CHRISTMAS IN THE WOODS 



57 



warmth of the light made Christmas in the heart of 

 the noon, that the very swamp seemed to feel. 



Two months later there was to be scant picking 

 here, for this was the beginning of the severest win- 

 ter I ever knew. From this very ridge, in February, 

 I had reports of berries gone, of birds starving, of 

 whole coveys of quail frozen dead in the snow ; but 

 neither the birds nor I dreamed to-day of any such 

 hunger and death. A flock of robins whirled into 

 the cedars above me ; a pair of cardinals whistled 

 back and forth ; tree sparrows, juncos, nuthatches, 

 chickadees, and cedar-birds cheeped among the trees 

 and bushes; and from the farm lands at the top of 

 the slope rang the calls of meadowlarks. 



Halfway up the hill I stopped under a blackjack 

 oak, where, in the thin snow, there were signs of 

 something like a Christinas revel. The ground was 

 sprinkled with acorn-shells and trampled over with 

 feet of several kinds and sizes, quail, jay, and 

 partridge feet ; rabbit, squirrel, and mouse feet, all 

 over the snow as the feast of acorns had gone on. 

 Hundreds of the acorns were lying about, gnawed 

 away at the cup end, where the shell was thinnest, 

 many of them further broken and cleaned out by the 

 birds. 



As I sat studying the signs in the snow, my eye 

 caught a tiny trail leading out from the others straight 

 away toward a broken pile of cord- wood. The tracks 

 were planted one after the other, so directly in line 



