The Walden Pond Society.

April 16. 

At Concord. 

Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch,— now running freely, though not before I left Concord. 

Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler. 

Last night was very cold, and some ditches are frozen this morning. 

This is Fast-Day. I think if you should tap all the trees in a large birch swamp, you would make a stream large enough to turn a mill. 

About a month ago, at the post-office, Abel Brooks, who is pretty deaf, sidling up to me, observed in a loud voice which all could hear, 

“Let me see, your society is pretty large, ain’t it ?” 

“Oh, yes, large enough,” said I, not knowing what he meant.  

“There ’s Stewart belongs to it, and Collier, he's one of them, and Emerson, and my boarder ” (Pulsifer), “and Channing, I believe, I think he goes there.” 

“You mean the walkers; don’t you?” 

“Ye-es, I call you the Society. All go to the woods; don’t you ?” 

“Do you miss any of your wood?” I asked. 

“No, I hain’t worried any yet. I believe you ’re a pretty clever set, as good as the average,” etc., etc.

Telling Sanborn of this, he said that, when he first came to town and boarded at Holbrook’s, he asked H. how many religious societies there were in town. H. said that there were three, -- the Unitarian, the Orthodox, and the Walden Pond Society. I asked Sanborm with which Holbrook classed himself. He said he believes that he put himself with the last.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 16, 1857

Get birch sap, — two bottles yellow birch and five of black birch,— now running freely . . .See April 11, 1856 ("Now is apparently the very time to tap birches of all kinds.”)

Meanwhile I hear the note of the pine warbler. See note to April 16 1856 ("I see a pine warbler, . . . Its note is . . .a very rapid and continuous trill or jingle which I remind myself of by wetter wetter wetter wetter wet’, emphasizing the last syllable.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Pine Warbler

The season is more backward in New Bedford

April 15. 

Wednesday. Leave New Bedford. 

I had been surprised to find the season more backward, i. e. the vegetation, in New Bedford than in Concord. I could find no alder and willow and hazel catkins and no caltha and saxifrage so forward as in Concord. 

The ground was a uniform russet when I left, but when I had come twenty miles it was visibly greener, and the greenness steadily increased all the way to Boston. Coming to Boston, and also to Concord, was like coming from early spring to early summer. It was as if a fortnight at least had elapsed. 

Yet New Bedford is much warmer in the winter. Why is it more backward than Concord? 

• The country is very flat and exposed to southerly winds from the sea, which, to my surprise, were raw and chilly. 
• Also the soil is wet and cold, unlike our warm sandy soil, which is dry the day after a rain storm. 
• Perhaps, as the ground is more bare in the winter, vegetation suffers more after all. 
• One told me that there was more cloudy weather than here. 
• It seemed to me that there was a deficiency of warm hollows and sheltered places behind hills and woods, which abound with us. 

On such cliffs as they have facing the south, vegetation was much more backward than in like positions with us, apparently owing to sea-turns and chilly south winds.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 15, 1857

Rainy Tuesday

April 14.

April 14, 2017

Tuesday. Rains all day.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 14, 1857

See April 14, 1858 (“Rains still, with one or two flashes of lightning, but soon over.);  April 14, 1859 ("The seventh rain storm (as I reckon), beginning with the 18th of March. "). See also April 17, 1857 ("It rains about every other day now for a fortnight past."); April 22, 1856 (“These rain-storms -- this is the third day of one -- characterize 'the season, and belong rather to winter than to summer.

Friday. We hike under a perfectly clear sky in the slanting evening light to the view. We sit and watch the sunset. The sky turns light orange. The pond and the lake silvery reflecting the trees and shoreline, so smooth.

April 14, 2017

Later through the trees on the way to the double chair I turn and see the sunset sky is bright orange.  Just at dusk we hear the hermit thrush ( I for the first time) and then later in Eastland its clucking sound. I have to be reminded it is the hermit. Now under headlamp we walk out the Moosetrail and cut over up and down to the ski trail and around past the fort and home via Porcupine etc. There was a bright star at the double chair that we thought was a planet and then thought was Arcturus and I remembered at this time of year the dipper is upside down. Later we see it through the trees overhead.  It is a moonless night and all the stars are bright. Orion is somewhat crooked and setting in the southwest. zphx - 20170414

A strange turtle at Long Pond

April 13. 

