276 Walks in New England 



Winter Morn and Moon 



THE winter s own personal charms are of 

 no meager or indifferent sort. Even the 

 keen morning, when the squeak of the 

 slow wood-sled runners on the snow is heard half a 

 mile up the hill, and the oxen, as they yaw heavily 

 from side to side, holding back the load, breathe out 

 clouds of gray steam, when the axe of the wood 

 man is echoed far across the valley, and the frost 

 crystals are an inch thick on the butt of the felled 

 pine, when after the night s ice is cut from the 

 barnyard trough the water skims over again before 

 the impatient heifer has had time to quench her 

 thirst, when the farmer s hens cuddle miserably 

 against the southern wall and cackle plaintively 

 against the coldness of their corner of the barn, 

 when the brook is so tightly shut that its mur 

 murs can only be heard by laying one s ear close 

 in the dell at the roots of the hemlock, even 

 such a morning is full of extraordinary beauties, 

 which do not pale by commonness like the charms 

 of summer. How sharp and fine the outlines of 



