46 A GOOD WORD FOR WINTER. 



balls till they refuse to budge farther. Then, if you 

 would play the statuary, they are piled one upon the 

 other to the proper height ; or if your aim be masonry, 

 whether of house or fort, they must be squared and 

 beaten solid with the shovel. The material is capable 

 of very pretty effects, and your young companions mean 

 while are unconsciously learning lessons in aesthetics. 

 From the feeling of satisfaction with which one squats 

 on the damp floor of his extemporized dwelling, I have 

 been led to think that the backwoodsman must get a 

 sweeter savor of self-reliance from the house his own 

 hands have built than Bramante or Sansovino could ever 

 give. Perhaps the fort is the best thing, for it calls out 

 more masculine qualities and adds the cheer of battle 

 with that dumb artillery which gives pain enough to 

 test pluck without risk of serious hurt. Already, as I 

 write, it is twenty-odd years ago. The balls fly thick 

 and fast. The uncle defends the waist-high ramparts 

 against a storm of nephews, his breast plastered with 

 decorations like another Radetsky's. How well I recall 

 the indomitable good-humor under fire of him who fell 

 in the front at Ball's Bluff, the silent pertinacity of the 

 gentle scholar who got his last hurt at Fair Oaks, the 

 ardor in the charge of the gallant gentleman who, with 

 the death-wound in his side, headed his brigade at Cedar 

 Creek ! How it all comes back, and they never come ! 

 I cannot again be the Vauban of fortresses in the inno 

 cent snow, but I shall never see children moulding their 

 clumsy giants in it without longing to help. It was a 

 pretty fancy of the young Vermont sculptor to make his 

 first essay in this evanescent material. Was it a figure 

 of Youth, I wonder ] Would it not be well if all artists 

 could begin in stuff as perishable, to melt away when the 

 sun of prosperity began to shine, and leave nothing be 

 hind but the gain of practised hands ] It is pleasant 



