EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
29 
high wind takes off the oak leaves. I see 
them scrambling up the slopes of the Deep 
Cut, hurry scurry like a flock of squirrels. .... 
For the past month there has been more sea- 
room in the day, without so great danger of 
running aground on one of those two promon¬ 
tories that make it so arduous to navigate the 
winter day, the morning or the evening. It is 
a narrow pass, and you must go through with 
the tide. Might not some of my pages be 
called the short days of winter. 
From Pine Hill looking westward I see the 
snow-crust shine in the sun as far as the eye 
can reach, — snow which fell yesterday morn¬ 
ing. Then before night came the rain, then 
in the night the freezing northwest wind, and 
where day before yesterday half the ground 
was bare, is this sheeny snow-crust to-day. 
March 1, 1838. Spring. March fans it, 
April christens it, and May puts on its jacket 
and trousers. It never grows up, but, Alex¬ 
andrine-like, “ drags its slow length along,” — 
ever springing, bud following close upon leaf, —- 
and when winter comes it is not annihilated, 
but creeps on mole-like under the snow, show¬ 
ing its face, nevertheless, occasionally by fuming 
springs and watercourses. So let our manhood 
be a more advanced and still advancing youth, 
bud following hard upon leaf. By the side of 
