236 EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
hard croak, like a grating twig, comes up from 
the pool. Where there is a small, smooth sur¬ 
face of melted ice bathing the bare button 
bushes, or water andromeda, or tufts of sedge, 
such is the earliest voice of the liquid pools, 
hard and dry and grating. Unless you watch 
long and closely, not a ripple nor a bubble will 
be seen, and a marsh hawk will have to look 
long to find one. The notes of the croaking 
frog and the hylodes are not only contemporary 
with, but analogous to, the blossom of the skunk 
cabbage and white maple. 
March 26, 1860. This dry, whitish, tawny 
or drab color of the fields, withered grass lit by 
the sun, is the color of a teamster’s coat. It is 
one of the most interesting effects of light now, 
when the sun coming out of clouds shines 
brightly on it. It is the/bre-glow of the year. 
There is certainly a singular propriety in that 
color for the coat of a farmer or teamster, a 
hunter or shepherd, who is required to be much 
abroad in our landscape at this season. It is in 
harmony with nature, and you are less conspic¬ 
uous in the fields and can get nearer wild ani¬ 
mals for it. For this reason I am the better 
satisfied with the color of my hat, a drab, than 
with that of my companion, which is black, 
though his coat is of the exact tint, and better 
than mine. But again my dusty bqots harmon- 
