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Rh bed of sickness or a tented field, it is ever the same fair play, and admits no foolish distinction. Despair and postponement are cowardice and defeat. Men were born to succeed, not to fail.

March 21, 1854. At sunrise to Clam-shell Hill. River skimmed over at Willow Bay last night. Thought I should find ducks cornered up by the ice. They get behind this hill for shelter. Saw what looked like clods of plowed meadow rising above the ice. Looked with glass and found it to be more than thirty black ducks asleep with their heads in their backs, motionless, thin ice being formed about them. Soon one or two were moving about slowly. There was an open space, eight or ten rods by one or two. At first all were within a space of apparently less than a rod in diameter. It was 6½ and the sun shining on them, but bitter cold. How tough they are. I crawled far on my stomach and got a near view of them, thirty rods off. At length they detected me and quacked. Some got out upon the ice, and when I rose up all took to flight in a great straggling flock, looking at a distance like crows, in no order. Yet when you see two or three, the parallelism produced by their necks and bodies steering the same way gives the idea of order.