Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/76

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
62
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

sun, and we can sit in it when sheltered by these rocks with impunity. It is a genial warmth. The rustle of the dry leaves on the earth and in the crannies of the rocks, and gathered in deep windrows just under their edge, midleg deep, reminds me of fires in the woods. They are almost ready to burn.

March 4, 1859. We stood still a few moments on the turnpike below Wright's (the turnpike which has no wheel track beyond Tuttle's and no track at all beyond Wright's), and listened to hear a spring bird. We only heard the jay screaming in the distance and the cawing of a crow. What a perfectly New England sound is this voice of the crow! If you stand perfectly still anywhere in the outskirts of the town and listen, stilling the almost incessant hum of your personal factory, this is perhaps the sound which you will be most sure to hear, rising above all sounds of human industry, and leading your thoughts to some far bay in the woods, where the crow is venting his disgust. This bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge. It sees a race pass away, but it passes not away. It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.

March 5, 1841. How can our love increase