

CHAPTER VI 



CHICKADEE 



I WAS crunching along through the January 

 dusk toward home. The cold was bitter. A 

 half-starved partridge had just risen from the 



-road and fluttered off among the naked bushes a 

 bit of life vanishing into the winter night of the 

 woods. I knew the very hemlock in which he would 

 roost ; but what were the thick, snow-bent boughs 

 of his hemlock, and what were all his winter feath-f 

 iers in such a night as this ? this night of cutting 

 winds and frozen snow ! 



The road dipped from the woods down into a 

 wide, open meadow, where the winds were free. The j, 

 cold was driving, numbing here, with a power for; 



i death that the thermometer could not mark. 1 1 

 backed against the gale and sidewise hastened for- 

 ward toward the double line of elms that arched 

 jthe road in front of the house. Already I couldi 



/hear them creak and rattle like things of glass. It* 

 Hvas not the sound of life. Nothing was alive; for 1 

 what could live in this long darkness and fearful; 



The question was hardly thought, when an answer 

 was whirled past me into the nearest of the naked ] 



. 



