May 4th.--. . . . My cold no longer troubles me, and all the morning I
have been at work under the clear blue sky, on a hillside. Sometimes it
almost seemed as if I were at work in the sky itself, though the material
in which I wrought was the ore from our gold-mine. Nevertheless, there
is nothing so unseemly and disagreeable in this sort of toil as you could
think. It defiles the hands, indeed, but not the soul. This gold ore is
a pure and wholesome substance, else our mother Nature would not devour
it so readily, and derive so much nourishment from it, and return such a
rich abundance of good grain and roots in requital of it.

The farm is growing very beautiful now,--not that we yet see anything of
the peas and potatoes which we have planted; but the grass blushes green
on the slopes and hollows. I wrote that word "blush" almost
unconsciously; so we will let it go as an inspired utterance.

When I go forth afield, . . . . I look beneath the stonewalls, where the
verdure is richest, in hopes that a little company of violets, or some
solitary bud, prophetic of the summer, may be there. . . . . But not a
wildflower have I yet found. One of the boys gathered some yellow
cowslips last Sunday; but I am well content not to have found them, for
they are not precisely what I should like to send to you, though they
deserve honor and praise, because they come to us when no others will.
We have our parlor here dressed in evergreen as at Christmas. That
beautiful little flower-vase . . . . stands on Mr. Ripley's study-table,
at which I am now writing. It contains some daffodils and some
willow-blossoms. I brought it here rather than keep it in my chamber,
because I never sit there, and it gives me many pleasant emotions to look
round and be surprised--for it is often a surprise, though I well know