The Family of Bob-White 107 



He had died with his breast to the window 

 pane with only a sixteenth of an inch of trans- 

 parent something' between him and the 

 warmth that would have saved him. As 

 pitilessly as the glacier grinds the pebble to 

 sand the great freeze had pressed him against 

 the window until his stout little heart was still, 

 and then, as though ashamed of what she had 

 done, nature had shrouded him in a white 

 mantle of snow. 



With difficulty the boy raised the window 

 and took the dead quail in his hands. Care- 

 fully he brushed the snow from his gray 

 brown coat and smoothed out his ruffled 

 feathers. 



It was a far cry from that warm spring 

 morning, when he had first seen him on the 

 old barpost whistling his cheery call, to this 

 snow-bound frozen world that seemed more 

 dead than alive. Poor little Bob-White; he 

 had eluded the hawk, the owl and the weasel, 

 the fox, the raccoon and the hunter, but the 

 great freeze had caught him, so near and yet 

 so far from cover. With a sigh the boy put 



