for thirty days. He told him that he should have it if he would give proper security. But the other, thinking it exorbitant to require security for so short a term, went away. He soon returned, however, and gave the security; "and," said the farmer, "he has punctually paid me twelve dollars a year ever since. I have never said a word to him about the principal."
March 2, 1854. What produces the peculiar softness of the air yesterday and to-day, as if it were the air of the south, suddenly pillowed amid our wintry hills. We have suddenly a different sky, a different atmosphere. It is as if the subtlest possible soft vapor were diffused through the atmosphere. Warm air has come to us from the south, but charged with moisture which will yet distill into rain or congeal into snow and hail.
March 2, 1855. Another still, warm, beautiful day, like yesterday. 9. a. m. To Great Meadows to see the ice. These meadows, like all the rest, are one great field of ice a foot thick, to their utmost verge far up the hillsides and into the swamps, sloping upward there, without water under it, resting almost everywhere on the ground, a great undulating field of ice, rolling, prairie-like, the earth wearing this dry icy shield or armor, which shines in
