25 January 1858 – 31 January 1858

Monday. A warm, moist day. Thermo- meter at 6.30 p. M. at 49°. What a rich book might be made about buds, in- cluding, perhaps, sprouts!— the impregnable, viva- cious willow catkins, but half asleep under the armor of their black scales, sleeping along the twigs; the birch and oak sprouts, and the rank and lusty dogwood sprouts; the round red buds of the blueberries; the small pointed red buds, close to the twig, of the pani- cled andromeda; the large yellowish buds of the swamp- pink, etc. How healthy and vivacious must he be who would treat of these things! You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake. You must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand- heap. You must have so good an appetite as this, else you will live in vain. The creditor is servant to his debtor, especially if he is about paying his due. I am amused to see what airs men take upon themselves when they have money to pay me. No matter how long they have deferred it, they imagine that they are my benefactors or patrons, and send me word graciously that if I will come to their houses they will pay me, when it is their business to come to me.

A warm rain from time to time. P. M. — To Clintonia Swamp down the brook. When it rains it is like an April shower. The brook is quite open, and there is no snow on the banks or fields. From time to time I see a trout glance, and sometimes, in an adjoining ditch, quite a school of other fishes, but I see no tortoises. In a ditch I see very light-colored and pretty large lizards moving about, and I suspect I may even have heard a frog drop into the water once or twice. I like to sit still under my umbrella and meditate in the woods in this warm rain. On the side-hill at the swamp, I see how the com- mon horizontal birch fungus is formed. I see them in all stages and of all sizes on a dead Betula alba, both on the upper and under sides, but always facing the ground. At first you perceive the bark merely raised into a nub and perhaps begun to split, and, removing a piece of the bark, you [find] a fibrous whitish germ like a mildew in the bark, as it were of a fungus be- neath, in the bark and decayed wood. Next you will see the fungus pushed out like a hernia, about the size as well as form of a pea. ¢ At first it is of a nearly uniform convex and homogeneous surface, above and below, but very soon, or while yet no larger than a pea, it begins to show a little horizontal flat disk, always on the under side, which you would not suspect with- out examining it, and the upper surface already be- gins to be water. So it goes on, pushing out through the bark further and further, spreading and flatting out more and more, till it has attained its growth, with a more or less elongated neck to its peninsula. The fungus as it grows fills the rent in the bark very closely, and the edges of the bark are recurved, lip-like. They commonly break off at the junction of the true bark with the wood, bringing away some of the woody fibre. Apparently the spongy decayed bark and wood is their soil. This is a lichen day. The white lichens, partly en- circling aspens and maples, look as if a painter had touched their trunks with his brush as he passed. The yellow birch tree is peculiarly interesting. It might be described as a tree whose trunk or bole was covered with golden and silver shavings glued all over it and dangling in curls. The edges of the curls, like a line of breakers, form commonly diagonal lines up and down the tree, corresponding to the twist of the nerve or grain. Nature loves gradation. ‘Trees do not spring abruptly from the earth. Mosses creep up over the insteps of the trees and endeavor to reclaim them. Hence the propriety of lacing over the instep. Is not the moccasin a more picturesque and fitter sort of shoe than ours in which to move amid the herb- age? How protean is life! One may eat and drink and sleep and digest, and do the ordinary duties of a man, and have no excuse for sending for a doctor, and yet he may have reason to doubt if he is as truly alive or his life is as valuable and divine as that of an oyster. He may be the very best citizen in the town, and yet it shall occur to him to prick himself with a pin to see if he is alive. It is wonderful how quiet, harmless, and ineffective a living creature may be. No more energy may it have than a fungus that lifts the bark of a decaying tree. I raised last summer a squash which weighed 1234 pounds. If it had fallen on me it would have made as deep and lasting an impression as most men do. I would just as lief know what it thinks about God as what most men think, or are said to think. In such a squash you have already got the bulk of a man. My man, perchance, when I have put such a question to him, opes his eyes for a moment, essays in vain to think, like a rusty firelock out of order, then calls for a plate of that same squash to eat and goes to sleep, as it is called, — and that is no great distance to go, surely. Melvin would have sworn he heard a bluebird the other day if it had n’t been January. Some say that this particularly warm weather within a few days is the January thaw, but there is nothing to thaw. The sand-banks in the Deep Cut areas dry as in summer. Some men have a peculiar taste for bad words, mouth- ing and licking them into lumpish shapes like the bear her cubs, —words like “tribal ”’ and ‘‘ornamentation,” which drag a dead tail after them. They will pick you out of a thousand the still-born words, the falsettos, the wing-clipped and lame words, as if only the false notes caught their ears. ‘They cry encore to all the dis- cords. The cocks crow in the yard, and the hens cackle and scratch, all this winter. Eggs must be plenty.

