The Music of the Seasons 27 



tree that sheds its leaf robed in scarlet and 

 purple flame. 



It is hard to tell when our woods are most 

 beautiful: in spring, with the dogwood blos- 

 soms so thick they look as if a snowstorm 

 had covered their tender green, or in October, 

 when the holly, as thick as the dogwood, lifts 

 its great bouquets of glistening evergreen 

 with scarlet berries amid the red and purple 

 splendour of the oak and hickory, beech and 

 maple, poplar and chestnut. 



I confess a special love for our winters. 

 Here the fire of the sun never dies. It warms 

 and thrills even in February. The lawn is 

 never quite bare. When the winds of No- 

 vember have swept clean the great limbs of 

 oak and elm, the magnolia, cedar and holly 

 smile still into the face of the sun. I love 

 these big naked trees, too. To me their tall 

 nymph-like limbs seem fashioned by some 

 master artist of the nude against the azure 

 background of the sky. 



