[Begins now ten days of perfect Indian summer without rain; and the eleventh and twelfth days equally warm, though rainy.]
P. M. – To Yellow Birch Swamp.
I go by the river and Hunt's Bridge. A warm and bright October afternoon.
One man is making a gutter, to be prepared for rains, in his piece recently laid down in Merrick's pasture, where the grass is just springing up.
I see many haws still green and hard, though their leaves are mostly fallen. Do they ever turn red and edible? Their leaves are a very dull reddish cast.
The surface of the river sparkles in this air here and there.
I see in most orchards the apples in heaps under the trees, and ladders slanted against their twiggy masses.
The earth shines now as much as, or more than, ever in spring, especially the bare and somewhat faded fields, pastures, stubble, etc. The light is reflected as from a ripe surface, no longer absorbed to secure maturity.
I go north by Jarvis's lane from the old pump-maker's house.
There is not that profusion and consequent confusion of events which belongs to a summer's walk. There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant. The cawing of a crow, the scream of a jay.
The latter seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. The jay's voice resounds through the vacancies occasioned by fallen maple leaves.
The mulberry [or ash] was perhaps the first tree that was conspicuously turned after the maples. Many maples are still quite green; so that their gala-day will be prolonged.
I see some hickories now a crisped mass of imbrowned yellow, green in the recesses, sere brown on the prominences, though the eye does not commonly thus discriminate.
The smooth sumach is very important for its mass of clear red or crimson. Some of it is now a very dark crimson.
In the old Carlisle road I see a great many pitch pine twigs or plumes, cast down, evidently, by squirrels, — but for what?
Many are now gathering barberries.
Am surprised to see a large sassafras tree, with its rounded umbrella-like top, without limbs beneath, on the west edge of the Yellow Birch Swamp, or east of Boulder Field. It is some sixteen inches in diameter. There are seven or eight within two rods. Leaves curled, but not changed.
See a red squirrel cast down a chestnut bur.
The pigeon woodpecker utters his whimsical ah-week ah-week, etc., as in spring.
The yellow birch is somewhat yellowed.
See a cherry-bird.
Many robins feeding on poke berries on Eb Hubbard's hill.
There is a great abundance of poke there. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple.
I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. I see him running by fits and starts along a chestnut bough toward me. His head looks disproportionately large for his body, like a bulldog's, perhaps because he has his chaps full of nuts. He chirrups and vibrates his tail, holds himself in, and scratches along a foot as if it were a mile. He finds noise and activity for both of us. It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous. He can hardly keep it up till I am gone, however, but takes out his nut and tastes it in the midst of his agitation. “See there, see there,” says he, “who's that? O dear, what shall I do?” and makes believe run off, but doesn’t get along an inch, – lets it all pass off by flashes through his tail, while he clings to the bark as if he were holding in a race-horse. He gets down the trunk at last on to a projecting knot, head downward, within a rod of you, and chirrups and chatters louder than ever. Tries to work himself into a fright. The hind part of his body is urging the forward part along, snapping the tail over it like a whip-lash, but the fore part, for the most part, clings fast to the bark with desperate energy.
Squirr, “to throw with a jerk,” seems to have quite as much to do with the name as the Greek skia oura, shadow and tail.
The lower limbs of trees often incline downwards as if from sympathy with the roots; the upper tend upwards with the leading stem.
I found on the 4th, at Conantum, a half-bushel of barberries on one clump about four feet in diameter at base, falling over in wreaths on every side. I filled my basket, standing behind it without being seen by other pickers only a dozen rods off. Some great clumps on Melvin's preserve, no doubt, have many more on them.
I hear nowadays again the small woodpecker's sharp, shrill note from high on the trees. . . .
It is evident that some phenomena which belong only to spring and autumn here, lasted through the summer in that latitude, as the peeping of hylodes and blossoming of some flowers that long since withered here were there still freshly in bloom, in that fresher and cooler atmosphere, — the calla for instance. To say nothing of the myrtle-bird and F. hyemalis which breed there, but only transiently visit us in spring and fall. Just as a river which here freezes only a certain distance from the shore, follow it further north, is found to be completely bridged over. The toads, too, as I have said, rang at this season. What is summer where Indian corn will not ripen?
