Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/200

190 white oak in Merrick's pasture was a very beautiful sight, with its rich shade of green, its top, as it were, incrusted with light. Suddenly comes the gust, and the big drops slanting from the north. The birds fly as if rudderless, and the trees bow and are wrenched. It comes against the windows like hail, and is blown over the roofs like steam or smoke. The lightning runs down the large elm at Holbrook's and shatters the house near by. Soon the sun shines in silver puddles in the streets.

Men may talk about measures till all is blue and smells of brimstone, and then go home and sit down and expect their measures to do their duty for them. The only measure is integrity and manhood.

June 19, 1859. To Heywood Meadow and Well Meadow. A flying squirrel's nest in a covered hollow in a small old stump  covered with fallen leaves and a portion of the stump. Nest apparently of dry grass. Saw three young run out after the mother, and up a slender oak. The young half grown, very tender looking and weak-tailed. Yet one climbed quite to the top of an oak twenty-five feet high, though feebly. Their claws must be very sharp and early developed. The mother rested quite near on a small projecting stub, big as a pipe stem, curled crosswise on it. They have a more rounded head and