26 March 1860 – 1 April 1860

A pleasant day. I think I heard the last lesser redpolls near the begin- ning of this month; say about 7th. The top of a white maple swamp had a reddish tinge at a distance day before yesterday. Was it owing to any expansion of the buds? 2 p. m. — Thermometer 4 [sic]. To Second Division Brook. . Though there is very considerable greenness on the warmest southerly banks, there is no change perceptible in the aspect of the earth’s surface generally, or at a little distance. It is as bare and dead a brown as ever. When the sun comes out of a cold slate-colored cloud, these windy days, the bleached and withered pastures reflect its light so brightly that they are almost white. They are a pale tawny, or say fawn-color, without any redness. The brown season extends from about the 6th of March ordinarily into April. The first part of it, when the frost is rapidly coming out and transient snows are melting, the surface of the earth is saturated with moisture. The latter part is dry, the whitish-tawny pastures being parded with brown and green mosses (that commonest one) and pale-brown lecheas, which motile it very pleasingly. This dry whitish-tawny or drab color of the fields — withered grass lit by the sun — is the color of a teamster’s coat. It is one of the most interesting effects of light now, when the sun, coming out of clouds, shines brightly on it. It is the fore-glow of the year. There is certainly a singular propriety in that color for the coat of a farmer or teamster or shepherd or hunter, who is required to be much abroad in our landscape at this season. It is in harmony with nature, and you are less conspicuous in the fields and can get nearer to wild animals for it. For this reason I am the better satisfied with the color of my hat, a drab, than with that of my companion, which is black, though his coat is of the exact tint and better than mine; but again my dusty boots harmonize better with the landscape than his black and glossy india-rubbers. I had a suit once in which, methinks, I could glide across the fields unperceived half a mile in front of a — farmer’s windows. It was such a skillful mixture of ~ 1860) | THE WALKER’S CLOTHES 931 browns, dark and light properly proportioned, with even some threads of green in it by chance. It was of loose texture and about the color of a pasture with patches of withered sweet-fern and lechea. I trusted a good deal to my invisibility in it when going across lots, and many a time I was aware that to it I owed the near approach of wild animals. No doubt my dusty and tawny cowhides surprise the street walkers who wear patent-leather or Congress © shoes, but they do not consider how absurd such shoes would be in my vocation, to thread the woods and swamps in. Why should I wear Congress who walk alone, and not where there is any congress of my kind? C. was saying, properly enough, the other day, as we were making our way through a dense patch of shrub oak: “I suppose that those villagers think that we wear these old and worn hats with holes all along the corners for oddity, but Coombs, the musquash hunter and par- tridge and rabbit snarer, knows better. He understands us. He knowsthat a new and square-cornered hat would be spoiled in one excursion through the shrub oaks.”

Calm, warmer, and pleasant at once.

A very warm and pleasant day (at 2 Pp. M., 63° and rising). More worm-piles in yard (not seen since morning of 20th, on account of cold, etc.). You will see these earlier on warm banks, as at Clamshell, earlier than in our yard. Do not woodcock, etc., feed on them at night? They come out just before the toads which feed on them. These little piles on the bare earth, like dimples on water, remind you of April. The afternoon so warm — wind southwest — you take off coat. The streets are quite dusty for the first time. The earth is more dry and genial, and you seem to be crossing the threshold between winter and summer. At eve I go listening for snipe, but hear none. The inhabitants come forth from their burrows such an after- noon as this, as the woodchuck and ground squirrels have, as the toads do. I hear of the first fire in the woods this afternoon.' As I walk the street I realize that a new season has arrived. It is time to begin to leave your greatcoat at home, to put on shoes instead of boots and feel light- footed.

Surveying again for Ed. Hoar the wood- land adjoining his farm.

Sunday. Warm, with the thick haze still concealing the sun. Worm-piles abundant this morning. Our gooseberry begins to show a little green, but not our currant. 3 p. mM. — Up Assabet in boat. There is another fire in the woods this afternoon. It is yet more hazy than before, — about as thick as a fog, and apparently clouds behind it. a warmer than yes- terday, — 71 at 3 P. M. The river was lowest for March pete viz. Just three feet below Hoar’s wall. It is so low that the mouths of the musquash-burrows in the banks are exposed with the piles of shells before them. Willows about the stump on S. Brown’s land are very well out. Are they discolor? ‘The red maple buds are considerably expanded, and no doubt make a greater impression of redness. A kingfisher seen and heard. As we paddle up the Assabet we hear the wood turtles — the first I have noticed — and painted turtles rustling down the bank into the water, and see where they have travelled over the sand and the mud. This and the previous two days have brought them out in numbers. Also see the sternotherus on the bottom.