Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, November 19, 1911

I awoke this morning about five o’clock and yawned.  I knew mother wouldn’t get up till seven and I hated to lay so long.  However, I managed to sleep a while longer and then I again woke.  Presently I heard the alarm clock go off and I was glad.  I soon got up and felt fine for a walk.  It was only seven o’clock and we had decided not to go until eight.  So after breakfast I read awhile.

Presently Frances got up and ate her breakfast.  So we bundled up good and warm, with stocking cap over our tender earlets.  The wind had died down some but was still blowing briskly.  It was very cold but as we went out High St, it sent a glow to our faces and made us feel good.  We decided to go to the woods this time and headed our way to Bentleys.  Here and there ice had formed over sod and we considered it great fun to sink in a little but not too much.  Soon we were in Bentleys, on the North side, following the winding patches it led thru (sic) the underbrush.  Soon we came to where it was swampy and so we turned to a south path and decided to go home by way of South Bentley’s.  At one place I found one of the yellow puffballs which I pounded on a tree.  At the same place we saw what I first thought was some odd kind of lichen.  But on examining it closely we found it to be ice.  Evidently, piles of soft mud had frozen and then the mud sunk down leaving cubelike splinters of ice sticking up in the air.  Near here was a beech-tree overgrown with Carrion Flower and green-brier.  The bright green stems of the vines and the white bark of the beech together with the dull blue berries of the Carrion flower made a pretty sight.  Soon we were in South Bentley’s headed homeward.  On the way home we came to where a little pool had frozen over, and the water underneath had sunk into the earth, leaving the thin crust of ice free.  We took great pleasure in smashing it.  When we got home we found we had been out exactly one hour and ten minutes.  Already we have made plans to go out either to Post’s or Pine hollow next Sunday. 

I started at once to sketch branches, which took me till after supper before I had finished.  Toward evening the clouds disappeared, leaving a cold starry sky.  This made me decide to go out in the woods to-morrow.  I have just finished making some tags for branches and am now going to bed. 

Charles E Burchfield, Sunday Nov. 19, 1911.