gravity of aspect, each occupying a separate bough, or perhaps the
blasted tip-top of a pine. As you approach, one after another, with loud
cawing, flaps his wings and throws himself upon the air.

There is hardly a more striking feature in the landscape nowadays than
the red patches of blueberry and whortleberry bushes, as seen on a
sloping hillside, like islands among the grass, with trees growing in
them; or crowning the summit of a bare, brown hill with their somewhat
russet liveliness; or circling round the base of an earth-imbedded rock.
At a distance, this hue, clothing spots and patches of the earth, looks
more like a picture than anything else,--yet such a picture as I never
saw painted.

The oaks are now beginning to look sere, and their leaves have withered
borders. It is pleasant to notice the wide circle of greener grass
beneath the circumference of an overshadowing oak. Passing an orchard,
one hears an uneasy rustling in the trees, and not as if they were
struggling with the wind. Scattered about are barrels to contain the
gathered apples; and perhaps a great heap of golden or scarlet apples is
collected in one place.


Wednesday, October 13th.--A good view, from an upland swell of our
pasture, across the valley of the river Charles. There is the meadow, as
level as a floor, and carpeted with green, perhaps two miles from the
rising ground on this side of the river to that on the opposite side.
The stream winds through the midst of the flat space, without any banks
at all; for it fills its bed almost to the brim, and bathes the meadow
grass on either side. A tuft of shrubbery, at broken intervals, is
scattered along its border; and thus it meanders sluggishly along,