Preparing for the winter voyage.

November 28

Thursday.

Cold drizzling and misty rains, which have melted the little snow.

The farmers are beginning to pick up their dead wood.

Within a day or two the walker finds gloves to be comfortable, and begins to think of an outside coat and of boots. Embarks in his boots for the winter voyage.

It is remarkable, but nevertheless true, as far as my observation goes, that women, to whom we commonly concede a somewhat finer and more sibylline nature, yield a more implicit obedience even to their animal instincts than men. The nature in them is stronger, the reason weaker. 

THE LITTLE IRISH BOY 

I am the little Irish boy 

     That lives in the shanty. 

I am four years old to-day 

     And shall soon be one and twenty. 

     I shall grow up 

     And be a great man, 

     And shovel all day 

    As hard as I can. 

     Down in the Deep Cut, 

     *  *   *  * *

    Where the men lived 

    Who made the railroad.

For supper 

     I have some potato 

          And sometimes some bread, 

     And then, if it's cold, 

         I go right to bed. 

     I lie on some straw 

     Under my father's coat. 

At recess I play 

With little Billy Gray, 

And when school is done, 

Then home I run. 

And if I meet the cars, 

     I get on the other track, 

And then I know whatever comes 

     I need n't look back. 

My mother does not cry, 

     And my father does not scold, 

For I am a little Irish boy, 

     And I'm four years old. 

Every day I go to school 

     Along the railroad. 

It was so cold it made me cry 

     The day that it snowed. 

And if my feet ache 

     I do not mind the cold, 

For I am a little Irish boy, 

     And I'm four years old.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, November 28, 1850

The farmers are beginning to pick up their dead wood. See November 28, 1859 ("Goodwin is cutting out a few cords of dead wood in the midst of E. Hubbard's old lot. . . . while Abel Brooks is hastening home from the woods with his basket half full of chips "); November 4, 1858 ("I took out my glass, and beheld Goodwin, the one-eyed Ajax, in his short blue frock, short and square-bodied, as broad as for his height he can afford to be, getting his winter's wood; for this is one of the phenomena of the season. ")

 

Embarks in his boots for the winter voyage. See December 3, 1856 ( Bought me a pair of cowhide boots, to be prepared for winter walks . . . The man who has bought his boots feels like him who has got in his winter's wood.”); December 6, 1859 ("I took out my boots . . . and went forth in the snow. That is an era, when, in the beginning of the winter, you change from the shoes of summer to the boots of winter.") Compare March 30, 1860 (“It is time to begin to leave your greatcoat at home, to put on shoes instead of boots and feel lightfooted.”)

the little irish boy see here

In a day or two 

the walker thinks of boots for

the winter voyage.