Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/188

174 to believe that the mass of men are never so lifted above themselves that their destiny is seen to be transcendently beautiful and grand.

Jan. 13, 1858. At Jonathan Buffum's, Lynn. Lecture in John B. Alley's parlor. Mr. J. Buffum describes to me ancient wolf traps, made probably by the early settlers in Lynn, perhaps after an Indian model; one some two miles from the shore near Saugus, another, more northerly, holes say seven feet deep, about as long, and some three feet wide, stoned up very smoothly and perhaps converging a little, so that the wolf could not get out.—Tradition says that a wolf and a squaw were one morning found in the same hole, staring at each other.

Jan. 13, 1860. Farmer says that he remembers his father saying that as he stood in a field once, he saw a hawk soaring above and eying something on the ground. Looking round, he saw a weasel there eying the hawk. Just then the hawk stooped, and the weasel at the same instant sprang upon him. Up went the hawk with the weasel, but by and by began to come down as fast as he went up, rolling over and over, till he struck the ground. His father going to him, raised him up, when out hopped the weasel from under his wing, and ran off, none the worse for his fall.