II 



WINTER NEIGHBORS 



THE country is more of a wilderness, 

 more of a wild solitude, in the winter than 

 in the summer. The wild comes out. The 

 urban, the cultivated, is hidden or nega- 

 tived. You shall hardly know a good field 

 from a poor, a meadow from a pasture, a 

 park from a forest. Lines and boundaries 

 are disregarded ; gates and bar-ways are 

 unclosed ; man lets go his hold upon the 

 earth ; title-deeds are deep buried beneath 

 the snow ; the best-kept grounds relapse to 

 a state of nature; under the pressure of 

 the cold, all the wild creatures become out- 

 laws, and roam abroad beyond their usual 

 haunts. The partridge comes to the or- 

 chard for buds; the rabbit comes to the 

 garden and lawn ; the crows and jays come 

 to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow 

 buntings to the stack and to the barnyard ; 

 the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls ; 

 the pine grosbeak comes down from the 

 north and shears your maples of their buds ; 

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