4 May 1857 – 10 May 1857

Rain. The barber tells me that the masons of New York tell him that they would prefer human hair to that of cattle to mix with their plastering. Balm-of-Gilead pollen in house to-day; outdoors, say to-morrow, if fair. | Minott tells me of one Matthias Bowers, a native of Chelmsford and cousin of C. Bowers, a very active fellow, who used to sleep with him and when he found the door locked would climb over the roof and come in at the dormer-window. One Sunday, when they were repairing the old Unitarian church and there was a staging just above the belfry, he climbed up the light- ning-rod and put his arm round the ball at the top of the spire and swung his hat there. He then threw it down and the crown was knocked out. Minott saw him do it, and Deacon White ordered him to come down. M. also told of a crazy fellow who got into the belfry of the Lincoln church with an axe and began to cut the spire down, but was stopped after he had done considerable damage. When M. lived at Baker’s, B. had a dog Lion, fa- mous for chasing squirrels. ‘The gray squirrels were numerous and used to run over the house sometimes. It was an old-fashioned house, slanting to one story behind, with a ladder from the roof to the ground. One day a gray squirrel ran over the house, and Lion, dashing after him up the ladder, went completely over the house and fell off the front side before he could stop, putting out one of his toes. But the squirrel did not put out any of his toes. Wyman told Minott that he used to see black snakes crossing Walden and would wait till they came ashore and then kill them. One day he saw a bull on the north- erly side swim across to get at some cows on the south. It has rained all day, and I see in the footpath across the Common, where water flows or has flown, a great many worms, apparently drowned. Did they not come out in unusual numbers last night because it was so warm, and so get overtaken by the rain? But how ac- count for the worms said to be found in tubs of water? Perhaps the most generally interesting event at pre- sent is a perfectly warm and pleasant day. It affects the greatest number, the well out of doors and the sick in chambers. No wonder the weather is the universal theme of conversation. A warm rain; and the ring of the toads is heard all through it.

Tuesday. Building fence east of house. Hear the full-lull of a myrtle-bird ! (very commonly heard for three or four days after). Have dug up in the garden this season half a dozen of those great leather- colored pupz (with the tongue-case bent round to breast like a long urn-handle) of the sphinx moth. First potato-worm. Staminate Salix rostrata, a yesterday.

Wednesday. A beautiful and warm day. I go to build an arbor for R. W. E. The thrasher has been heard this morning. While at work I hear the bobolink and, methinks, peetweet along the brook (surely see it on the 9th). Sugar maple by Dr. Barrett’s, possibly to-day.

A second fine day. Small pewee and, methinks, golden robin (?).

