28 September 1857 – 4 October 1857

I planted six seeds sent from the Patent Office and labelled, I think, ‘‘ Poitrine jaune grosse”’ (large yellow pumpkin (or squash?)). Two came up, and one bore a squash which weighs 1234 Ibs. the other bore four, 1 weighing 723 a o4 oh 373 4th 213 3092 Who would have believed that there was 310 pounds of poitrine jaune grosse in that corner of our garden? Yet that little seed found it. Other seeds would find something else every year for successive ages, until the crop more than filled our whole garden; which suggests that the various fruits are the product of the same elements differently combined, and those ele- ments are in continual revolution around the globe. This pottrine found here the air of France, and mea- surably its soil too.’ Looking down from Nawshawtuct this afternoon, the white maples on the Assabet and below have a singular light glaucous look, almost hoary, as if curled and showing the under sides of the leaves, and they contrast with the fresh green pines and hemlocks. The swamp white oaks present some of the same crisped whitish appearance. I see that E. Wood has sent a couple of Irishmen, with axe and bush-whack, to cut off the natural hedges of sumach, Roxbury waxwork, grapes, etc., which have sprung up by the walls on this hill farm, in order that his cows may get a little more green. And they have cut down two or three of the very rare celtis trees, not found anywhere else in town. The Lord de- liver us from these vandalic proprietors! The botan- ist and lover of nature has, perchance, discovered some rare tree which has sprung up by a farmer’s wall-side to adorn and bless it, sole representative of its kind in these parts. Strangers send for a seed or a sprig from a distance, but, walking there again, he finds that the farmer has sent a raw Irishman, a hire- ling just arrived on these shores, who was never there before, — and, we trust, will never be let loose there again, — who knows not whether he is hacking at the upas tree or the Tree of Knowledge, with axe and stub-scythe to exterminate it, and he will know it no more forever. What is trespassing? This Hessian, the day after he was landed, was whirled twenty miles into the interior to do this deed of vandalism on our favorite hedge. I would as soon admit a living mud turtle into my herbarium. If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care. Had one of those sudden cool gusts, which filled the air with dust from the road, shook the houses, and caused the elms to labor and drop many leaves, early in afternoon. No such gust since spring.

All sorts of men come to Cattle-Show. I see one with a blue hat. I hear that some have gathered fringed gentian. Pines have begun to be parti-colored with yellow leaves.

