Play Ball!Thoreau's Journal: 10-Apr-1856

Fast-Day.—Some fields are dried sufficiently for the games of ball with which this season is commonly ushered in. I associate this day, when I can remember it, with games of baseball played over behind the hills of Sleepy Hollow, where the snow was just melted and dried up, also with the uncertainty I always experienced whether the shops would be shut, whether we should have an ordinary dinner, and extraordinary one, or none at all, and whether there would be more than one service at the meeting-house. This last uncertainty old folks share with me. This is a windy day, drying up the fields; the first we have had for a long time.