Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/67

Rh an April morning. There is a sound of bluebirds in the air, and the cocks crow as in the spring. The steam curls up from the roofs and the ground. You walk with open cloak. It is exciting to behold the smooth, glassy surface of water where the melted snow has formed large puddles and ponds, and to see it running in the sluices. In the afternoon to Saw mill brook with W. E. C. It feels as warm as in summer. You sit on any fence rail and vegetate in the sun, and realize that the earth may produce peas again. Yet they say that this open and mild weather is unhealthy. That is always the way with them. How admirable it is that we can never foresee the weather, that it is always novel. Yesterday nobody dreamed of to-day. Nobody dreams of to-morrow. Hence the weather is ever the news. This day yesterday was as incredible as any other miracle. Now all creatures feel it, even the cattle chewing stalks in the barn-yards, and perchance it has even penetrated to the lurking places of the crickets under the rocks.

Dec. 29, 1853. A driving snow-storm all day, imprisoning most, stopping the cars, blocking up the roads. The snow penetrates through the smallest crevices about doors and windows. It is the worst snow-storm to bear that I remember. A strong wind from