Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/73

Rh is the following from Sophia, revealing her practical industry and her intense love for botany. It was written while she was teaching in Roxbury: "I must give vent to my ecstasies by writing you about the flowers I have found Since my return to Roxbury I have been very busy, having made myself a gown, worked half a collar like yours, made two visits, been in to Boston six times, besides attending school every day. To proceed to business; on the 19th of April I found the saxifraga; April 22d, I walked with the young ladies and gathered the viola and cinquefoil; April 26th, accompanied by nearly all my scholars I walked over to Dorchester, and much to my surprise found the caltha in blossom, which we did not find in Concord until the third week in May. The last week in April I found the blueberry, buttercup, dandelion and columbine in blossom,—as to the poor little houstonias I haven't glimpsed one this spring." In a postscript she adds that the Pyrus and viola blanda are also in blossom. Surely a woman who uses a postscript for a botanical fact may be pardoned! Like the rest of the family Sophia was fond of music and skilled both in voice and upon the piano, which was a late addition to the pleasures of the Thoreau home. As already hinted, she was the nurse and literary assistant of he