Ground white with frost this morning. P. M. — To Walden. Young oaks generally reddening, etc., etc. Rhus Tox- wcodendron turned yellow and red, handsomely dotted with brown. At Wheeler’s Wood by railroad, heard a cat owl hoot- ing at 3.30 p. M., which was repeatedly answered by another some forty rods off. Talked with Minott, who was sitting, as usual, in his wood-shed. His hen and chickens, finding it cold these nights on the trees behind the house, had begun last night to roost in the shed, and one by one walked or hopped up a ladder within a foot of his shoulder to the loft.above. He sits there so much like a fixture that they do not regard him. It has got to be so cool, then, that tender chickens seek a shelter at night; but I saw the hens at Clark’s (the R. Brown house) were still going to roost in the apple trees. M. asks the ped- dlers if they’ve got anything that’ll cure the rheuma- tism, and often buys a wash of them. I was telling him how some crows two or three weeks ago came flying with a scolding caw toward me as | stood on “Cornel Rock,” and alighted within fifty feet on a dead tree above my head, unusually bold. Then away go all but one, perchance, to a tall pine in the swamp, twenty rods off; anon he follows. Again they go quite out of sight amid the tree-tops, leaving one behind. This one, at last, quite at his leisure, flaps away cawing, knowing well where to find his mates, though you might think he must winter alone. Minott said that as he was going over to Lincoln one day thirty or forty years ago, taking his way through Ebby Hubbard’s woods, he heard a great flock of crows cawing over his head, and one alighted just within gunshot. He raised his little gun marked London, which he knew would fetch down anything that was within gunshot, and down came the crow; but he was not killed, only so filled with shot that he could not fly. As he was going by John Wyman’s at the pond, with the live crow in his hand, Wyman asked him what he was going to do with that crow, to which he answered, “ Nothing in particular,” —he hap- pened to alight within gunshot, and so he shot him. Wyman said that he’d like to have him. “What do you want to do with him?” asked M. “If you'll give him to me, I'll tell you,” said the other. To which Minott said, “ You may have him and welcome.” Wy- man then proceeded to inform him that the crows had eaten a great space in Josh Jones the blacksmith’s corn-field, which Minott had passed just below the almshouse, and that Jones had told him that if he could kill a crow in his corn-field he would give him half a bushel of rye. He could guess what he wanted the crow for. So Wyman took the crow and the next time he went into town he tossed him over the wall into the corn-field and then shot him, and, carrying the dead crow to Jones, he got his half-bushel of rye. [Here, and at several following points, matter rela- tive to the recent Maine excursion is omitted as having been already used in “'The Maine Woods.”’] The mist and mizzling rain there’ was like the spar- kling dust of amethysts. The Watsons tell me that Uncle Ned uses the ex- pression “a glade” for the sheen of the moon on the water, which is, I see, according to Bailey, being from kAddos, a branch. Helps thinks “a glade” such a. path through a forest as an army would cut with a sword. . . . What poor crack-brains we are! easily upset and unable to take care of ourselves! If there were a preci- pice at our doors, some would be found jumping off to-day for fear that, if they survived, they might jump off to-morrow. . . . Consider what actual A eile await us. To say nothing of life, which may be rare and difficult to detect, and death, which is startling enough, we cannot begin to conceive of anything so surprising and thrilling but that something more surprising may be actually pre- sented to us.1... According to the Upanishads, “ As water, when rained down on elevated ground, runs scattered off in the val- leys, so ever runs after difference a person who beholds attributes different (from the soul).” “As pure water, which is thrown down on pure ground, remains alike, so also, O Gautama, is the soul of the thinker who knows.” Minott says he is seventy-five years old. Minott said he had seen a couple of pigeons go over at last, as he sat in his shed. At first he thought they were doves, but he soon saw that they were pigeons, they flew so straight and fast.

P. M.— To second stone bridge and down Assabet home. The ash trees are a dull red, and some quite mulberry- color. Methinks it has to do with the smart frost of yesterday morning; 7. ¢., that after the maples have fairly begun, the young red oaks, ash trees, etc., begin with the first smart frost. The pines now half turned yellow, the needles of this year are so much the greener by contrast. The arbor-vite changes with them so completely that it looks as if the lower parts were dead. All very much exposed button-bushes are brown and sere; so their yellowish season does not amount to much away from the river.’ . . . It seemed to me that it was no compliment to their god to suppose that he would not let them go to Ktaadn without so much ado.? They’d better have put their shoulders to the wheel and stumped it along at a good round pace... . I boiled some rice at the carry, for our dinner, in cooking which I consider myself adept, having had a good deal of experience in it. P. said that he some- times used it, but boiled it till it all fell apart, and, finding this mess unexpectedly soft though quickly prepared, he asked if it had not been cooked before. Washing the dishes, especially the greasy ones, is the most irksome duty of the camp, and it reminded me of that sacred band in Fourier’s scheme, who took upon themselves the most disagreeable services. The consequence is that they do not often get washed.

