Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/440

426 his son George fired at white swans in Texas on the water, and though George shot two with ball, and killed them, the others in each case gathered about them, and crowded them off out of their reach.

Feb. 23, 1856. I read in the papers that the ocean is frozen, or has been lately, on the back side of Cape Cod, at the Highland Light, one mile out from the shore (not to bear or walk on probably), a phenomenon which, it is said, the oldest have not witnessed before.

Feb. 23, 1857. See two yellow-spotted tortoises in the ditch S. of Trillium wood. You saunter expectant in the mild air along the soft edge of a ditch filled with melted snow, and paved with leaves in some sheltered place, yet perhaps with some ice at one end still, and are thrilled to see stirring mid the leaves at the bottom, sluggishly burying themselves from your sight again, these brilliantly spotted creatures. There are commonly two, at least. The tortoise is stirring in the ditches again. In your latest spring, they still look incredibly strange when first seen, and not like cohabitants and contemporaries of yours.

I say in my thought to my neighbor who was once my friend, It is of no use to speak the truth to you. You will not hear it. What then shall I say to you?