EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 69 
roar heard here by an early settler. But there 
was a race here that slept on his skin. It was 
a new light when my guide gave me Indian 
names for things for which I had only scientific 
ones before. In proportion as I understood the 
language, I saw them from a new point of view. 
A dictionary of the Indian language reveals 
another and wholly new life to us. Look at 
the wood canoe, and see what a story it tells of 
out-door life, with the names of all its parts and 
of the modes of driving it, as our words describe 
the different parts of a coach; or at the word 
wigwam, and see how close it brings you to the 
ground ; or at Indian corn, and see which race 
has been most familiar with it. It reveals to 
to me a life within a life, or rather a life with¬ 
out a life, as it were threading the woods be¬ 
tween our towns, and yet we can never tread 
on its trail. The Indian’s earthly life was as 
far off from us as heaven is. 
I saw yesterday a musquash sitting on thin 
ice on the Assabet by a hole which it had kept 
open, gnawing a white root. Now and then it 
would dive and bring up more. I waited for 
it to dive again that I might run nearer to it 
meanwhile, but it sat ten minutes all wet in the 
freezing wind while my feet and ears grew 
numb, so tough it is. At last I got quite near. 
When I frightened it, it dove with a sudden 
