Checking in on Thoreau: “The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again.”
Four Striped Ground Squirrels by John James Audubon, via Princeton University Library
March 7 [1855]. We were walking along the sunny hillside on the south of Fair Haven Pond (on the 4th), which the choppers had just laid bare, when, in a sheltered and warmer place, we heard a rustling amid the dry leaves on the hillside and saw a striped squirrel eying us from its resting-place on the bare ground. It sat still till we were within a rod, then suddenly dived into its hole, which was at its feet, and disappeared. The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again.
Henry David Thoreau, from his Journal
Part of an all-too-occasional series in which look back on what HDT was doing on this calendar day.
