Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/139

Rh to Bedford, and see that peculiar scenery of March in which I have taken so many rambles; the earth just bare and beginning to be dry, the snow lying on the north sides of hills, the gray, deciduous trees, and the green pines soughing in the March wind. They look now as if deserted by a companion, the snow. When you walk over bare, lichen- clad hills, just beginning to be dry, and look afar over the blue water on the meadows, you are beginning to break up your winter quarters and plan adventures for the new year. The scenery is like, yet unlike, November. You have the same barren russet, but now instead of a dry, hard, cold wind, a peculiarly soft, moist air, or else a raw wind. Now is the reign of water. I see many crows on the water's edge these days. It is astonishing how soon the ice has gone out of the river. But it still lies on the bottom of the meadow.

Is it peculiar to the song-sparrow to dodge behind and hide in walls and the like?

Toward night the water becomes smooth and beautiful. Men are eager to launch their boats and paddle over the meadows.

March 12, 1856. I never saw such solid mountains of snow in the roads. You travel along for many rods over excellent, dry, solid sleighing where the road is perfectly level, not