Monday. 

To Middleborough ponds. There was no boat on Little Quitticus; so we could not explore it. 

Set out to walk round it, but, the water being high,— higher than anciently even, on account of dams, — we had to go round a swamp at the south end, about Joe’s Rocks, and R. gave it up. 

I went to Long Pond and waited for him. 

Saw a strange turtle, much like a small snapping turtle or very large Sternothaerus odoratus, crawling slowly along the bottom next the shore. Poked it ashore with a stick. It had a peculiarly square snout, two hinges to the sternum and both parts movable. Was very sluggish; would not snap nor bite. Looked old, being mossy above on the edge, and the scales greenish and eaten beneath. The flesh slate colored.* 

I saw that it was new and wished to bring it away, but had no paper to wrap it in. So I peeled a white birch, getting a piece of bark about ten inches long. I noticed that the birch sap was flowing. This bark at once curled back so as to present its yellow side out ward. I rolled it about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature, which would not be injured by moisture, far better than any paper, and so I brought it home to Concord at last. 

As my coat hung in R.’s shanty, over a barrel of paper, the morning that I came away the turtle made a little noise, scratching the birch bark in my pocket. R. observed, 

“ There is a mouse in that barrel. What would you do about it?”

“Oh, let him alone,” said I, “ he ’ll get out directly.”

“ They often get among my papers,” he added.

“ I guess I ’d better set the barrel outdoors.” 

I did not explain, and perhaps he experimented on the barrel after my departure.

As I sat on the shore there, waiting for R., I saw many mosquitoes flying low over the water close to the sandy shore. 

The turtle when I first saw him was slowly and tremblingly pacing along the bottom, rather toward the shore, with its large head far out on its outstretched neck. From its size and general color and aspect, I did not doubt at first that it was a snapping turtle, notwithstanding the season.

H  D. Thoreau, Journal, April 13, 1857 

To Middleborough ponds. See June 30, 1856 ("To Middleborough ponds in the new town of Lakeville") and  June 24, 1856 ("To Sassacowen Pond and to Long Pond")

I rolled [the strip of birch bark]about the turtle and folded the ends back and tied it round with a strip of birch bark, making a very nice and airy box for the creature. . .and so I brought it home to Concord at last. See April 25, 1857 ("I find that I can very easily make a convenient box of the birch bark, at this season at least, when the sap is running") See also   April 23, 1856 ("Brought it [a beetle] home in a clam’s shells tied up, —a good insect-box."); June 23, 1852 ("I am inclined to think that my hat, whose lining is gathered in midway so as to make a shelf, is about as good a botany-box as I could have and far more convenient. . .").

* The Freetown Turtle compared with Storer’s Sternothoerus.

Answers to the generic description, except perhaps that the posterior valve of the sternum is movable.

Compared with the S. odoratus. 

There is no peculiar scent to it. The upper shell is flattened on the dorsal ridge for the width of the dorsal plates and is not carinated there. (I find one as flat, and others are not carinated.) Color out of water a dirty brown. The marginal plates are a little narrower. 

The sternum (as well as that of my S. odomtus) is apparently composed of 11 instead of 9 plates, the anterior portion being composed of 5 instead of 3 plates. The posterior portion is distinctly movable, much more than the odoratus, and it is quite rounded on the sides. 

Irides not distinct. It appears as if blind. No yellow lines what ever on the head or neck. Jaws not dark-brown, but bluish-slate, as is the skin generally.

My two S. odoratus are 3 3/5 inches long by 2 1/2 wide and 1 1/2 inches high, being highest behind. The Freetown turtle is 4 inches long by 2 3/4 and 1 5/8  high, being highest forward. It has much green moss (?) on the rear and marginal plates, and the scales of the sternum are greenish and worn or carious. It is quite sluggish. Otherwise it apparently answers to Storer’s S. odoratus.

As the bay-wing sang many thousand years ago, so sang he to-night.

April 12.

Sunday. 

