54 



WINTER 



such a snow makes too good hunting for the dogs 

 and the gunner. The new snow tells too clear a 

 story. For the coon's home is no dark den among the 

 ledges ; only a hollow in some ancient oak or tupelo. 

 Once within, he is safe from the dogs, but his long, 

 fierce fight for life taught him generations ago that 

 the nest-tree is a fatal trap when behind the dogs 

 come the axe and the gun. So he has grown wary 

 and enduring. He waits until the snow grows crusty, 

 when without sign, and almost without scent, he can 

 slip forth among the long shadows and prowl to the 

 edge of dawn. 



Skirting the stream out toward the higher back 

 woods, I chanced to spy a bunch of snow in one of 

 the great sour gums, that I thought was an old nest. 

 A second look showed me tiny green leaves, then 

 white berries, then mistletoe! 



It was not a surprise, however, for I had found it 

 here before a long, long time before. It was back 

 in my schoolboy days that I first stood here under 

 the mistletoe and had my first romance. There was 

 no chandelier, no pretty girl, in that romance only 

 a boy, the mistletoe, the giant trees, and the sombre 

 silent swamp. But there was more than that, there 

 was the thrill of discovery, for until that day the 

 boy did not know that mistletoe grew outside of Eng- 

 land, did not know that it grew in his own native 

 swamps ! Rambling alone through the swamps along 

 the creek that day, he stopped under a big curious 