P. M.— To Hubbard’s Close and Swamp. Veronica scutellaria still. Sittmmg on a rock east of Trillium Woods, I perceive that, generally speaking, it is only the edge or pediment of the woods that shows the bright autumnal tints yet (while the superstructure is green), the birches, very young oaks and hickories, huckleberry bushes, blackberries, etc., etc., that stand around the edges, though here and there some taller maple flames upward amid the masses of green, or some other riper and mellower tree. The chief incidents in Minott’s life must be more distinct and interesting to him now than immediately after they occurred, for he has recalled and related them so often that they are stereotyped in his mind. Never having travelled far from his hillside, he does not suspect himself, but tells his stories with fidelity and gusto to the minutest details, — as much as Hero- dotus his histories. The leaves of some trees merely wither, turn brown, and drop off at this season, without any conspicuous flush of beauty, while others now first attain to the climax of their beauty. There is a more or less general reddening of the leaves at this season, down to the cinquefoil and mouse-ear, sorrel and strawberry under our feet. White oaks are still quite green, with a few distinct red leaves inter- mixed. A great many red maples are merely yellow; more, scarlet, in some cases deepening to crimson. Looking at the pines of Trillium Woods, I see that the pitch pines have generally a rounded head, com- posed of countless distinct small rounded masses of foliage, the tops of their plumes, while the white pines are more smooth, or only flaky. Since the cooler weather many crickets are seen clustered on warm banks and by sunny wall-sides. It is evident from their droppings that the wood- chucks (?)* eat many of them these evenings. I go through Stow’s Wood and up Laurel Glen east- ward. The chickadees of late have winter ways, flock- ing after you. This changing of the leaves — their brighter tints — must have to do with cold, for it begins in the low meadows and in frosty hollows in the woods. There is where you must look as yet for the bright tints. I see the sprouts at the base of an old red oak for four or five feet upward, investing its trunk, all clear bright red, while all above is green. The shrub oak leaves around are more yellow or scarlet than the red. At the bottom of this hollow, the young walnut leaves have just been killed by the frosts while still green, and generally the hazel leaves also, but not the oaks, cherries, etc., etc. Many little maples in those coldest places have already dropped all their leaves. Gener- ally in low ground many maple and birch and locust leaves have fallen. Grape leaves were killed and crisped by the last frost. The fringed gentian at Hubbard’s Close has been out some time, and most of it already withered. In the clintonia swamp I see where some animal has been getting the seeds of the skunk-cabbage out of their pericarp. You may take a dry walk there for a quarter of a mile along the base of the hill through this open swamp, where there is no underwood, all the way in a field of cinnamon fern four or five feet high and level, brushing against its light fronds, which offer now no serious obstacle. They are now generally imbrowned or crisp. In the more open swamp beyond, these ferns, recently killed by the frost and exposed to the sun, fill the air with a very strong sour scent, as if your nose [were] over a hogshead of vinegar. When I strip off a handful of the frond I find it is the cinna- mon fern. I perceive it afterward in different parts of the town. The erechthites down (fire-weed) is conspicuous in sprout-lands of late, since its leaves were killed.

The Rhus radicans also turns yellow and red or scarlet, like the Toxicodendron. Asters, and still more goldenrods, look quite rare now. See a cowbird alone. Getting over the wall near Sam Barrett’s the other day, I had gone a few rods in the road when I met Prescott Barrett, who observed, “Well, you take a walk round the square sometimes.” So little does he 1857 | OLD FURNITURE 59 know of my habits. I go across lots over his grounds every three or four weeks, but I do not know that I ever walked round the square in my life. How much more agreeable to sit in the midst of old furniture like Minott’s clock and secretary and look- ing-glass, which have come down from other genera- tions, than in [sic] that which was just brought from the cabinet-maker’s and smells of varnish, like a coffin! To sit under the face of an old clock that has been tick- ing one hundred and fifty years, — there is something mortal, not to say immortal, about it! A clock that began to tick when Massachusetts was a province. Meanwhile John Beatton’s heavy tombstone is cracked quite across and widely opened.!