I think I hear the bay-wing here.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 12, 1857

See April 13, 1854 ("Did I see a bay-wing?"); April 13, 1855(“See a sparrow without marks on throat or breast, running peculiarly in the dry grass in the open field beyond, and hear its song, and then see its white feathers in tail; the bay-wing”); April 13, 1856 (“I hear a bay-wing on the railroad fence sing, the rhythm somewhat like, char char (or here here), che che, chip chip chip (fast), chitter chitter chitter chit (very fast and jingling), tchea tchea (jinglingly). It has another strain, considerably different, but a second also sings the above. Two on different posts are steadily singing the same, as if contending with each other, notwithstanding the cold wind”); May 12, 1857 ("As the bay-wing sang many thousand years ago, so sang he to-night.") See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Bay-Wing Sparrow

This is the critical season of a river, when it is fullest of life.

April 11. 

Saturday. 8 P. M. —Went to the Head of the River to see them catch smelts. 

The water there is fresh when the tide is out. They use nets five or six feet square, stretched from the ends of crossed semicircular hoops, at the ends of poles about twelve feet long. The net bags down when raised. 

There were twenty or thirty fishermen standing close together, half on each side of the narrow river, each managing one of these nets, while a good part of the village appeared to be collected on the bridge. The tide was then coming in, but the best time is when it is going out. 

A fisherman told me that the smelt run up in the night only. These fishers stood just below a two-arched bridge. The tide was coming up between the arches, while the fresh water which the smelt preferred was running down next the shore on each side. The smelt were ascending in these streams of fresh water on each side. 

The shore for half a dozen rods on each side was lined with fishers, each wielding a single net. This man told me that the smelt had been running up about one month and were now about done. The herring had been seen for a fortnight. They will run this month and all the next. The former leave off when the latter begin. Shad have not been caught yet. They come after herring. Eels, too, are occasionally caught now, going up from the deeper river below. These fishes spawn in the little pond just above the bridge. 

They let the net rest on the bottom and every two ,or three minutes lift it up. They get thirty or many more smelt sometimes at one lift and catch other fish in the same way, even bass, sea perch, pickerel, eels, and sometimes a trout. The shad make a ripple like a harrow, and you know when to raise the net. 

The villagers were talking across the stream, calling each other by their Christian names. Even mothers mingled with the fishermen, looking for their children. 

It suggested how much we had lost out of Concord River without realizing it. This is the critical season of a river, when it is fullest of life, its flowering season, the wavelets or ripples on its surface answering to the scales of the fishes beneath. 

If salmon, shad, and alewives were pressing up our river now, as formerly they were, a good part of the villagers would thus, no doubt, be drawn to the brink at this season. Many inhabitants of the neighborhood of the ponds in Lakeville, Freetown, Fairhaven, etc., have petitioned the legislature for permission to connect Little Quitticus Pond with the Acushnet River by digging, so that the herring can come up into it. 

The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man, as the pigeon and other fowls out of the air. I can hardly imagine a greater change than this produced by the influence of man in nature. 

Our Concord River is a dead stream in more senses than we had supposed. In what sense now does the spring ever come to the river, when the sun is not reflected from the scales of a single salmon, shad, or alewife? No doubt there is some compensation for this loss, but I do not at this moment see clearly what it is. 

That river which the aboriginal and indigenous fishes have not deserted is a more primitive and interesting river to me. It is as if some vital quality were to be lost out of a man’s blood and it were to circulate more lifelessly through his veins. We are reduced to a few migrating (?) suckers, perchance.

I saw the herring on sticks at the doors of many shops in New Bedford.

I saw the myrtle-bird here about a week ago.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, April 11, 1857

The very fishes in countless schools are driven out of a river by the improvements of the civilized man, as the pigeon and other fowls out of the air. See March 23, 1856 ("All the great trees and beasts, fishes and fowl are gone.")

The sun is not reflected from the scales of a single salmon, shad, or alewife ... See April 15, 1856 ("First salmon and shad at Haverhill to-day.");April 13, 1853 ("First shad caught at Haverhill to-day.")

Ricketson's shanty

April 10. 

Friday. Rain. 

D. R.’s shanty is about half a dozen rods southwest of his house (which may be forty rods from the road), nearly between his house and barn; is twelve by fourteen feet, with seven-feet posts, with common pent roof. In building it, he directed the carpenter to use Western boards and timber, though some Eastern studs (spruce?) were inserted. He had already occupied a smaller shanty at “ Woodlee ” about a mile south. The roof is shingled and the sides made of matched boards and painted a light clay-color with chocolate (?) colored blinds. 

Within, it is not plastered and is open to the roof, showing the timbers and rafters and rough boards and cross-timbers overhead as if ready for plastering. 

