. Through the year with Thoreau . hes. I penetrate to islets inaccessible insummer, my feet slumping to the sphagnum far outof sight beneath, where the alder berry glows yetand the azalea buds, and perchance a single treesparrow or a chickadee lisps by my side, where thereare few tracks even of wild animals; perhaps only amouse or two have burrowed up by the side of sometwig, and hopped away in straight lines on the sur-face of the light, deep snow, as if too timid to delay,to another hole by the side of another bush; and afew rabbits have run in a path amid the blueberriesand alders about the
. Through the year with Thoreau . hes. I penetrate to islets inaccessible insummer, my feet slumping to the sphagnum far outof sight beneath, where the alder berry glows yetand the azalea buds, and perchance a single treesparrow or a chickadee lisps by my side, where thereare few tracks even of wild animals; perhaps only amouse or two have burrowed up by the side of sometwig, and hopped away in straight lines on the sur-face of the light, deep snow, as if too timid to delay,to another hole by the side of another bush; and afew rabbits have run in a path amid the blueberriesand alders about the edge of the swamp. This isinstead of a Polar Sea expedition and going afterFranklin. There is but little life and but few objects,it is true. We are reduced to admire buds, even likethe partridges, and bark, like the rabbits and mice,— the great yellow and red forward-looking buds ofthe azalea, the plump red ones of the blueberry, andthe fine sharp red ones of the panicled andromeda, . ^ v*-rb -^ V I -^ V,-^ \ ^ y -^ Jt i ^ ^l. ilr,.yCiili^: »i*a4_ <4]«:aj -lj««.. 11^5: sleeping along its stem, the speckled black alder, therapid-growing dogwood, the pale-brown and crackedblueberry, etc. Even a little shining bud which liessleeping behind its twig and dreaming of spring, per-haps half concealed by ice, is object enough. I feelmyself upborne on the andromeda bushes beneaththe snow, as on a springy basketwork, then down Igo up to my middle in the deep but silent snow, whichhas no sympathy with my mishap. Beneath the levelof this snow how many sweet berries will be hangingnext Augu^! Journal, viii, 99, 100. [ 136 ] A LODGING SNOW January 20, 1855. In many instances the snowhad lodged on trees yesterday in just such forms asa white napkin or counterpane dropped on themwould take, — protuberant in the middle, withmany folds and dimples. An ordinary leafless bushsupported so much snow on its twigs — a perfectmaze like a whirligig, though not in one solid mass— that you
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