Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/335

Rh ones in sight. It was very difficult to find one not injured by insects. Even the buds which were just about to expand were frequently bored quite through, and the water had rotted them. You must be on hand early to anticipate insects. I bring home a dozen perfect lily buds, all I can find within many rods, which have never yet opened. I prepare a large pan of water, and cutting their stems quite short, I turn back their calyx leaves with my fingers, so that they may float upright; then, touching the points of their petals, and breathing or blowing on them, I toss them in. They spring open rapidly, or gradually expand in the course of an hour, all but one or two.—At 12.30 I perceive that the lilies in the river have begun to shut up. I go again at 2.30 and every lily is shut.

I will here tell the history of my rosaceous lilies, plucked the 1st of July. They were buds at the bottom of a pitcher of water all the 2d, having been kept in my hat part of the day before. On the morning of the 3d I assisted their opening, and put them in water, as I have described. They did not shut up at noon, like those on the river, but at dark, their petals, at least, quite close. They all opened again in the course of the forenoon of the 4th, but had not shut up at 10 o'clock, though I found them