Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/46

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32
EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS.

pletely, and two brown creepers once in the middle of February. C——— says he saw a little olivaceous green bird lately. I have not seen a Fringilla linaria, nor a pine grossbeak, nor a Fringilla hiemalis this winter, though the first was the prevailing bird last winter.

In correcting my MSS., which I do with sufficient phlegm, I find that I invariably turn out much that is good along with the bad, which it is then impossible for me to distinguish,—so much for keeping bad company; but after a lapse of time, having purified the main body and thus created a distinct standard for comparison, I can review the rejected sentences, and easily detect those which deserve to be readmitted.

p. m. To Walden by R. W. E.'s. I am surprised to see how bare Minot's hillside is already. It is spring there, and M. is puttering outside in the sun. How wise in his grandfather to select such a site for a house; the summers he has lived there have been so much longer. How pleasant the calm season and the warmth (the sun is even like a burning glass on my back), and the sight and sound of melting snow running down the hill. I look in among the withering grass blades for some starting greenness. I listen to hear the first bluebird in the soft air. I hear the dry cluck-