A QUEST FOR WINTER. 



THE winter so far had proved to be an unusually 

 severe summer. It was not exactly a case 

 of ''Winter lingering in the lap of Spring," 

 but of September holding over into the New Year. 

 Everybody was tired of the weakness of the temper- 

 ature, lingering up among the forties and fifties. 

 There was no market at all for sleighs, for the snow- 

 line seemed to have retreated to the north of the 

 Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. Yet I had 

 faith that somewhere, away .from the coast, there was 

 winter weather, and in spite of discouraging advices, 

 I started for the quiet Berkshire town which had been 

 a haven of rest in summer days. All through Con- 

 necticut, along the shores of the Sound, up the valley 

 of the Housatonic, nothing appeared to cheer my 

 drooping hopes. Everywhere there was the same 

 bare, brown landscape, everywhere were the same 

 stark, leafless trees, the same open ponds, just fringed 

 with ice about the edges. 



The train rolled northward into the dusk and the 

 dark, and still there were no signs of snow. Just 

 across the Massachusetts line there appeared to be a 



faint sprinkling of white, as if a light snowfall had 



217 



