Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/226

216 sarmentosa, running cinquefoil, we had common enough in the spring.

June 23. 1852. 5 To Laurel Glen. The bobolink still sings, though not as in May.

The pretty little Mitchella repens, with its twin flowers, spots the ground under the pines, its downy-petaled. cross-shaped flowers, and its purplish buds.

The grass is not nearly so wet after thunder showers in the night as after an ordinary dew. Apparently the rain falls so swiftly and hard that it does not rest on the leaves, and then there is no more moisture to be deposited in dew.

The mountain laurel in bloom in cool and shady woods reminds one of the vigor of Nature. It is perhaps a first-rate flower, considering its size and its evergreen leaves. The flower, curiously folded in a ten-angled, pyramidal form, is remarkable. A profusion of flowers with an innocent fragrance. It reminds me of shady mountain-sides where it forms the underwood.

I hear my old Walden owl. Its first note is almost like the somewhat peevish scream or squeal of a child shrugging its shoulders. Then succeed two more moderate and musical ones.–The wood-thrush sings at all hours. I associate it with the cool morning, the sultry noon, and