The river is now rising fast.

August 22

Fair weather at last. 

P. M. — Up Assabet. 

Owing to the rain of the 8th and before, two days and two nights, the river rose to within six inches of the top of Hoar's wall. It had fallen about one half, when the rain began again on the night of the 20th, and again continued about two nights and two days, though so much did not fall as before; but, the river being high, it is now rising fast. 

The Assabet is apparently at its height, and rushing very swiftly past the Hemlocks, where it is narrow and choked with rocks, I can hardly row against it there. I see much hay floating, and two or three cocks, quite black, carried round and round in a great eddy by the side of the stream, which will ere long be released and continue their voyage down-stream. 

The water is backing up the main stream so that there is no current what ever in that, as far up as my boat's place, at least. When I rest on my oars the boat will not after any waiting drift down-stream.  It is within three inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 7 p. m. 

August 22, 2026

I notice three or four clumps of white maples, at the swamp up the Assabet, which have turned as red (dull red) as ever they do, fairly put on their autumnal hue. But we have had no dry weather and no frost, and this is apparently a premature ripening of the leaves. The water stands around and affects them as it does the weeds and grass, — steams them too. They, as it were, take these for the fall rains, the latter rain, accept their fates, and put on the suitable dress. 

This shows how little frost has to do with such changes, except as a ripener of the leaves. The trees are so ready for this change that only a copious rain and rise of the waters as in the fall produces the same effect. 

Also some red maples on hillsides have a crisped look for the same reason, actually ripening and drying without turning and without drought or frost. 

I find that much of the faint warbling I hear nowadays is from apparently the young Maryland yellow- throats, as it were practicing against another spring, — half-finished strains. They are also more inquisitive and bold than usual, hopping quite near. 

The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 22, 1856

It is within three inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 7 p. m. See August 9, 1856 (" Few, if any, can remember such a succession of thunder-storms merged into one long thunder-storm, lasting almost continuously (the storm does) two nights and two days"); August 10, 1856 ("The river . . . is between two and a half and three feet higher than ten days ago . . . It is within nine and a half inches of the top of Hoar's wall at 6 p. m. "); Compare August 22, 1854 ("I go again to the Great Meadows, to improve this remarkably dry season and walk where in ordinary times I cannot go.")

Three or four clumps of white maples, at the swamp up the Assabet, which have turned as red (dull red) as ever they do. See August 15, 1858 (“The smaller white maples are very generally turned a dull red, and their long row, seen against the fresh green of Ball’s Hill, is very surprising . . . They are redder now than in autumn, and set off the landscape wonderfully.")

Young Maryland yellow-throats . . . more inquisitive and bold than usual, hopping quite near. See August 5, 1858 ("I heard what I should call my night-warbler’s note, and, looking up, saw the bird dropping to a bush on the hillside: Looking through the glass, I saw that it was the Maryland yellow-throat!"); August 12, 1858 ("A Maryland yellow-throat, hopping within a bush closely."); September 20, 1858 ("The Maryland yellow-throat is here.")

The creak of the mole cricket is heard along the shore. See September 27, 1855 ("I traced the note of what I have falsely thought the Rana palustris, or cricket frog, to its true source [and] I found a mole cricket (Gryllotalpa brevipennis)."); August 6, 1855 ("The mole cricket creaks along the shore."); August 23, 1857 ('The mole cricket nowadays.");  September 27, 1856 ("The creak of the mole cricket sounds late along the shore.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Cricket in August

August 22. See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, August 22

Faint warbling of 

young Maryland yellow-throats

as if practicing.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  The river is now rising fast

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality.”

~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560822