25 February 1861 – 3 March 1861

2 p.m. — It is very pleasant and warm, and the ground half bare. As Iam walking down the Boston road under the hill this side Clark’s, it occurs to me that I have just heard the twitter of a bluebird. (C. heard one the 26th.) Istop and listen to hear it again, but cannot tell whether it comes from the buttonwoods high over my head or from the lower trees on the hill- top. It is not the complete bluebird warble, but the twitter only. And now it seems to come from Pratt’s house, where the window is open, and I am not sure but it is a caged bird. I walk that way, and now think that I distinguish the minstrel in a black speck in the top of a great elm on the Common. Messer is shingling Clark’s barn; so, to make sure, I cross over and ask him if he has heard a bluebird to-day, and he says he has several times. When [I get to the elm near Minott’s I hear one warble distinctly. Miss Minott and Miss Potter have both died within a fortnight past, and the cottage on the hillside seems strangely deserted; but the first bluebird comes to warble there as usual. Mother hears a robin to-day. Buttonwood sap flows fast from wounds made last fall.

P. M. — Down Boston road under the hill. Air full of bluebirds as yesterday. The sidewalk is bare and almost dry the whole distance under the hill. Turn in at the gate this side of Moore’s and sit on the yellow stones rolled down in the bay of a digging, and examine the radical leaves, etc., etc. Where the edges of grassy banks have caved I see the fine fibrous roots of the grass which have been washed bare during the winter extending straight downward two feet (and how much further within the earth I know not), —a pretty dense grayish mass. The buttonwood seed has apparently scarcely begun to fall yet," only two balls under one tree, but they loose and broken.’

Sunday. Hear that there was a flock of ! Yes, many had been blown bare, for the balls do not fall often. ? Almost entirely fallen March 7th, leaving the dangling stems and bare receptacles.