88 WINTER SUNSHINE 



In the North how goes the season? The winter 

 is perchance just breaking up. The old frost king 

 is just striking, or preparing to strike, his tents. 

 The ice is going out of the rivers, and the first 

 steamboat on the Hudson is picking its way through 

 the blue lanes and channels. The white gulls are 

 making excursions up from the bay, to see what the 

 prospects are. In the lumber countries, along the 

 upper Kennebec and Penobscot, and along the north 

 ern Hudson, starters are at work with their pikes 

 and hooks starting out the pine logs on the first 

 spring freshet. All winter, through the deep snows, 

 they have been hauling them to the bank of the 

 stream, or placing them where the tide would reach 

 them. Now, in countless numbers, beaten and 

 bruised, the trunks of the noble trees come, borne 

 by the angry flood. The snow that furnishes the 

 smooth bed over which they were drawn, now melted, 

 furnishes the power that carries them down to the 

 mills. On the Delaware the raftsmen are at work 

 running out their rafts. Floating islands of logs 

 and lumber go down the swollen stream, bending 

 over the dams, shooting through the rapids, and 

 bringing up at last in Philadelphia or beyond. 



In the inland farming districts what are the signs ? 

 Few and faint, but very suggestive. The sun has 

 power to melt the snow; and in the meadows all 

 the knolls are bare, and the sheep are gnawing them 

 industriously. The drifts on the side-hills also 

 begin to have a worn and dirty look, and, where 

 they cross the highway, to become soft, letting the 



