Page:Summer - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/346

336 July 6, 1852. 2.30 To Beck Stow's, thence to Sawmill Brook, and return by Walden.—Now for the shade of oaks in pastures. The witnesses attending court sit on the benches in the shade of the great elm. The cattle gather under the trees. The pewee is heard in the heat of the day, and the red-eye (?). The pure white cymes (?) of the elder are very conspicuous along the edges of meadows, contrasting with the green above and around. From the lane in front of Hawthorne's, I see dense beds of tufted vetch, Vicia cracca, for some time, taking the place of the grass in the low grounds, blue inclining in spots to lilac like the lupines. This, too, was one of the flowers that Proserpine was gathering; yellow lilies, also. It is affecting to see such an abundance of blueness in the grass. It affects the eyes, this celestial color. I see it afar in masses on the hill-sides near the meadow, so much blue, laid on with so heavy a hand!—In selecting a site in the country, let a lane near your house, grass-grown, cross a sizable brook where is a watering-place.—I see a pickerel in the brook showing his whitish, greedy upper lips projecting over the lower. How well concealed he is. He is generally of the color of the muddy bottom, or the decayed leaves and wood that compose it, and the longitudinal light stripe on his back, and the transverse ones on his