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  P.M.—To Hunt’s Bridge . . . Coming home along the causeway, a robin sings (though faintly) as in May . . .

  People are talking about my Uncle Charles. Minott tells how he heard Tilly Brown once asking him to show him a peculiar (inside?) lock in wrestling. “Now, don’t hurt me, don’t throw me hard.” He struck his antagonist inside his knees with his feet, and so deprived him of his legs. Hosmer remembers his tricks in the barroom, shuffling cards, etc. . . .

  Hear [Daniel] R[icketson]. describing to Alcott his bachelor uncle James Thornton. When he awakes in the morning he lights the fire in his stove (all prepared) with a match on the end of a stick, without getting up. When he gets up he first attends to his ablutions, being personally very clean, cuts off a head of tobacco to clean his teeth with, eats a hearty breakfast, sometimes, it was said, even buttering his sausages. Then he goes to a relative’s store and reads the Tribune till dinner, sitting in a corner with his back to those who enter. Goes to his boarding-house and dines, eats an apple or two, then in the afternoon frequently goes about the solution of some mathematical problem (having once been a schoolmaster), which often employs him a week.

  About 9 A.M., C. [William Ellery Channing] and I paddle down the river. It is a remarkably warm and pleasant day. The shore is alive with tree sparrows sweetly warbling, also blackbirds, etc. The crow blackbirds which I saw last night are hoarsely clucking from time to time. Approaching the island, we hear the air full of the hum of bees, which at first we refer to the near trees. It comes from the white maples across the North Branch, fifteen rods off . . .

  Your check for thirty-five dollars in payment for my article in the August number of Putnam’s Monthly has come duly to hand – for which accept the acknowledgments of

Yrs respectfully
Henry D. Thoreau

  PS. Will you please forward the following note to the Editor

  At length from July 30th inclusive the cloud-like wreaths of mist of these dog-days lift somewhat, and the sun shines out more or less, a short time, at 3 P.M.

  The sun coming out when I am off Clamshell, the abundant small dragon-flies of different colors, brightblue and lighter, looped along the floating vallisneria . . .

  Our river is so sluggish and smooth that I can trace a boat that has passed half an hour before, by the bubbles on its surface, which have not burst. I have known thus which stream another party had gone up long before. A swift stream soon blots out such traces . . .