Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/159

Rh pools. They must awake in good condition. As Walden opens eight days earlier than I have known it, so this frog croaks about as much earlier It is remarkable how little certain knowledge even old weather-wise men have of the comparative earliness of the year. They will speak of the passing spring as earlier or later than they ever knew, when perchance the third spring before, it was equally early or late, as I have known.

March 16, 1840. The cabins of the settlers are the points whence radiate these rays of green and yellow and russet over the landscape. Out of these go the axes and spades with which the landscape is painted. How much is the Indian summer and the budding of spring related to the cottage. Have not the flight of the crow and the gyrations of the hawk a reference to that roof?

The ducks alight at this season on the windward side of the river in the smooth water, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves and diving to peck at the root of the lily and the cranberries, which the frost has not loosened. It is impossible to approach them within gunshot when they are accompanied by the gull which rises sooner and makes them restless. They fly to windward first in order to get under weigh, and are more easily reached