Nov. 20. 7.30 A. M. To Hubbard's meadow , cran berrying .
Still quite warm as yesterday . I wear no greatcoat . There has been no freezing in the night . I hear a single hylodes in the wood by the water , while I am raking the cranberries . This warmth has aroused him . While raking , I disturbed two bullfrogs , one quite small . These , too , the warm weather has perhaps aroused . They appear rather stupid . Also I see one painted tortoise , but with no bright markings . Do they fade ?
I observe on some muskrat - cabins much of that bleached and withered long grass , strewn as if pre paratory to raising them , for almost all are covered with water now . It apparently is used as a binder .
Minott said he heard geese going south at day break the 17th , before he came out of the house , and heard and saw another large flock at 10 a . M. Those I heard this afternoon were low and far in the western horizon . I did [ not ] distinctly see them , but heard them farther and farther in the southwest , the sound of one which did the honking guiding my eyes . I had seen that a storm was brewing before , and low mists already gathered in the northeast . It rained soon after I got home . The 18th was also a drizzling day . Methinks the geese are wont to go south just before a storm , and , in the spring , to go north just after one , say at the end of a long April storm .
1 66 I have not seen any tree sparrows of late , nor white in - tails .
I once came near speculating in cranberries. Being put to it to raise the wind to pay for "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," and having occasion to go to New York to peddle some pencils which I had made, as I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries. The dealers took me down cellar, asked if I wanted wet or dry, and showed me them. I gave them to understand that I might want an indefinite quantity. It made a slight sensation among them and for aught I know raised the price of the berry for a time. I then visited various New York packets and was told what would be the freight, on deck and in the hold, and one skipper was very anxious for my freight.
When I got to New York, I again visited the markets as a purchaser, and "the best of Eastern Cranberries" were offered me by the barrel at a cheaper rate than I could buy them in Boston.
I was obliged to manufacture a thousand dollars' worth of pencils and slowly dispose of and finally sacrifice them, in order to pay an assumed debt of a hundred dollars.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 20, 1853
An assumed debt of a hundred dollars . . . See September 14, 1855 ("It costs so much to publish, would it not be better for the author to put his manuscripts in a safe?”)
I once came near speculating in cranberries. Being put to it to raise the wind to pay for "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers," and having occasion to go to New York to peddle some pencils which I had made, as I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries. The dealers took me down cellar, asked if I wanted wet or dry, and showed me them. I gave them to understand that I might want an indefinite quantity. It made a slight sensation among them and for aught I know raised the price of the berry for a time. I then visited various New York packets and was told what would be the freight, on deck and in the hold, and one skipper was very anxious for my freight.
When I got to New York, I again visited the markets as a purchaser, and "the best of Eastern Cranberries" were offered me by the barrel at a cheaper rate than I could buy them in Boston.
I was obliged to manufacture a thousand dollars' worth of pencils and slowly dispose of and finally sacrifice them, in order to pay an assumed debt of a hundred dollars.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 20, 1853
As I passed through Boston I went to Quincy Market and inquired the price of cranberries. See December 7 , 1853 ("I sent two and a half bushels of my cranberries to Boston and got four dollars for them.")
An assumed debt of a hundred dollars . . . See September 14, 1855 ("It costs so much to publish, would it not be better for the author to put his manuscripts in a safe?”)
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