T 







> Y | ^HE snow had melted from the river meadows, 

 leaving them flattened, faded, and stained 

 with mud a dull, dreary waste in the gray 

 February. I had stopped beside a tiny bundle of 

 \ i bones that lay in the matted grass a dozen feet from 

 \ a ditch. Here, still showing, was the narrow path 

 along which the bones had dragged themselves; 

 there the hole by which they had left the burrow 

 in the bank of the ditch. They had crawled out in 

 this old runway, then turned off a little into the 

 heavy autumn grass and laid them down. The rains 

 had come and the winter snows. The spring was 

 breaking now and the small bundle, gently loosened 

 and uncovered, was whitening on the wide, bare 

 meadow. 



V 

 ! 



