SPRING DAWN 



grip of the winter cold that was in all the 

 air, yet when I had crossed the dam and 

 begun to clamber along the other shore 

 of the pond the winter reasserted itself. 

 Here was no promise of changing season. 

 The thick ice in its disintegration had 

 been pushed far ashore by the westerly 

 gales, and here it was frozen in pressure 

 ridges which were not so far different 

 from those one may see on the Arctic 

 shores. To them was cemented the young 

 ice of the night, and I could walk along 

 shore in places on its surface, its struc- 

 ture as elastic as that of early December. 

 Here, too, was piled high the debris not 

 only of that great battle in which the 

 spring forces had ripped the thick ice 

 from the water, but of the daily skir- 

 mishes in which winter and north wind 

 have set a half-inch of ice all along the 

 surface and spring sunshine has broken 

 35 



