EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 37 
for thirty days. He told him that he should 
have it if he would give proper security. But 
the other, thinking it exorbitant to require 
security for so short a term, went away. He 
soon returned, however, and gave the security; 
“and,” said the farmer, “he has punctually 
paid me twelve dollars a year ever since. I 
have never said a word to him about the prin¬ 
cipal.” 
March 2, 1854. What produces the peculiar 
softness of the air yesterday and to-day, as if it 
were the air of the south suddenly pillowed 
amid our wintry hills. We have suddenly a 
different sky, a different atmosphere. It is as 
if the subtlest possible soft vapor were diffused 
through the atmosphere. Warm air has come 
to us from the south, but charged with moist¬ 
ure which will yet distill into rain or congeal 
into snow and hail. 
March 2, 1855. Another still, warm, beauti¬ 
ful day, like yesterday. 9. A. M. To Great 
Meadows to see the ice. These meadows, like 
all the rest, are one great field of ice a foot 
thick, to their utmost verge far up the hillsides 
and into the swamps, sloping upward there, 
without water under it, resting almost every¬ 
where on the ground, a great undulating field 
of ice, rolling, prairie-like, the earth wearing 
this dry icy shield or armor, which shines in 
