EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 93 
for their baskets. This is what they set about 
to ascertain as soon as they arrive in any strange 
neighborhood. 
March 9, 1852. A warm spring rain in the 
night. . 3 P. M. Down the railroad. Cloudy, 
but spring-like. When the frost comes out of 
the ground there is a corresponding thawing of 
the man. The earth is now half bare. These 
March winds, which make the woods roar and 
fill the world with life and bustle, appear to wake 
up the trees out of their winter sleep and excite 
the sap to flow. I have no doubt they serve 
some such use, as well as to hasten the evap¬ 
oration of the snow and water. The railroad 
men have now their hands full. I hear and see 
bluebirds come with the warm wind. The sand 
is flowing in the deep cut. I am affected by 
the sight of the moist red sand or subsoil under 
the edge of the sandy bank under the pitch 
pines. The railroad is perhaps our pleasantest 
and wildest road. It only makes deep cuts into 
and through the hills. On it are no houses nor 
foot-travelers. The travel on it does not dis¬ 
turb me. The woods are left to hang over it. 
Though straight, it is wild in its accompani¬ 
ments, keeping all its raw edges. Even the 
laborers on it are not like other laborers. Its 
houses, if any, are shanties, and its ruins the 
ruins of shanties, shells where the race that 
