WOODLAND PATHS 



croak, which is a love-song. I have 

 heard this described as musical, but it is 

 not. It is as if a barn-door hinge should 

 try to sing " O Promise Me." But there 

 will be no more congregations. 



Certainly there was not much in the 

 aspect of 'the night which was just slip- 

 ping away when I waked my crow that 

 would seem to justify plans of nest-build- 

 ing. The thermometer marked twenty in 

 my sheltered front porch when I stepped 

 out. It must have been some degrees 

 below that in the open. The ground was 

 flint with the frost in it. The old thick 

 ice was gone from the pond, indeed, 

 broken up by the disintegrating insinua- 

 tion of the sun and the vigorous lashing 

 of northwest gales, but in its place was a 

 skim of new ice formed that night. 

 Standing still, you felt the lance of the 

 north wind still; it was winter. Yet 

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