P. M. — To the Boulder Field.
September 28, 2019
I find the hood-leaved violet quite abundant in a meadow, and the pedata in the Boulder Field. I have now seen all but the blanda, palmata, and pubescens blooming again, and bluebirds and robins, etc., are heard again in the air.
This is the commencement, then, of the second spring. Violets, Potentilla Canadensis, lambkill, wild rose, yellow lily, etc., etc., begin again.
Children are now gathering barberries, — just the right time.
Speaking of the great fall flower which the valleys are at present, its brightest petal is still the scarlet one of dogwood, and in some places the redder red maple one is equally bright; then there is the yellow walnut one, and the broad dull red one of the huckleberry, and the hazel, high blueberry, and Viburnum nudum of various similar tints.
It has been too cold for the thinnest coat since the middle of September.
Grapes are still abundant. I have only to shake the birches to bring down a shower of plums. But the flavor of none is quite equal to their fragrance.
Some soils, like this rocky one on the old Carlisle road, are so suited to the apple that they spring up wild and bear well in the midst of pines, birches, maples, and oaks, their red and yellow fruit harmonizing with the autumnal tints of the forest in which they grow. I am surprised to see rising amid the maples and birches in a swamp the rounded tops of apple trees rosy with fair fruit.
A windy day. What have these high and roaring winds to do with the fall? No doubt they speak plainly enough to the sap that is in these trees, and perchance they check its upward flow.
A very handsome gray dotted thorn near the black birch grove, six inches in diameter, with a top large in proportion, as large as a small apple tree, bristling with many thorns from suckers about its trunk. This is a very handsome object, and the largest thorn I have seen in Concord, almost bare of leaves and one mass of red fruit, five eighths of an inch in diameter, causing its slender branches to spread and droop gracefully. It reminds me of a wisp of straws tied together, or a dust-brush upright on its handle.
It must be the same I have seen in Canada. The same with that on Nawshawtuct. Probably most beautiful in fruit, not only on account of its color, but because this causes the branches to spread and curve outward gracefully.
Ah, if I could put into words that music that I hear; that music which can bring tears to the eyes of marble statues! — to which the very muscles of men are obedient!
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 28, 1852
I find the hood-leaved violet quite abundant in a meadow, and the pedata in the Boulder Field. See August 12, 1858 (“Saw a Viola pedata blooming again.”); August 31, 1853 ("Viola pedata out again."); September 4, 1856 ("Viola pedata again."); September 9, 1858 ("Many Viola cucullata have opened again"); September 12, 1851 ("Found a violet, apparently Viola cucullata, or hood-leaved violet, in bloom in Baker's Meadow beyond Pine Hill."); October 22, 1859 (" In the wood-path below the Cliffs I see perfectly fresh and fair Viola pedata flowers, as in the spring, though but few together. No flower by its second blooming more perfectly brings back the spring to us.”).
Children are now gathering barberries, — just the right time. See September 16. 1857 ("Barberries very handsome now. See boys gathering them in good season."); September 29, 1853 ("Barberry ripe."); September 29, 1854 ("Now is the time to gather barberries") See also 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 25, 1855 (We get about three pecks of barberries from four or five bushes”); October 1, 1853 (" Got three pecks of barberries.").
It has been too cold for the thinnest coat since the middle of September. Compare September 29, 1854 ("Yesterday was quite warm, requiring the thinnest coat.")
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