P.M.—To Assabet Bath.

  The elm avenue above the Wheeler farm is one of the hottest places in the town ; the heat is reflected from the dusty road. The grass by the roadside begins to have a dry, hot, dusty look. The melted ice is running almost in a stream from the countryman’s covered wagon. . .

  In the evening, the moon being about full, I paddle up the river to see the moonlight and hear the bullfrogs . . . I see at 9.30 P.M. a little brood of four or five barn swallows, which have quite recently left the nest, perched close together for the night on a dead willow twig in the shade of the tree, about four feet above the water . . .