100 A SNOW-STORM. 



bring rain. In fact, everything is prophetic of the 

 gentle and noiseless meteor that is approaching, and 

 of the stillness that is to succeed it, when " all the 

 batteries of sound are spiked," as Lowell says, and 

 " we see the movements of life as a deaf man sees it 

 a mere wraith of the clamorous existence that in- 

 flicts itself on our ears when the ground is bare.'] 

 After the storm is fairly launched the winds not in- 

 frequently awake, and, seeing their opportunity, pipe 

 the flakes a lively dance. ^ I am speaking now of the 

 typical, full-born midwinter storm that comes to us 

 from the North or N. N. E., and that piles the land- 

 scape knee-deep with snow. Such a storm once came 

 to us the last day of January the master-storm of 

 the winter. Previous to that date we had had but light 

 snow. The spruces had been able to catch it all upon 

 their arms and keep a circle of bare ground beneath 

 them where the birds scratched. But the day fol- 

 lowing this fall they stood with their lower branches 

 completely buried. If the Old Man of the North 

 had but sent us his couriers and errand-boys before, 

 the old gray-beard appeared himself at our doors on 

 this occasion, and we were all his subjects. His flag 

 was upon every tree and roof, his seal upon every 

 door and window, and his embargo upon every path 

 and highway. He slipped down upon us, too, under 

 the cover of such a bright, seraphic day, a day that 

 disarmed suspicion with all but the wise ones, a day 

 without a cloud or a film, a gentle breeze from the 

 west, a dry, bracing air, a blazing sun that brought 



