Nov. 16, 1924(2)
      It is well that I did.  It was a great epic day of terrific blinding blizzards interspersed with spells of ragged flashes of brilliant sunshine that fell thru great holes in the leaden sky.  It gave me a feeling of great power and exuberance. Somehow I think hearing Beethoven’s 5^th  Symphony Thursday played by the Boston Symphony prepared me for this day – set me on fire.  I have heard this piece by an orchestra before, and have long memorized every note from playing it on the Victrola, but Thursday night I first really heard it I believe.  The playing of the Scherzo and Finale fairly overwhelmed me.  Well, today filled me with riotous delight, cold as I got and burdened with an excess of materials that I couldn’t use.  It had more of the bitterness that I usually feel in November, none of the calamitous foreboding that I usually associate with a raw November day.  No, I felt that if this is winter’s announcement or vanguard – then I welcome it.
     Crossing Cattaraugus Creek I got my feetwet, but a stiff climb up the hill beyond soon warmed them up.  It was here the first lull came, and great ragged patches of blue appeared and the sun came forth for a brief instant causing the cottonwood saplings to bristle a sharp white against the purple brown woods.
     When I gained the hill top, puffing and was walking along the road, a blizzard sweeping over distant woods coming gradually my way. It was soon upon me – good sized snow bullets driven almost horizontally by the wind.  In about ten minutes to the north, the sky turned from smooth gray to overlapping layers, the crevices sunlit, against which the flying snow seemed dark gray.