(But first a neighbor sent in a girl to inquire if I knew where worm-seed grew, otherwise called “Jerusalem-oak” (so said the recipe which she brought cut out of a newspaper), for her mistress’s hen had the “gapes.” But I answered that this was a Southern plant and [I] knew not where it was to be had. Referred her to the poultry book. Also the next proprietor commenced stoning and settling down the stone for a new well, an operation which I wished to witness, purely beautiful, simple, and necessary. The stones laid on a wheel, and continually added to above as it is settled down by digging under the wheel. Also Goodwin, with a partridge and a stout mess of large pickerel, applied to me to dispose of a mud turtle which he had found moving the mud in a ditch. Some men will be in the way to see such movements.) . . .

  Cut three white pine boughs opposite Fair Haven, and set there up in the bow of our boat for a sail. It was pleasant [to] hear the water begin to ripple under the prow, telling of our easy progress. We thus without a tack made the south side of Fair Haven, then threw our sails overboard, and the moment after mistook them for green bushes or weeds which had sprung from the bottom unusually far from shore. Then to hear the wind sough in your sail,—that is to be a sailor and hear a land sound. The grayish-whitish mikania, all fuzzy, covers the endless button-bushes, which are now bare of leaves . . .

  In some places in the meadows opposite Bound Rock, the river seemed to have come to an end, it was so narrow suddenly. After getting in sight of Sherman’s Bridge, counted nineteen birches on the right-hand shore in one whirl.

  Now commenced the remarkable meandering of the river, so that we seemed for some [time] to be now running up, then running down parallel with a long, low hill, tacking over the meadow in spite of ourselves. Landed at Sherman’s Bridge. An apple tree, made scrubby by being browsed by cows . . .

  Rowed about twenty-four miles, going and coming. In a straight line it would be fifteen and one half.