A third fine day. The sugar maple at Barrett’s is now in full bloom. I finish the arbor to-night. This has been the third of these remarkably warm and beautiful [days]. I have worked all the while in my shirt-sleeves. Summer has suddenly come upon us, and the birds all together. Some boys have bathed in the river. Walk to first stone bridge at sunset. Salix alba, possibly the 6th. It is a glorious evening. I scent the expanding willow leaves (for there are very few blos- soms yet) fifteen rods off. Already hear the cheerful, sprightly note of the yellowbird amid them. It is per- fectly warm and still, and the green grass reminds me of June. The air is full of the fragrance of willow leaves. The high water stretches smooth around. I hear the sound of Barrett’s sawmill with singular distinctness. The ring of toads, the note of the yellowbird, the rich warble of the red-wing, the thrasher on the hillside, the robin’s evening song, the woodpecker tapping some dead tree across the water; and I see countless little fuzzy gnats in the air, and dust over the road, between me and the departed sun. Perhaps the evenings of the 6th and 7th were as pleasant. But such an evening makes a crisis in the year. I must make haste home and go out on the water. I paddle to the Wheeler meadow east of hill after sundown. From amid the alders, etc., I hear the mew of the catbird and the yorrick of Wilson’s thrush. One bullfrog’s faint er-er-roonk from a distance. (Perhaps the Amphibia, better than any creatures, celebrate the changes of temperature.) One dump note. It grows dark around. The full moon rises, and I paddle by its light. It is an evening for the soft-snoring, purring frogs (which I suspect to be Rana palustris). I get within a few feet of them as they sit along the edge of the river and meadow, but cannot see them. Their croak is very fine or rapid, and has a soft, purring sound at a little distance. I see them paddling in the water like toads. Within a week I have had made a pair of corduroy pants, which cost when done $1.60. They are of that peculiar clay-color, reflecting the light from portions of their surface. They have this advantage, that, beside being very strong, they will look about as well three months hence as now, — or as ill, some would say. Most of my friends are disturbed by my wearing them. I can get four or five pairs for what one ordinary pair would cost in Boston, and each of the former will last two or three times as long under the same circum- stances. The tailor said that the stuff was not made in this country; that it was worn by the Irish at home, and now they would not look at it, but others would not | wear it, durable and cheap as it is, because it is worn by the Irish. Moreover, I like the color on other ac- counts. Anything but black clothes. I was pleased the other day to see a son of Concord return after an ab- sence of eight years, not in a shining suit of black, with polished boots and a beaver or silk hat, as if on a fur- lough from human duties generally, — a mere clothes- horse, — but clad in an honest clay-colored suit and a snug every-day cap. It showed unusual manhood. Most returning sons come home dressed for the occasion. The birds and beasts are not afraid of me now. A mink came within twenty feet of me the other day as soon as my companion had left me, and if I had had my gray sack on as well as my corduroys, it would perhaps have come quite up to me. Even farmers’ boys, returning to their native town, though not unfamiliar with homely and dirty clothes, make their appearance on this new stage in a go-to-meeting suit.

Another fine day. 6 a. M. — On water. Maryland yellow-throat. Aspen leaves one inch over. Hear stake-driver. Black and white creeper’s fine note. Er-te-ter-twee, or evergreen-forest note. Golden-crowned thrush note. Kingbird. P. M. To Gilson’s Mill, Littleton. George Brooks points to an old house of which one half the roof only has been shingled, etc., etc., and says he guessed it to be a widow’s dower from this, and on inquiry found it so. Went to Gilson’s tumble-down mill and house. He appeared, licking his chaps after dinner, in a mealy coat, and suddenly asked in the midst of a sentence, with a shrug of his shoulders, “Is n’t there something painted on my back?” ‘There were some marks in red chalk they used to chalk the bags with, and he said he thought he had felt his son at the mill chalking his back. He feared he was making an exhibition before strangers. The boy speared fishes, chiefly suckers, pouts, etc. A fire in a hand-crate carried along the bank of the brook (Stony Brook). He had lately speared a sucker weigh- ing five and a quarter pounds, which he sold; went back and forth some twenty-five rods and found the suckers less shy at last than at first. Saw otter there. I saw many perch at the foot of the falls. He said that they and trout could get up five or six feet over the rocks there into the pond, it being a much broken fall.

Cultivated cherry out. P. M. — Up river. Salix Babylonica behind Dodd’s, how long? Say with S. alba. I observe that the fertile flowers of many plants are more late than the barren ones, as the sweet- gale (whose fertile are now in prime), the sweet-fern, etc. See twenty or thirty tortoises on one stump by stone bridge and more still within a rod along the bank of E. Wood’s ditch. Now the Emys picta lie out in great numbers, this suddenly warm weather, and when you go along the road within a few rods they tumble in. The banks of some ditches look almost as if paved with them. I went looking for snapping turtles over the meadow south of railroad. Now [I see one large head like a brown stake projecting three or four inches above the water four rods off, but it is slowly withdrawn, and I paddle up and catch the fellow lying still in the dead grass there. Soon after I paddle within ten feet of one whose eyes like knobs appear on the side of the stake, and touch him with my paddle. This side Clamshell, strawberries and cinquefoil are abundant. Equisetum sylvaticum. There is a strong wind, against which I push and paddle. But now at last I do not go seeking the warm, sunny, and sheltered coves; the strong wind 1s enliven- ing and agreeable. It is a washing day. I love the wind at last. Before night a sudden shower with some thunder and lightning; the first.