A still and warm but overcast morning, threatening rain. I now again hear the song sparrow’s tinkle along the riverside, probably to be heard for a day or two, and a robin, which also has been heard a day or two. The ground is almost completely bare, and but little ice forms at night along the riverside.

  I meet Goodwin paddling up the still, dark river on his first voyage to Fair Haven for the season, looking for muskrats and from time to time picking up driftwood—logs and boards, etc.—out of the water and laying it up to dry on the bank, to eke out his wood-pile with . . .