Harvest Days--the seventh day of glorious weather.

October 11.

Sunday. P. M. — Up Assabet.

River lower than before since winter at least; very low.

Another frost last night, although with fog, and this afternoon the maple and other leaves strew the water, and it is almost a leaf harvest.

I see some fine clear yellows from the Rhus Toxicodendron on the bank by the hemlocks and beyond.

The osmunda ferns are generally withered and brown except where very much protected from frost. The O. regalis is the least generally withered of them.

The onoclea is much later and still generally green along the bank, or faded white here and there.

Looking at the reflection of the bank by the Hemlocks, the reflected sun dazzles me, and I approach nearer to the bank in order to shut it out (of course it disappears sooner in the reflection than the substance, because every head is raised above the level of the water), and I see in the reflection the fine, slender grasses on the sharp or well-defined edge of the bank all glowing with silvery light, a singularly silvery light to be seen in the water, and whose substance I can not see to advantage with my head thus high, since the sun is in the way.

This is the seventh day of glorious weather. Perhaps, these might be called Harvest Days. Within the week most of the apples have been gathered; potatoes are being dug; corn is still left in the fields, though the stalks are being carried in.

Others are ditching and getting out mud and cutting up bushes along fences, – what is called “brushing up,” — burning brush, etc.

These are cricket days.

The river is so low that I run against several rocks, which I must have floated over three or four days ago, and I see many snags and water-logged trunks on the bottom or partly exposed, which were then invisible.

It is remarkable how many trees — maple and swamp white [oak], etc. — which stand on the bank of the river, being undermined by the water or broken off by the ice or other cause, fall into the stream and finally sink to the bottom and are half buried there for many years. A great deal of wood, especially of the kinds named, is thus lost. They last longer there probably than in favorable localities out of water. I see still the timber foundation of an old dam just above Spencer Brook, extending across the river on the bottom, though there has been nothing above water within my recollection. The large black oaks in front of Prescott Barrett's are one by one falling into the river, and there are none to succeed them. They were probably left to skirt the stream when the other wood was cut, and now, when they are undermined, there are none behind to supply their places.

Mr. Conant of Acton tells me that there was a grist mill built over the river there by Sam Barrett's grandfather, and that he remembers going to it when he was fourteen. He went in at the Lee house and crossed the river by a bridge at the mill. He says that it is as much as sixty years since the mill was standing. Minott thinks it is not quite so long since. He remembers the bridge there, not a town one, nor strong enough for a horse and cart. Thinks the mill was discontinued because Dr. Lee complained of its flowing his wood land. They used to stop with their carts this side and carry their bags back and forth over the bridge on their shoulders. Used a small and poor road across to Lee's farm.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal,  October 11, 1857

River lower than before since winter at least. See October 15, 1856 ("River lower than for some months")

Another frost last night, although with fog, and this afternoon the maple and other leaves strew the water, and it is almost a leaf harvest.. See October 12, 1855 ("The leaves fallen last night now lie thick on the water next the shore, concealing it, —fleets of dry boats . . ."); October 12, 1858 ("There are many maple, birch, etc., leaves on the Assabet, in stiller places along the shore, but not yet a leaf harvest"); October 13, 1860 ("Now, as soon as the frost strips the maples, and their leaves strew the swamp floor and conceal the pools, the note of the chickadee sounds cheerfully winteryish.")

The seventh day of glorious weather. See October 10, 1857 ("The sixth day of glorious weather, which I am tempted to call the finest in the year , so bright and serene the air and such a sheen from the earth, so brilliant the foliage, so pleasantly warm . . . Certainly these are .the most brilliant days in the year, ushered in, perhaps, by a frosty morning, as this."); October 10, 1856 (“”These are the finest days in the year, Indian summer.")