n 



must kill to live, and if he gloated over the kill, why, 

 what fault of his ? But the other weasel, the one 

 with the blood-stained bag, he killed for the love 

 of killing. I was glad he was gone. 



The crows were winging over toward their great 

 roost in the pines when I turned toward the town. 

 They, too, had had good picking along the creek 

 flats and ditches of the meadows. Their powerful 

 wing-beats and constant play told of full crops and 

 no fear for the night, already softly gray across the 

 white silent fields. The air was crisper; the snow 

 began to crackle under foot ; the twigs creaked and 

 rattled as I brushed along ; a brown beech leaf wav- 

 ered down and skated with a thin scratch over the 

 crust ; and pure as the snow-wrapped crystal world, 

 and sweet as the soft gray twilight, came the call of 

 a quail. 



The voices, colors, odors, and forms of summer 

 were gone. The very face of things had changed ; all 

 had been reduced, made plain, simple, single, pure ! 

 There was less for the senses, but how much keener 

 now their joy! The wide landscape, the frosty air, 

 the tinkle of tiny icicles, and, out of the quiet of the 

 falling twilight, the voice of the quail ! 



33 



