8 a. m, — To stone bridge.
The water has fallen three or four inches. It was at its height last night, and was then about five inches below the highest part of the truss. This is quite high water. But it has now begun to rain, and the river will probably rise again.
Along the shores you see now much coarse wrack of green and black pontederia stems which have been torn up by the ice. The ice and the wrack are also dotted with cranberries here and there.
What a variety of weather! What a difference in the days! Three days ago, the 15th, we had steady rain with a southerly wind, with a clear interval and a brilliant double rainbow at sunset, — a day when all the russet banks were dripping, saturated with wet, and the peep of the robin was heard through the drizzle and the rain. In the evening it rained again much harder than before.
The next day it was clear and cool, with a strong northwest wind, and the flood still higher on the meadows; the dry russet earth and leather-colored oak reflected a flashing light from far; the tossing blue waves with white crests excited the beholder and the sailer. In short, the tables were completely turned; snow and ice were for the most part washed and blown away from both land and water.
Yesterday it was very warm, without perceptible wind, with a comparatively lifeless [air], yet such as invalids like, with no flashing surfaces, but, as it were, an in visible mist sobering down every surface; and the water, still higher than before, was perfectly smooth all day. This was a weather-breeder.
To-day comes a still, steady rain again, with warm weather and a southerly wind, which threatens to raise the river still higher, though it had begun to fall. One would say that frost in the ground, though it may be melted for several inches (as now), bred rain, if, indeed, its evaporations do not create it.
Expect rain after rain till the frost is completely out. The melted frost, rising in the form of vapor, returns, perhaps, in rain to liberate its kind still imprisoned in the earth.
Consider how I discovered where the Winthrop family in this town placed their front door some two hundred years ago, without any verbal or written or ocular evidence. I first suspected [?] and then verified it. I, with others, saw by the frame of the old Hunt house that an addition had been made to its west end in 1703. This brought the front door, which was in the middle of the present, near one end of the original or Winthrop house.
I, sitting at home, said to myself, having an occult sympathy with the Winthrops of that date, "The front door must originally have been in the middle of the old house, for symmetry and convenience required it, and if it was, I shall find traces of it; I shall find there where studs have been set into the frame in a different manner from the rest.”
I went to the house and looked where the door should have been, and I found precisely the evidence I sought, and, beside, where the timber above had been cut out just the width of the door. Indeed, if I had found no traces of the old door, I should have known that the present door was placed where it is after the house was built, for at this corner of the house the end of the sill chanced to be nearly round, the stick tapering, and the post was fitted upon [it] in a remarkable manner, thus:
Oak wood had been thus laboriously fitted to it, but within three feet of the corner this sill had been wholly cut away under the door to make room for it, for they certainly had not put in a piece of sill only three feet long and of that form there originally.
Flood, who is saving rails, etc., at the stone bridge, remarks that old settlers say this stream is highest the third day after a rain. But of course this depends on the amount of the rain, the direction and force of the wind, etc., etc. A southwest wind will take the water out sooner, and any strong wind will evaporate it fast.
Rice thinks that he has seen two gulls on the Sudbury meadows, — the white and the gray gulls. He has often seen a man shoot the large gull from Cambridge bridge by heading him off, for the gull flies slowly. He would first run this way, and when the gull turned aside, run that, till the gull passed right over his head, when he shot him.
Rice saw Fair Haven Pond still covered with ice, though open along the shore, yesterday. I frequently see the gulls flying up the course of the stream, or of the river valley, at least.
R. thinks that the ducks will be seen more numerous, gathering on our waters, just before a storm, like yesterday’s.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 18, 1859
Rice thinks that he has seen two gulls on the Sudbury meadows. See March 8, 1853 ("I must be on the lookout now for the gulls and the ducks."; March 16, 1860 ("I also see two gulls nearly a mile off. . . . Thus they will stand for an hour, at least. They a. . . look like great wooden images of birds, bluish-slate and white. But when they fly they are quite another creature.")
No comments:
Post a Comment