SILVER FIELDS 9 



his caldron of a dinner pail while he lighted his 

 pipe. How could so small a blaze as that little 

 burned-out match afforded, ever have fired his 

 furnace of a pipe! Yet from these dropped frag- 

 ments of home-grown tobacco, I conclude that 

 our giant was only an ordinary little Frenchman 

 whose feet caught the trick of his tongue. 



The packed snow resisted the thaw more than 

 that which lay as it fell, so that beaten paths that 

 were sunk below the surface are raised causeways 

 now, a narrow, slippery footing that no one tries 

 with all this wide pavement to choose from. 



Now if we might have the luck to see a fox, how 

 well his furry form, clad for such weather, so agile, 

 noiseless, and wild, would fit the scene, and we 

 ought to see one, for this little basin, rimmed with 

 the rough hills on the east side and on the others 

 with low ridges, is a favorite spot with foxes, a 

 trysting-place at this love-making season and a 

 hunting-ground in spring, summer, and fall, when 

 the tall wild grass harbors many field mice. More- 

 over, Reynard often gets a free lunch here, for 

 hardly a year goes by that, to save the trouble of 

 burial, a dead horse or cow is not hauled to this out- 

 of-the-way spot where foxes, skunks, and crows 

 find cheap and speedy sepulture for everything 

 but the bones. It was undoubtedly the bed of a 

 little pond two or three hundred years ago and the 

 home of beavers or in some such way, of account 