Wednesday. P. M.—To Hill and beyond. It is so mild and moist as I saunter along by the wall east of the Hill that I remember, or anticipate, one of those warm rain-storms in the spring, when the earth is just laid bare, the wind is south, and the cladonia lichens are swollen and lusty with moisture, your foot sinking into them and pressing the water out as from a sponge, and the sandy places also are drinking it in. You wander indefinitely in a beaded coat, wet to the skin of your legs, sit on moss-clad rocks and stumps, and hear the lisping of migrating sparrows flitting amid the shrub oaks, sit long at a time, still, and have your thoughts. A rain which is as serene as fair weather, suggesting fairer weather than was ever seen. You could hug the clods that defile you. You feel the fer- tilizing influence of the rain in your mind. The part of you that is wettest is fullest of life, like the lichens. You discover evidences of immortality not known to divines. You cease to die. You detect some buds and sprouts of life. Every step in the old rye-field is on virgin soil. And then the rain comes thicker and faster than before, thawing the remaining frost in the ground, detaining the migrating bird; and you turn your back to it, full of serene, contented thought, soothed by the steady dropping on the withered leaves, more at home for being abroad, more comfortable for being wet, sinking at each step deep into the thawing earth, gladly breaking through the gray rotting ice. The dullest sounds seem sweetly modulated by the air. You leave your tracks in fields of spring rye, scaring the fox-colored sparrows along the wood-sides. You can- not go home yet; you stay and sit in the rain. You glide along the distant wood-side, full of joy and expec- tation, seeing nothing but beauty, hearing nothing but music, as free as the fox-colored sparrow, seeing far ahead, a courageous knight [ ?], a great philosopher, not indebted to any academy or college for this ex- pansion, but chiefly to the April rain, which descendeth on all alike; not encouraged by men in your walks, not by the divines nor the professors, and to the law- giver an outlaw; not encouraged (even) when you are reminded of the government at Washington. Time never passes so quickly and unaccountably as when I am engaged in composition, 7. e. in writing down my thoughts. Clocks seem to have been put forward. The ground being bare this winter, I attend less to buds and twigs. Snow covering the ground secures our attention to twigs, etc., which rise above it. I notice a pretty large rock on the Lee farm, near the site of the old mill over the Assabet, which is quite white and bare, with the roots of a maple, cut down a few years ago, spreading over it, and a thin dark-green crust or mould, a mere patch of soil as big as a dollar, in one or two places on it. It is evident that that rock was covered as much as three inches deep with soil a few years since, for the old roots are two inches thick, and that it has been burnt and washed off since, leaving the surface bare and white. There are a few lichens started at one end. As I came home day before yesterday, over the rail- road causeway, at sunset, the sky was overcast, but beneath the edge of the cloud, far in the west, was a narrow stripe of clear amber sky coextensive with the horizon, which reached no higher than the top of Wachusett. I wished to know how far off the cloud was by comparing it with the mountain. It had some- what the appearance of resting on the mountain, con- cealing a part of its summit. I did not suppose it did, because the clouds over my head were too high for that, but when I turned my head I saw the whole outline of the mountain distinctly. I could not tell how far the edge of the cloud was beyond it, but I think it likely that that amber light came to me through a low narrow skylight, the upper sash of whose frame was forty miles distant. The amount of it is that I saw a cloud more distant than the mountain. Steadily the eternal rain falls, — drip, drip, drip, — the mist drives and clears your sight, the wind blows and warms you, sitting on that sandy upland by the edge of the wood that April day.

Minott has a sharp ear for the note of any migrating bird. Though confined to his dooryard by the rheumatism, he commonly hears them sooner than the widest rambler. Maybe he listens all day for them, or they come and sing over his house, — report themselves to him and receive their season ticket. He is never at fault. If he says he heard such a bird, though sitting by his chimney-side, you may depend on it. He can swear through glass. He ‘has not spoiled his ears by attending lectures and caucuses, etc. The other day the rumor went that a flock of geese had been seen flying north over Concord, midwinter as it was, by. the almanac. I traced it to Minott, and yet I was compelled to doubt. I had it directly that he had heard them within a week. I saw him, —I made haste to him. His reputation was at stake. He said that he stood in his shed, — it was one of the late warm, muggy, April-like mornings, — when he heard one short but distinct honk of a goose. He went into the house, he took his cane, he exerted himself, or that sound im- parted strength to him. Lame as he was, he went up on to the hill, —he had not done it for a year, — that he might hear all around. He saw nothing, but he heard the note again. It came from over the brook. It was a wild goose, he was sure of it. And hence the rumor spread and grew. He thought that the back of the winter was broken, —if it had any this year, — but he feared such a winter would kill him too. I was silent; I reflected; I drew into my mind all its members, like the tortoise; I abandoned myself to unseen guides. Suddenly the truth flashed on me, and I remembered that within a week I had heard of a box at the tavern, which had come by railroad ex- press, containing three wild geese and directed to his neighbor over the brook. The April-like morning had excited one so that he honked; and Minott’s reputa- tion acquired new lustre. He has a propensity to tell stories which you have no ears to hear, which you cut short and return unfin- ished upon him. I notice much cotton-like down attached to the long curled-up seed-vessels of the Epilobium angustifolium, such as I think I have seen used in some birds’ nests. It has been spitting a little snow to-day, and we were uncertain whether it would increase or turn to rain. Coming through the village at 11 p. m., the sky is com- pletely overcast, and the (perhaps thin) clouds are very distinctly pink or reddish, somewhat as if reflecting a distant fire, but this phenomenon is universal all round and overhead. I suspect there is a red aurora borealis behind.

