Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/157

Rh hear some sound out of the distance which will express the mood of nature. The cock and the hen, that pheasant which we have domesticated, are perhaps the most sensitive among domestic animals to atmospheric changes. You cannot listen a moment such a day as this, but you will hear from far or near the clarion of the cock celebrating this new season, yielding to the influence of the south wind, or the drawling note of the hen dreaming of eggs that are to be. These are the sounds that fill the air, and no hum of insects. They are affected like voyagers approaching the land. We discover a new world every time we see the earth again, after it has been covered for a season with snow.

Jan. 8, 1861. The Indians taught us not only the use of corn and how to plant it, but also of whortleberries and how to dry them for winter, and made us baskets to put them in. We should have hesitated long to eat some kinds of berries, if they had not set us the example, having learned by long experience that they were not only harmless, but salutary. I have added a few to my number of edible ones by walking behind an Indian in Maine who ate such as I never thought of eating before. Of course they made a much greater account of wild fruits than we do. What we call huckleberry cake made of Indian meal and huckleberries was