A. M. — By boat to Conantum. River fallen again. Barberrying and graping. Many of the grapes shrivelled and killed by frost now, and the leaves mostly fallen. The yellow leaves of the white willow thickly strew the bottom of my boat. Willows, elms, etc., shed their oldest leaves first, even like pines.” The recent and green ones are seen mottling a yellow- ish ground, especially in the willow; and, in the case of the willow, at least, these green ones wither and fall for the most part without turning yellow at all. The button-bushes are generally greenish-yellow now; only the highest and most exposed points brown and crisp in some places. The black willow, rising above them, is crisped yellowish-brown, so that the * It has fallen also and has been set up. ? [Altered in pencil so as to read, “ These willows shed,” etc.] general aspect of the river’s brim now is a modest or sober ripe yellowish-brown, — generally no bright colors. When I scare up a bittern from amid the weeds, I say it is the color of that bird’s breast, — or body generally, for the darker part of its wings correspond to the sere pickerel-weed. Now that the pontederia is brown, the humble, weedy green of the shore is bur- weed, polygonum, wool-grass, and, in some places, rushes. Such is the river’s border ordinarily, — either these weeds mingled with the sere and dark-brown pontederia or a convex raised rim of button-bushes, two to four feet high by a rod wide, through [which] the black willows rise one to a dozen feet higher. Here and there, to be sure, are the purple-leaved Cornus sericea, yellowish sweet-gale, reddish rose bushes, etc., ete: Alders are still a fresh green. The grape leaves are generally crisp and curled, having a very light-colored appearance, but where it is protected by other foliage it is still a dense canopy of greenish-yellow shields. From the midst of these yellowing button-bushes, etc., I hear from time to time a half-warbled strain from some young sparrow who thinks it is spring. Scared up from the low shore at the bend, on the south side, opposite Clamshell, a flock of seventy-five or one hundred of what appeared solitary tattlers (??), that went off with a rippling note, wheeled, and alighted there again.’ Now again, when other trees prove so fickle, the steadfast evergreenness of the pines is appreciated. Bright-tinted flaming scarlet or yellow maples amid pines show various segments of bright cones embosomed in green. At Potter’s Swamp, where they are all maples, it adds to the beauty of the maple swamp at this season that it is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, differ- ent trees being of different tints, — green, yellow, scar- let, crimson, and different shades of each, — the out- line of each tree is distinct to where one laps on to another. Yet a painter would hardly venture to make them thus distinct a quarter of a mile off.? Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint. Fever-bush has begun to yellow. Some nightshade leaves are a very dark purple. See a grackle on the shore, so near I see the light mark about the eye. While I lived in the woods I did various jobs about the town,—some fence-building, painting, garden- ing, carpentering, etc., etc. One day a man came from the east edge of the town and said that he wanted to get me to brick up a fireplace, etc., etc., for him. I told him that I was not a mason, but he knew that I had built my own house entirely and would not take no for an answer. So I went. It was three miles off, and I walked back and forth each day, arriving early and working as late asif I were living there. The man was gone away most of the time, but had left some sand dug up in his cow-yard for me to make mortar with. I bricked up a fireplace, papered a chamber, but my principal work was whitewashing ceilings. Some were so dirty that many coats would not conceal the dirt. In the kitchen I finally resorted to yellow-wash to cover the dirt. I took my meals there, sitting down with my employer (when he got home) and his hired men. I remember the awful condition of the sink, at which I washed one day, and when I came to look at what was called the towel I passed it by and wiped my hands on the air, and thereafter I resorted to the pump. I worked there hard three days, charging only a dollar a day. About the same time I also contracted to build a wood-shed of no mean size, for, I think, exactly six dollars, and cleared about half of it by a close calcu- lation and swift working. The tenant wanted me to throw in a gutter and latch, but I carried off the board that was left and gave him no latch but a button. It stands yet, — behind the Kettle house. I broke up Johnny Kettle’s old “trow,” in which he kneaded his bread, for material. Going home with what nails were left in a flower [sic] bucket on my arm, in a rain, I was about getting into a hay-rigging, when my um- brella frightened the horse, and he kicked at me over the fills, smashed the bucket on my arm, and stretched me on my back; but while I lay on my back, his leg being caught over the shaft, I got up, to see him sprawling on the other side. This accident, the sudden bending of my body backwards, sprained my stomach so that I did not get quite strong there for several years, but had to give up some fence-building and other work which I had undertaken from time to time. I built the common slat fence for $1.50 per rod, or worked for $1.00 per day. I built six fences. Minott and Rice are apt to tell me the same story many times over. Minott told me the other day again of his peach tree. John Richardson was going by with a basket full of peach-stones. “What are you going to do with them?” asked M. He said he was going to plant. “Well, give me two or three of them, and I'll try too.”” So he raised one fine tree, which bore first- rate rare-ripes as big as an apple, but after bearing once or twice something got into it and the tree died. They ’re short-lived things.