P. M. — To Great Meadows at Copan. It is considerably colder. I go through the northerly part of Beck Stow’s, north of the new road. For a great distance it is an exceedingly dense thicket of blueberry bushes, and the shortest way is to bend down bushes eight feet high and tread on them. The small red and yellow buds, the maze of gray twigs, the green and red sphagnum, the conspicuous yellowish buds of the swamp-pink with the diverging valves of its seed-ves- sels, the dried choke-berries still common, these and the like are the attractions. ’ The cranberry rising red above the ice is seen to be allied to the water andromeda, but is yet redder. In the ditches on Holbrook’s meadow near Copan, I see a Rana palustris swimming, and much conferva greening all the water. Even this green is exhilarating, like a spring in winter. I am affected by the sight even of a mass of conferva in a ditch. I find some radical pota- mogeton leaves six inches long under water, which look as if ~~~ growing. Found some splendid fungi on old aspens used for a fence; quite firm; reddish-white above and bright- vermilion beneath, or perhaps more scarlet, reflecting various shades as it is turned. It is remarkable that the upper side of this fungus, which must, as here, com- monly be low on decaying wood, so that we look down on it, is not bright-colored nor handsome, and it was only when [ had broken it off and turned it over that I was surprised by its brillant color. This intense vermilion (?) face, which would be known to every boy in the town if it were turned upward, faces the earth and is discovered only by the curious naturalist. Its ear is turned down, listening to the honest praises of the earth. It is like a light-red velvet or damask. These silent and motionless fungi, with their ears turned ever downward toward the earth, revealing their bright colors perchance only to the prying natu- ralist who turns them upward, remind me of the “ Hear- all” of the story.

P. M. — To Gowing’s Swamp. I thought it would be a good time to rake in the mud of that central pool, and see what animal or vegetable life might be there, now that it is frozen. I supposed that tortoises and frogs might be buried in the mud. The pool, where there is nothing but water and sphag- num to be seen and where you cannot go in the summer, is about two rods long and one and a half wide, with that large-seeded sedge in a border a rod wide about it. Only a third of this (on one side) appears as water now, the rest a level bed of green sphagnum frozen with the water, though rising three or four inches above the general level here and there. I cut a hole through the ice, about three inches thick, in what alone appeared to be water, and, after raking out some sphagnum, found that I could not fairly reach the mud and tor- toises, —if there are any there,—though my rake was five feet and nine inches long; but with the sphag- num I raked up several kinds of bugs, or insects. I then cut a hole through the frozen sphagnum nearer the middle of the pool, though I supposed it would be a mere mass of sphagnum with comparatively little water, and more mud nearer the surface. To my sur- prise, I found clear water under this crust of sphagnum to about five feet in depth, but still I could not reach the mud with my rake through the more decayed sphag- num beneath. I returned to the thicket and cut a maple about eighteen feet long. This dropped down five or six feet, and then, with a very slight pressure, I put it down the whole length. I then went to the thicket again, searched a long while for a suitable pole, and at last cut another maple thirty feet long and between four and five inches thick at the butt, sharpened and trimmed and carried it on my shoulder to the spot, and, rough as it was, it went down with very little pressure as much as twenty feet, and with a little more pressure twenty-six feet and one inch; and there I left it, for I had measured it first. If the top had not been so small that it bent in my hands, I could probably have forced it much further. I suspect that the depth of mud and water under where I walk in summer on the water andromeda, Andromeda Polvfolia, Kalmia glauca, sphagnum, etc., is about the same. The whole swamp would flow off down an inclined plane. Of course there is room enough for frogs and turtles, safe from frost. I noticed that the sap flowed very freely from one of the maples which I cut. In the meanwhile the hole which I had first cut had skimmed over. I stooped to look at the ice-crystals. The thin skimming, which did not yet cover the whole surface, was minutely marked with feathers, as in the frost on windows in the morning. The crystallization was, as usual, in deep furrows, some a third of an inch wide and finely grained or channelled longitudinally. These commonly intersected each other so as to form triangles of various sizes, and it was remarkable that there was an elevated space between the sides of the triangles, which in some cases was not yet frozen, while you could see and feel the furrow where the crystals had shot on each side much lower. The water crystal- lizes in certain planes only. It seems, then, that sphagnum will grow on the sur- face of water five feet deep! * What means the maple sap flowing in pleasant days in midwinter, when you must wait so late in the spring for it, in warmer weather? It is a very encouraging sign of life now.

I notice in one place that the last six or more inches of the smooth sumach’s lusty twigs are dead and withered, not having been sufficiently matured, not- withstanding the favorable autumn. This is attaining one’s growth through difficulties. Saw one faint tinge of red on red ice pond-hole, six inches over.