I am thinking what an elysian day it is, and
how I seem always to be keeping the flocks of
Admetus such days, that is my luck, when I
hear a single short stertorous croak from some
pool half-filled with dry leaves. You may see
anything now, the buff-edged butterfly and
many hawks along the meadow, and hark I
while I was writing down that field note, the
shrill peep of the hylodes was borne to me from
afar through the woods.
I rode with my employer a dozen miles to-
day, keeping a profound silence almost all the
way, as the most simple and natural course. I
treated him simply as if he had bronchitis and
could not speak, just as I would a sick man, a
crazy man, or an idiot. The disease was only
an unconquerable stiffness in a well-meaning
and sensible man.
Begin to look off the hills and see the land-
scape again through a slight haze, with warm
wind on the cheek.
April 5, 1855. 9 A. M. To Sudbury line by

boat It is a smooth April morning water,

and many sportsmen are out in their boats. I
see a pleasure boat on the smooth surface away
by the Rock, resting lightly as a feather in the
air. Scare up a snipe close to the water's edge,
and soon after a hen-hawk from the Clam-shell



294 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.
