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  I trust you have not thought me neglectful or dilatory with regard to your business. I have done my very best, throughout, and it is only to-day that I have been able to lay my hand on the money due you from Graham. I have been to see him in Philadelphia, but did not catch him in his business office; then I have been here to meet him, and been referred to his brother, etc. I finally found the two numbers of the work in which your article was published (not easy, I assure you, for be has them not, nor his brother, and I hunted them up, and bought one of them at a very out-of-the-way place), and with these I made out a regular bill for the contribution; drew a draft on G. R. Graham for the amount, gave it to his brother here for collection, and to-day received the money. Now you see how to get pay yourself, another time, I have pioneered the way, and you can follow it easily yourself. There has been no intentional injustice on Graham’s part; but he is overwhwelmed with business, has too many irons in the fire, and we did not go at him the right way. Had you drawn a draft on him, at first, and given it to the Concord Bank to send in for collection, you would have received your money long since. Enough of this. I have made Graham pay you $75, but I only send you $50, for, having got so much for Carlyle, I am ashamed to take your “Maine Woods” for $25.

I have expectations of procuring it a place in a new magazine of high character that will pay. I don’t expect to get as much for it as for Carlyle, but I hope to get $50. If you are satisfied to take the $25 for your “Maine Woods,” say so, and I will send on the money; but I don’t want to seem a Jew, buying your articles at half price to speculate upon. If you choose to let it go that way, it shall be so; but I would sooner do my best for you, and send you the money.

Thoreau, if you will only write one or two articles, when in the spirit, about half the length of this, I can sell it readily and advantageously. The length of your papers is the only impediment to their appreciation by the magazines . Give me one or two shorter, and I will try to coin them speedily.

  P.M.—To Loring’s Pond.

  Decidedly fair weather at last; a bright, breezy, flowing, washing day. I see that dull-red grass whose blades, having risen above the surface of the water . . .

  P.M.—To Corner Spring and Fair Haven Cliff . . .

  Returning toward Fair Haven, I perceive at Potter’s fence the first whiff of that ineffable fragrance from the Wheeler meadow . . . Sit on Cliffs . . . Returning slowly, I sit on the wall of the orchard by the white pine . . . Coming home from Spring by Potter’s Path to the Corner road in the dusk, saw a dead-leaf-colored hylodes . . .

  The water is now tepid in the morning to the hands (may have been a day or two), as I slip my hands down the paddle. Hear the wood pewee, the warm weather sound. As I was returning over the meadow this side of the Island, I saw the snout of a mud turtle above the surface . . .

  P.M.—To Cedar Swamp via Assabet . . .

  There is a surprising change since I last passed up the Assabet; the fields are now clothed with so dark and rich a green, and the wooded shore is all lit up with the tender, bright green of birches fluttering in the wind and shining in the light, and red maple keys are seen at a distance against the tender green of birches and other trees, tingeing them . . .

  P.M.—To my boat at Cardinal Shore, hence to Lee’s Cliff . . .

  At the Kalmia Swamp, see and hear the redstart, very lively and restless, flirting and spreading its reddish tail . . .

  Meanwhile I hear a loud hum and see a splendid male hummingbird coming zigzag in long tacks, like a bee, but far swifter, along the edge of the swamp, in hot haste. He turns aside to taste the honey of the Andromeda calyculata (already visited by bees) within a rod of me. This golden-green gem. Its burnished back looks as if covered with green scales dusted with gold. It hovers, as it were stationary in the air, with an intense humming before cash little flower-bell of the humble Andromeda calyculata, and inserts its long tongue in each, turning toward me that splendid ruby on its breast, that glowing ruby. Even this is coal-black in some lights! There, along with me in the deep, wild swamp, above the andromeda, amid the spruce. Its hum was heard afar at first, like that of a large bee . . .

  Gold-thread is abundantly out at Trillium Woods. The yellow birch catkins, now fully out or a little past prime, are very handsome now, numerous clusters of rich golden catkins hanging straight clown at a height from the ground on the end of the pendulous branches, amid the just expanding leaf-buds. It is like some great chandelier hung high over the underwood . . .