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  P.M.—To Conantum.

  The dandelion blooms again . . .

  At length, before sundown, it begins to rain. You can hardly say when it began, and now, after dark, the sound of it dripping and pattering without is quite cheering. It is long since I heard it. One of those serious and normal storms, not a shower which you can see through, something regular, a fall (?) rain, coincident with a different mood or season of the mind, not a transient cloud that drops rain . . .

  Silvery cinquefoil now begins to show itself commonly again. Perhaps it is owing to the rain, springlike, which we have in August.

  I paddle directly across the meadow, the river is so high, and land cast of the elm on the third or fourth row of potatoes. The water makes more show on the meadows than yesterday, though hardly so high . . .

  Mr. Rice says that the brook just beyond his brother Israel’s in Sudbury rises and runs out before the river, and then you will see the river running up the brook as fast as the brook ran down before.

  Apparently half the pads are now afloat, notwithstanding the depth of the water, but they are almost all white lily pads . . .

  Plucked a Lilium Canadense at three-ribbed goldenrod wall, six and eight twelfths feet high, with a pyramid of seed-vessels fourteen inches long by nine wide, the first an irregular or diagonal whorl of six, surmounted by a whorl of three. The upper two whorls of leaves are diagonal or scattered . . .

  I gather from Nut Meadow Brook, not far below the road, a potamogeton (perhaps P. Claytoni (heterophyllus of Gray), which Russell said was the one by road at Jenny Dugan’s). It is still out. Has handsome broad, grassy immersed leaves and somewhat elliptic floating ones . . .

  Mother unites with me in assuring Charles Benjamin & Caleb, that we shall be happy to see them, & trust that they will not be in a hurry to go hence to Peterboro, but will first exhaust at their leisure whatever entertainment the dull town may afford. Accommodations will be provided for them at any rate, and such visitors as come later must take their chance. The prospect is that Concord will not be herself that week. I fear it will be more like Discord. Thank fortune, the camp will be nearly 2 miles west of us; yet the scamps will be “all over the lot.” The very anticipation of this muster has greatly increased the amount of travel past our house, for a month; & now, at last, whole houses have begun to roll that way. I fear that we shall have no melons to speak of for either friends or foes, unless perchance the present rain may revive them, for we are in the midst of a severe drought. Sophia is on a short visit to Miss Swift in Roxbury. Please let aunts know that their letter to her reached us yesterday, & that we shall expect them muster [indecipherable word]. We hope that Aunt Jane will be able to travel without inconvenience. I believe that the soldiers will come over the road on Tuesday; & I hear that cars will be run between Boston & Concord at very short intervals on the days of the muster.

  I should think that you might have a very pleasant journey to New Brunswick, & for my own part, I would rather go to where men will be mustered less thickly than they will be hereabouts next month.

  Edward Hoar, with wife & sister, leave Liverpool for home the 27 inst.

  I know the fatigue of much concentrating, especially of drawing accurate plans. It is the hardest work I can do. While following it, I need to go to Moosehead every afternoon, & camp out every night.

Yrs truly
Henry D. Thoreau

  See a large lien-haN%k sailing over Hubbard’s meadow and Clamshell, soaring at last very high and toward the north . . . (Journal, 14:61-62).

  I hope the “Atlantic Monthly” is to speak the good word for you. Emerson will see that it does. My neighbour Hawthorne is now reading your Book admiringly: And Thoreau, who has been busty with Monadnoc, for the last ten days, tells me he shall acknowledge your gift presently.