6 December 1852 – 12 December 1852

P. M.— Perhaps the warmest day yet. True Indian summer. The walker perspires. The shep- herd’s-purse is in full bloom; the andromeda not turned red. Sawa pile of snow-fleas in arut in the wood-path, six or seven inches long and three quarters of an inch high, to the eye exactly like powder, as if a sportsman had spilled it from his flask; and when a stick was passed through the living and skipping mass, each side of the furrow preserved its edge as in powder.

Another Indian-summer day. Saw some puffballs in the woods, wonderfully full of sulphur-lke dust, which yellowed my shoes, greenish-yellow. The recent water-line at Walden is quite distinct, though like the limit of a shadow, on the alders about eighteen inches above the present level. One cannot burn or bury even his old shoes without a feeling of sadness and compassion; much more [sic] his old body, without a slight sense of guilt.

P. M.— To C. Smith’s Hill. Those little ruby-crowned wrens (?)? still about. They suddenly dash away from this side to that in flocks, with a tumultuous note, half jingle, half rattle, like nuts shaken in a bag, or a bushel of nutshells, soon returning to the tree they had forsaken on some alarm. ‘They are oftenest seen on the white birch, apparently feeding on its seeds, scattering the scales about. A fresh dandelion. The chestnuts are almost as plenty as ever, both in the fallen burs and out of them. There are more this year than the squirrels can consume. I picked three pints this afternoon, and though some bought at a store the other day were more than half mouldy, I did not find one mouldy one among these which I picked from under the wet and mouldy leaves, where they have been snowed on once. Probably they do not heat, though wet. These are also still plump and tender. I love to gather them, if only for the sense of the bounti- fulness of nature they give me.’ A few petals of the witch-hazel still hold on. In the “ Homes of American Authors”’ it is said of most that at one time they wrote for the North Amer- can Review. It is one of my qualifications that I have not written an article for the North American Review. A man tells me he saw a violet to-day. Very nice; as the old lady said when she had got a gravestone for her husband.

Cold at last. Saw a violet on the C. Miles road where the bank had been burned in the fall. Baomyces roseus also. ‘Tansy still fresh yellow by the Corner Bridge. From Cliffs I see snow on the mountains. Last night’s rain was snow there, then. They now have a parti-colored look, like the skin of a pard, as if they were spread with a saddle-cloth for Boreas to ride. I hear of a cultivated rose blossoming in a garden in Cambridge within a day or two. The buds of the aspen are large and show wool in the fall.