22 December 1856 – 28 December 1856

'To Boston and Cambridge.

Some savage tribes must share the experi- ence of the lower animals in their relation to man. With what thoughts must the Esquimau manufacture his knife from the rusty hoop of a cask drifted to his shores, not a natural but an artificial product, the work of man’s hands, the waste of the commerce of a superior race, whom perchance he never saw! The cracking of the ground is a phenomenon of the coldest nights. After being awaked by the loud cracks the night of the 18th at Amherst (a man told me in the morning that he had seen a crack running across the plain (I saw it), almost broad enough to put his hand into; this was an exaggeration; it was not a quarter of an inch wide), I saw a great many the same forenoon running across the road in Nashua, every few rods, and also by our house in Concord the same day when I got home. So it seems the ground was cracking all the country over, partly, no doubt, because there was so little snow, or none (none at Concord). If the writer would interest readers, he must report so much life, using a certain satisfaction always as a point d’apput. However mean and limited, it must be a genuine and contented life that he speaks out of. They must have the essence or oil of himself, tried out of the fat of his experience and joy.’ P. M. — Surveying for Cyrus Jarvis. Snows more or less all day, making an inch or two.

More snow in the night and to-day, making nine or ten inches. P. M. — To Walden and Baker Farm with Ricket- son, it still snowing a little. Turned off from railroad and went through Wheeler, distant little spherical dark-brown whorls of pungently fragrant or spicy seeds, somewhat nutmeg-like, or even like flagroot (?), when bruised. I am not sure that the seeds of any other mint are thus fragrant now. It scents your handkerchief or pocketbook finely when the crumbled whorls are sprinkled over them. ‘It was very pleasant walking thus before the storm was over, in the soft, subdued light. We are also more domesticated in nature when our vision is confined to near and familiar objects. Did not see a track of any animal till] returning near the Well Meadow Field, where many foxes (?), one of whom I had a glimpse of, had been coursing back and forth in the path and near it for three quarters of a mile. They had made quite a path.

P. M. — To Lee’s Cliff. A strong wind from the northwest is gathering the snow into picturesque drifts behind the walls. As usual they resemble shells more than anything, sometimes prows of vessels, also the folds of a white napkin or counterpane dropped over a bonneted head. There are no such picturesque snow-drifts as are formed be- hind loose and open stone walls. Already yesterday it had drifted so much, 7. e. so much ground was bare, that there were as many carts as sleighs in the streets. Just beyond Hubbard’s Bridge, on Conant’s Brook Meadow, I am surprised to find a tract of ice, some thirty by seven or eight rods, blown quite bare. It shows how unstable the snow is. Sanborn got some white spruce and some usnea for Christmas in the swamp. I thought the last would be © the most interesting and weird. On the north sides of the walls we go over boots and get them full, then let ourselves down into the shell- work on the south side; so beyond the brows of hills. At Lee’s Cliff I pushed aside the snow with my foot and got some fresh green catnip for Min. I see the numerous tracks there, too, of foxes, or else hares, that have been running about in the light snow. Called at the Conantum House. It grieves me to see these interesting relics, this and the house at the Baker Farm, going to complete ruin. Met William Wheeler’s shaggy gray terrier, or Indian dog, going home. He got out of the road into the field and went round to avoid us.

Saturday. Walden is still open in one place of considerable extent, just off the east cape of long ~ southern bay.

Sunday. Am surprised to see the F’. hyemalis here. Walden completely frozen over again last night. Goodwin & Co. are fishing there to-day. Ice about four inches thick, occasionally sunk by the snow be- neath the water. They have had but poor luck. One middling-sized pickerel and one large yellow perch only, since 9 or 10 A. M. It is now nearly sundown. The perch is very full of spawn. How handsome, with its broad dark transverse bars, sharp narrow triangles, broadest on the back! The menare standing or sitting about a smoky fire of damp dead wood, near by the spot where many a fisher- man has sat before, and I draw near, hoping to hear a fish story. One says that Louis Menan, the French Canadian who lives in Lincoln, fed his ducks on the fresh-water clams which he got at Fair Haven Pond. He saw him open the shells, and the ducks snapped them up out of the shells very fast. I observe that some shrub oak leaves have but little silveriness beneath, as if they were a variety, the color of the under approaching that of the upper surface somewhat. Since the snow of the 23d, the days seem considerably lengthened, owing to the increased light after sundown. The fishermen sit by their damp fire of rotten pine wood, so wet and chilly that even smoke in their eyes is a kind of comfort. There they sit, ever and anon scanning their reels to see if any have fallen, and, if not catching many fish, still getting what they went for, though they may not be aware of it, 2. e. a wilder experience than the town affords. There lies a pickerel or perch on the ice, waving a fin or lifting its gills from time to time, gasping its life away. I thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it. As the Esqui- maux of Smith’s Strait in North Greenland laughed when Kane warned them of their utter extermination, cut off as they were by ice on all sides from their race, unless they attempted in season to cross the glacier southward, so do I laugh when you tell me of the dan- ger of impoverishing myself by isolation. It is here that the walrus and the seal, and the white bear, and the eider ducks and auks on which I batten, most abound.