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| October 4, 2017 |
River fallen again.
Barberrying and graping. Many of the grapes shrivelled and killed by frost now, and the leaves mostly fallen.
The yellow leaves of the white willow thickly strew the bottom of my boat. These willows shed their oldest leaves first, even like pines. The recent and green ones are seen mottling a yellowish ground, especially in the willow; and, in the case of the willow, at least, these green ones wither and fall for the most part without turning yellow at all.
The button-bushes are generally greenish-yellow now; only the highest and most exposed points brown and crisp in some places. The black willow, rising above them, is crisped yellowish-brown, so that the general aspect of the river's brim now is a modest or sober ripe yellowish-brown, — generally no bright colors.
When I scare up a bittern from amid the weeds, I say it is the color of that bird's breast, — or body generally, for the darker part of its wings correspond to the sere pickerel-weed.
Now that the pontederia is brown, the humble, weedy green of the shore is bur weed, polygonum, wool-grass, and, in some places, rushes. Such is the river's border ordinarily, — either these weeds mingled with the sere and dark-brown pontederia or a convex raised rim of button-bushes, two to four feet high by a rod wide, through [which] the black willows rise one to a dozen feet higher.
Here and there, to be sure, are the purple-leaved Cornus sericea, yellowish sweet-gale, reddish rose bushes, etc., etc.
Alders are still a fresh green.
The grape leaves are generally crisp and curled, having a very light-colored appearance, but where it is protected by other foliage it is still a dense canopy of greenish-yellow shields.
From the midst of these yellowing button-bushes, etc., I hear from time to time a half-warbled strain from some young sparrow who thinks it is spring.
Scared up from the low shore at the bend, on the south side, opposite Clamshell, a flock of seventy-five or one hundred of what appeared solitary tattlers (??), that went off with a rippling note, wheeled, and alighted there again.
Now again, when other trees prove so fickle, the steadfast evergreenness of the pines is appreciated.
Bright-tinted flaming scarlet or yellow maples amid pines show various segments of bright cones embosomed in green. At Potter's Swamp, where they are all maples, it adds to the beauty of the maple swamp at this season that it is not seen as a simple mass of color, but, different trees being of different tints, - green, yellow, scar let, crimson, and different shades of each, – the out line of each tree is distinct to where one laps on to another. Yet a painter would hardly venture to make them thus distinct a quarter of a mile off.
Hear a catbird and chewink, both faint.
Fever-bush has begun to yellow. Some nightshade leaves are a very dark purple.
See a grackle on the shore, so near I see the light mark about the eye.
While I lived in the woods I did various jobs about the town, - some fence-building, painting, gardening, carpentering, etc., etc. One day a man came from the east edge of the town and said that he wanted to get me to brick up a fireplace, etc., etc., for him. I told him that I was not a mason, but he knew that I had built my own house entirely and would not take no for an answer. So I went.
It was three miles off, and I walked back and forth each day, arriving early and working as late as if I were living there. The man was gone away most of the time, but had left some sand dug up in his cow-yard for me to make mortar with. I bricked up a fireplace, papered a chamber, but my principal work was whitewashing ceilings. Some were so dirty that many coats would not conceal the dirt. In the kitchen I finally resorted to yellow-wash to cover the dirt. I took my meals there, sitting down with my employer (when he got home) and his hired men. I remember the awful condition of the sink, at which I washed one day, and when I came to look at what was called the towel I passed it by and wiped my hands on the air, and thereafter I resorted to the pump. I worked there hard three days, charging only a dollar a day.
About the same time I also contracted to build a wood-shed of no mean size, for, I think, exactly six dollars, and cleared about half of it by a close calculation and swift working. The tenant wanted me to throw in a gutter and latch, but I carried off the board that was left and gave him no latch but a button. It stands yet, — behind the Kettle house. I broke up Johnny Kettle's old “trow,” in which he kneaded his bread, for material.
Going home with what nails were left in a flower bucket on my arm, in a rain, I was about getting into a hay-rigging, when my umbrella frightened the horse, and he kicked at me over the fills, smashed the bucket on my arm, and stretched me on my back; but while I lay on my back, his leg being caught over the shaft, I got up, to see him sprawling on the other side. This accident, the sudden bending of my body backwards, sprained my stomach so that I did not get quite strong there for several years, but had to give up some fence-building and other work which I had undertaken from time to time.
I built the common slat fence for $1.50 per rod, or worked for $1.00 per day. I built six fences.
Minott and Rice are apt to tell me the same story many times over. Minott told me the other day again of his peach tree. John Richardson was going by with a basket full of peach-stones. “What are you going to do with them?” asked M. He said he was going to plant. “Well, give me two or three of them, and I'll try too.” So he raised one fine tree, which bore first rate rare-ripes as big as an apple, but after bearing once or twice something got into it and the tree died. They’re short-lived things.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 4, 1857
I hear from time to time a half-warbled strain from some young sparrow who thinks it is spring. See October 4, 1859 ('I hear half-strains from many of them, as the song sparrow, bluebird, etc., and the sweet phe-be of the chickadee.”)
Fever-bush has begun to yellow. See October 5, 1858 (“The fever-bush is in the height of its change and is a showy clear lemon yellow, contrasting with its scarlet berries.”)
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