Monday, September 18, 2017

Coming home through the street in a thunder-shower


September 18.
 
September 18, 2017

Friday. P. M. – Round Walden with C. 

We find the water cold for bathing. 

Coming out on to the Lincoln road at Bartlett's path, we found an abundance of haws by the roadside, just fit to eat, quite an agreeable subacid fruit. We were glad to see anything that could be eaten so abundant. They must be a supply depended on by some creatures. These bushes bear a profusion of fruit, rather crimson than scarlet when ripe. 

I hear that “Uncle Ned” of the Island told of walking along the shore of a pond where the “shells” of the mosquitoes were washed up in winrows. 

As I was going through the Cut, on my way, I saw what I thought a rare high-colored flower in the sun on the sandy bank. It was a Trifolium arvense whose narrow leaves were turned a bright crimson, enhanced by the sun shining through it and lighting it up. 

Going along the low path under Bartlett's Cliff, the Aster laevis flowers, when seen toward the sun, are very handsome, having a purple or lilac tint. 

We started a pack of grouse, which went off with a whir like cannon-balls. C. said he did not see but they were round still and preserved the same relation to the wind and other elements that they held twenty years ago. I suggested that they were birds of the season. 

Coming home through the street in a thunder-shower at ten o’clock this night, it was exceedingly dark. I met two persons within a mile, and they were obliged to call out from a rod distant lest we should run against each other. 

When the lightning lit up the street, almost as plain as day, I saw that it was the same green light that the glow-worm emits. Has the moisture something to do with it in both cases?

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 18, 1857

A Trifolium arvense whose narrow leaves were turned a bright crimson, enhanced by the sun shining through it and lighting it up. Compare April 19 1852 ("That phenomenon of the andromeda seen against the sun cheers me exceedingly.") and note to May 5, 1855.

We started a pack of grouse, which went off with a whir like cannon-balls. See September 18, 1852 ("The partridges, grown up, oftener burst away.") and note to August 24, 1855 ("Scare up a pack of grouse.")

Coming home through the street in a thunder-shower at ten o’clock this night, it was exceedingly dark. . . See September 12, 1860 ("A dark and stormy night . . . Where the fence is not painted white I can see nothing, and go whistling for fear I run against some one.").

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