126 



WINTER 



a-shiver, and, as Uncle Remus would say, " meet up " 

 with a chickadee. It is worth having a winter, just 

 to meet a chickadee in the empty woods and hear 

 him call a little pin-point of live sound, an un- 

 daunted, unnumbed voice interrupting the thick 

 jargon of the winter to tell you that all this bluster 

 and blow and biting cold can't get at the heart of 

 a bird that must weigh, all told, with all his winter 

 feathers on, fully an ounce or two ! 



VIII 



And then the partridge you must hear him, 

 bursting like a bottled hurricane from the brown 

 leaves at your feet ! 



IX 



Among the sweet winter sounds, that are as good 

 to listen to as the songs of the summer birds, you 

 should hear : the loud joyous cackling of the hens 

 on a sunny January day ; the munching of horses at 

 night when the wild winds are whistling about the 

 barn ; the quiet hum about the hives, 



' When come the calm mild days, as still such days will come, 

 To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home." 



And then, the sound of the first rain on the shingles 

 the first February rain after a long frozen period ! 

 How it spatters the shingles with spring spring 