The door is at the east end with a small window on each side of it; a similar window on each side the building, and one at the west end, the latter looking down the garden walk. In front of the last window is a small box stove with a funnel rising to a level with the plate, and there inserted in a small brick chimney which rests on planks. 

On the south side the room, against the stove, is a rude settle with a coarse cushion and pillow; on the opposite side, a large low desk, with some book-shelves above it; on the same side, by the window, a small table covered with books; and in the northeast corner, behind the door, an old-fashioned secretary, its pigeonholes stuffed with papers. 

On the opposite side as you enter, is place for fuel, which the boy leaves each morning, a place to hang greatcoats. There were two small pieces of carpet on the floor, and Ricketson or one of his guests swept out the shanty each morning. There was a small kitchen clock hanging in the southwest Corner and a map of Bristol County behind the settle. 

The west and northwest side is well-nigh covered with slips of paper, on which are written some sentence or paragraph from R.’s favorite books. I noticed, among the most characteristic, Dibdin’s “ Tom Tackle,” a translation of Anaereon’s “Cicada,” lines celebrating tobacco, Milton’s “How charming is divine philosophy,” etc., “Inveni requiem: Spes et Fortuna valete. Nil mihi vobiscum est: ludite nunc alios” (is it Petrarch?) (this is also over the door), “ Mors aequo pulsat,” etc., some lines of his own in memory of A. J. Downing, “Not to be in a hurry,” over the desk, and many other quotations celebrating retirement, country life, simplicity, humanity, sincerity, etc., etc., from Cowper and other English poets, and similar extracts from newspapers. 

There were also two or three advertisements, — one of a cattle-show exhibition, another warning not to kill birds contrary to law (he being one of the subscribers ready to enforce the act), advertisement of a steamboat on Lake Winnepiseogee, etc., cards of his business friends. The size of different brains from Hall’s Journal of Health, and “Take the world easy.” A sheet of blotted blotting—paper tacked up, and of Chinese character from a tea-chest. 

Also a few small pictures and pencil sketches, the latter commonly caricatures of his visitors or friends, as “ The Trojan ” (Charming) and “ Van Best.” I take the more notice of these particulars because his peculiarities are so commonly unaffected. He has long been accustomed to put these scraps on his walls and has a basketful somewhere, saved from the old shanty. Though there were some quotations which had no right there, I found all his peculiarities faithfully expressed, —his humanity, his fear of death, love of retirement, simplicity, etc. 

The more characteristic books were Bordley’s “ Husbandry,” Drake’s “Indians,” Barber’s “Historical Collections,” Zimmermann on Solitude, Bigelow’s “Plants of Boston, etc.,” Farmer’s “Register of the First Settlers of New England,” Marshall’s “Garden ing,” Nicol’s “ Gardener,” John Woolman. “The Mod ern Horse Doctor,” Downing‘s “Fruits, etc.,” “The Farmer’s Library,” “Walden,” Dymond’s Essays, Job Scott’s Journal, Morton’s Memorial, Bailey’s Diction ary, Downing’s “Landscape Gardening, etc.,” “The Task,” Nuttall’s Ornithology, Morse’s Gazetteer, “The Domestic Practice of Hydropathy,” “ John Buncle,” Dwight’s Travels, Virgil, Young’s “Night Thoughts,” “ History of Plymouth,” and other “ Shanty Books.” 

There was an old gun, hardly safe to fire, said to be loaded with an inextractable charge, and also an old sword over the door, also a tin sign “D. Ricketson’s a small crumpled horn there. I counted more than twenty rustic canes scattered about, a dozen (or fifteen pipes of various patterns, mostly the common,, two spy glasses, an open paper of tobacco, an Indian’s jaw dug up, a stuffed blue jay and pine grosbeak, and a. rude Indian stone hatchet, etc., etc.

There was a box with fifteen or twenty knives, mostly very large and old: fashioned jack-knives, kept for curiosity, occasionally given away to a boy or friend. A large book full of pencil sketches to be inspected by whomsoever, containing countless sketches of his friends and acquaintances and himself and of wayfaring men whom he had met, Quakers, etc., etc., and now and then a vessel under full sail or an old-fashioned house, sketched on a peculiar pea-green paper. 

A pail of water stands behind the door, with a peculiar tin cup for drinking made in France.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 10, 1857