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  Herd’s-grass heads. The warmest afternoon as yet. Ground getting dry, it is so long since we had any rain to speak of.

  C. says he saw a “lurker” yesterday in the woods on the Marlborough road. He heard a distressing noise like a man sneezing but long continued, but at length found it was a man wheezing. He was oldish and grizzled, the stumps of his grizzled beard about an inch long, and his clothes in the worst possible condition,—a wretched-looking creature, an escaped convict hiding in the woods, perhaps. He appeared holding on to his paunch, and wheezing as if it would kill him. He appeared to have come straight through the swamp, and—what was most interesting about him, and proved him to be a lurker of the first class,—one of our party, as C. said,—he kept straight, through a field of rye which was fully grown, not regarding it in the least; and, though C. tried to conceal himself on the edge of the rye, fearing to hurt his feelings if the man should mistake him for the proprietor, yet they met, and the lurker, giving him a short bow, disappeared in the woods on the opposite side of the road . . .

  Sisymbrium amphibium (?) of Bigelow, some days, at foot of Loring’s land. Common mallows well out; how long? . . . I see a black caterpillar on the black willows nowadays with red spots . . .

  Mr. Thoreau gauged everything by his beloved Concord River—there an island could be waded to; here was evidently an island—let us wade over there! But there are island and islands, channels and channels! And a rising tide on a flat in Plymouth Harbour is a swift river, full of danger.

  Fortunately for our Concord guest, a small fishing boat was on hand just at the nick of time to save him for his task of writing many volumes for the future joy of all lovers of nature! The skipper landed him at the North End—the back door of the island, so to speak, and here was greeted by the “lord of the isle,” known to all his friends as “Uncle Ed,” Edward Winslow Watson, and a worthy representative of the Pilgrims who spent their first Sunday on this island.

  Bluff and hearty was his welcome, and his first question was, “Where d’ye hail from?” Mr. Thoreau, fresh from the rescue, must have been breathless from climbing the cliffs and overcome with the mighty clap on his slender back that welcomed his answer. “From Concord, Sir, my name is Thoreau,” with “You don’t say so!” I’ve read somewhere in one of your books that you ‘lost a hound, a horse, and a dove.’ Now what do you mean by it?”

  Mr. Thoreau looked up with shy, dark blue eyes, as someone said he looked like a wild woodchuck ready to run back to his hole, and he was very ruddy of complexion, with reddish brown hair and wore a greatcoat—he looked up then in shy astonishment at this breezy, broad-shouldered, white-haired sea farmer, reader of his books. “Well, Sir, I suppose we have all had our loses.” “That’s a pretty way to answer a fellow,” replied the unsatisfied student of a fellow-poet and lover of nature.

  P.M.—To Gowing’s Swamp.

  I notice interrupted ferns, which were killed, fruit and all, by the frosts of the 28th and 29th of May, now coming up afresh from the root. The barren fronds seem to have stood it better . . .