Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/165

Rh day, and his Augean stable work, so serious is the life he lives.

Jan. 10, 1856. The weather has considerably moderated,—2° at breakfast time. It was —8° at seven last evening, but this has been the coldest night probably. You lie with your feet or legs curled up, waiting for the morning, the sheets shining with frost about your mouth. Water left by the stove is frozen thick, and what you sprinkle in bathing falls on the floor, ice. The house plants are all frozen, and soon droop and turn black. I look out on the roof of a cottage covered a foot deep with snow, wondering how the poor children in its garret, with their few rags, contrive to keep their toes warm. I mark the white smoke from its chimney whose contracted wreaths are soon dissipated in this stinging air, and think of the size of their wood pile. And again I try to realize how they panted for a breath of cool air those sultry nights last summer. Recall, realize now, if you can, the hum of the mosquito.

It seems that the snow-storm of Saturday night was a remarkable one, reaching many hundred miles along the coast. It is said that some thousands passed the night in the cars.—The kitchen windows were magnificent last night with their frost sheaves, surpassing any cut or ground glass.