At Concord.
Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch,— now running freely, though not before I left Concord.
Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler.
Last night was very cold, and some ditches are frozen this morning.
This is Fast-Day. I think if you should tap all the trees in a large birch swamp, you would make a stream large enough to turn a mill.
About a month ago, at the post-office, Abel Brooks, who is pretty deaf, sidling up to me, observed in a loud voice which all could hear,
“Let me see, your society is pretty large, ain’t it ?”
“Oh, yes, large enough,” said I, not knowing what he meant.
“There ’s Stewart belongs to it, and Collier, he's one of them, and Emerson, and my boarder ” (Pulsifer), “and Charming, I believe, I think he goes there.”
“You mean the walkers; don’t you?”
“Ye-es, I call you the Society. All go to the woods; don’t you ?”
“Do you miss any of your wood?” I asked.
“No, I hain’t worried any yet. I believe you ’re a pretty clever set, as good as the average,” etc., etc.Telling Sanborn of this, he said that, when he first came to town and boarded at Holbrook’s, he asked H. how many religious societies there were in town. H. said that there were three, -- the Unitarian, the Orthodox, and the Walden Pond Society. I asked Sanborm with which Holbrook classed himself. He said he believes that he put himself with the last.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1857
Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch,— now running freely . . .See April 11, 1856 ("Now is apparently the very time to tap birches of all kinds.”)
Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler. See note to April 16 1856 ("I see a pine warbler, . . . Its note is . . .a very rapid and continuous trill or jingle which I remind myself of by wetter wetter wetter wetter wet’, emphasizing the last syllable.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler
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