as it has been in our midst and busy as it has been, no legislature, nobody, indeed, has ever seriously complained of, unless it was some be- reaved mother, who was naturally prejudiced against it. To my surprise, I found no difficulty in getting a sight of it. It stands right out in broad daylight in the midst of the fields. No sentinels, no spiked fence, no crowd about it, and you have to pay no fee for looking at it. It is perfectly simple and easy to construct, and does its work silently. The days of the gallows are numbered. The next time this county has a Smith to dispose of, they have only to hire him out to the Fitchburg Railroad Company. Let the priest accom- pany him to the freight-train, pray with him, and take leave of him there. Another advantage I have hinted at, an advantage to the morals of the community, that, strange as it may seem, no crowd ever assembles at this spot; there are no morbidly curious persons, no hardened reprobates, no masculine women, no anatomists there. Does it not make life more serious? I feel as if these were stirring times, as good as the days of the Crusaders, the Northmen, or the Boucaniers. Gathered this afternoon quite a parcel of walnuts on the hill. It has not been better picking this season there. They lie on the snow, or rather sunk an inch or two into it. And some trees hang quite full.’ See the squirrel-tracks leading straight from tree to tree. It has been a warm, clear, glorious wintet day, the air full of that peculiar vapor. How short the afternoons! I hardly get out a couple of miles before the sun is setting. The nights are light on account of the snow, and, there being a moon, there is no distinct interval between the day and night. I see the sun set from the side of Naw- shawtuct, and make haste to the post-office with the red sky over my shoulder. When the mail is distrib- uted and I come forth into the street on my return, the apparently full moon has fairly commenced her reign, and I go home by her light. Bradford, in his “History of the Plymouth Planta- tion,’ written between 1630 and 1650, uses, on page 235, the word “kilter,”’ speaking of guns being out of kilter, proving that this is an old word; yet it is not in my dictionaries.

Wonderful, wonderful is our life and that of our companions! That there should be such a thing as a brute animal, not human! and that it should attain to a sort of society with our race! Think of cats, for instance. They are neither Chinese nor Tartars. They do not go to school, nor read the Testament; yet how near they come to doing so! how much they are like us who do so! What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and des- tiny of cats? At length, without having solved any of these problems, we fatten and kill and eat some of our cousins! As soon as the snow came, I naturally began to observe that portion of the plants that was left above the snow, not only the weeds but the withered leaves, which before had been confounded with the russet earth. Yesterday afternoon, after a misty forenoon, it began to rain by degrees, and in the course of the night more than half the snow has disappeared, revealing the ground here and there; and already the brown weeds and leaves attract me less. This morning it is fair again. P. M.—To Saw Mill Brook and back by Red Choke-berry Path and Walden. — Large oaks in thick woods have not so many leaves on them as in pastures, methinks (?). At the wall between Saw Mill Brook Falls and Red Choke-berry Path, I see where a great many chestnut burs have been recently chewed up fine by the squirrels, to come at the nuts.” The wall for half a dozen rods and the snow are covered with them. You can see where they have dug the burs out of the snow, and then sat on a rock or the wall and gnawed them in pieces. I, too, dig many burs out of the snow with my foot, and though many of these nuts are softened and discolored they have a peculiarly sweet and agreeable taste. Yesterday morning [ noticed that several people were having their pigs killed, not foreseeing the thaw. Such warm weather as this the animal heat will hardly get out before night. I saw Peter, the dexterous pig-butcher, busy in two or three places, and in the afternoon I saw him with washed hands and knives in sheath and his leather overalls drawn off, going to his solitary house on the edge of the Great Fields, carrying in the rain a piece of the pork he had slaughtered, with a string put through it. Often he carries home the head, which is less prized, taking his pay thus in kind, and these supplies do not come amiss to his outcast family. I saw Lynch’s dog stealthily feeding at a half of his master’s pig, which lay dressed on a wheelbarrow at the door. A little yellow-brown dog, with fore feet braced on the ice and outstretched neck, he eagerly browsed along the edge of the meat, half a foot to right and left, with incessant short and rapid snatches, which brought it away as readily as if it had been pudding. He evidently knew very well that he was stealing, but made the most of his time. The little brown dog weighed a pound or two more afterward than before. Where is the great natural-historian ? Is he a butcher, or the patron of butchers? As well look for a great anthropologist among cannibals, New-Zealanders.

P. M.— To Hill and round by J. Hosmer woodland and Lee house. I see some of those great andromeda puffs still hanging on the twigs behind Assabet Spring, black and shrivelled bags. The river is generally open again. The snow is mostly gone. In many places it is washed away down - to the channels made by the mice, branching galleries. I go through the lot where Wheeler’s Irishmen cut last winter. ‘Though they changed hands, they did not cut twice in a place, and the stump, instead of having a smooth surface, is roughly hacked. There is a fine healthy and handsome scarlet oak between Muhlenbergii Brook and the Assabet River watering-place, in-the open land. It is about thirty- five feet high and spreads twenty-five, perfectly regular. It is very full of leaves, excepting a crescent of bare twigs at the summit about three feet wide in the middle. The leaves have a little redness in them. There is a dense growth of young birches from the seed in the sprout-land lot just beyond on the riverside, now apparently two or three years old, and they have a peculiar pink tint seen in the mass.