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1857
Many are now gathering barberries. See September 16. 1857 ("Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them in good season."); September 18, 1856 ("I get a full peck from about three bushes.”); September 19, 1856 (“Gather just half a bushel of barberries on hill in less than two hours, or three pecks to-day and yesterday in less than three hours. It is singular that I have so few, if any, competitors.”); September 24, 1859 ("A great many have improved this first fair day to come a-barberrying to the Easterbrooks fields."); September 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”); September 28, 1859 ("Children are now gathering barberries, — just the right time"); September 29, 1854 ("Now is the time to gather barberries"); October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.").
The jay seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. Compare October 11, 1859 ("The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance."). See September 21, 1854 ("I hear many jays since the frosts began.”); September 21, 1859 ("Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent"): October 6, 1856 ("The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us.”); October 11, 1856 (“In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some times a mew. Refer any strange note to him.”); October 20, 1856 ("Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter. . .we hear the jay again more frequently,"); November 3, 1858 ("The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves,. . .It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay
The yellow birch is somewhat yellowed.
See a cherry-bird.
Many robins feeding on poke berries on Eb Hubbard's hill.
There is a great abundance of poke there. That lowest down the hill, killed by frost, drooping and withered, no longer purple-stemmed, but faded; higher up it is still purple.
I hear the alarum of a small red squirrel. I see him running by fits and starts along a chestnut bough toward me. His head looks disproportionately large for his body, like a bulldog's, perhaps because he has his chaps full of nuts. He chirrups and vibrates his tail, holds himself in, and scratches along a foot as if it were a mile. He finds noise and activity for both of us. It is evident that all this ado does not proceed from fear. There is at the bottom, no doubt, an excess of inquisitiveness and caution, but the greater part is make-believe and a love of the marvellous. He can hardly keep it up till I am gone, however, but takes out his nut and tastes it in the midst of his agitation. “See there, see there,” says he, “who's that? O dear, what shall I do?” and makes believe run off, but doesn’t get along an inch, – lets it all pass off by flashes through his tail, while he clings to the bark as if he were holding in a race-horse. He gets down the trunk at last on to a projecting knot, head downward, within a rod of you, and chirrups and chatters louder than ever. Tries to work himself into a fright. The hind part of his body is urging the forward part along, snapping the tail over it like a whip-lash, but the fore part, for the most part, clings fast to the bark with desperate energy.
Squirr, “to throw with a jerk,” seems to have quite as much to do with the name as the Greek skia oura, shadow and tail.
The lower limbs of trees often incline downwards as if from sympathy with the roots; the upper tend upwards with the leading stem.
I found on the 4th, at Conantum, a half-bushel of barberries on one clump about four feet in diameter at base, falling over in wreaths on every side. I filled my basket, standing behind it without being seen by other pickers only a dozen rods off. Some great clumps on Melvin's preserve, no doubt, have many more on them.
I hear nowadays again the small woodpecker's sharp, shrill note from high on the trees. . . .
It is evident that some phenomena which belong only to spring and autumn here, lasted through the summer in that latitude, as the peeping of hylodes and blossoming of some flowers that long since withered here were there still freshly in bloom, in that fresher and cooler atmosphere, — the calla for instance. To say nothing of the myrtle-bird and F. hyemalis which breed there, but only transiently visit us in spring and fall. Just as a river which here freezes only a certain distance from the shore, follow it further north, is found to be completely bridged over. The toads, too, as I have said, rang at this season. What is summer where Indian corn will not ripen?
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 5, 1857
There are few flowers, birds, insects, or fruits now, and hence what does occur affects us as more simple and significant. See October 5, 1851("The nights now are very still, for there is hardly any noise of birds or of insects")
The jay seems to scream more fitly and with more freedom now that some fallen maple leaves have made way for his voice. Compare October 11, 1859 ("The note of the chickadee, heard now in cooler weather and above many fallen leaves, has a new significance."). See September 21, 1854 ("I hear many jays since the frosts began.”); September 21, 1859 ("Jays are more frequently heard of late, maybe because other birds are more silent"): October 6, 1856 ("The jay's shrill note is more distinct of late about the edges of the woods, when so many birds have left us.”); October 11, 1856 (“In the woods I hear the note of the jay, a metallic, clanging sound, some times a mew. Refer any strange note to him.”); October 20, 1856 ("Thus, of late, when the season is declining, many birds have departed, and our thoughts are turned towards winter. . .we hear the jay again more frequently,"); November 3, 1858 ("The jay is the bird of October. I have seen it repeatedly flitting amid the bright leaves,. . .It, too, with its bright color, stands for some ripeness in the bird harvest. And its scream! it is as if it blowed on the edge of an October leaf. It is never more in its element and at home than when flitting amid these brilliant colors.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Blue Jay
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