CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS 53 



\soine one was poking him gently in the ribs and ^ 

 ) wishing him a merry Christinas. 



The 'possum had led me far along the creek to I 

 the centre of the empty, hollow swamp, where the * 

 great-holed gums lifted their branches like a tim- < 

 bered, unshingled roof between me and the wide < v ? 

 sky. Far away through the spaces of the rafters I 

 saw a pair of wheeling buzzards, and under them, in 

 lesser circles, a broad-winged hawk. Here, at the 

 Ifeet of the tall, clean trees, looking up through the 

 / leafless limbs, I had something of a measure for 

 ! the flight of the great birds. And what power, 

 f | what majesty and mystery in those distant buoyant 

 \wings ! 



I have seen the turkey buzzard sailing the skies 

 I * |on the bitterest winter days. To-day, however, could 

 < ? hardly be called winter. Indeed, nothing yet had 

 ] felt the pinch of the cold. There was no hunger yet 

 f in the swamp, though this new snow had scared the 

 ) raccoons out, and their half-human tracks along the 

 > margin of the swamp stream showed that, if notW 

 jhungry, they at least feared that they might be. ! / 



For a coon hates snow. He invariably stays in dur-i 

 ing the first light snowfalls, and even in the latel 

 \\ winter he will not venture forth in fresh snow unless' 

 \ jdriven by hunger or some other dire need. Perhaps, 

 V i like a cat or a hen, he dislikes the wetting of his 

 feet. Or it may be that the soft snow makes bad! 

 I hunting for him. The truth is, I believe, that! 



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