DANVIS FARM LIFE 47 



seen! With trousers tied at ankle they trudge 

 across the white fields, pathless and untracked 

 save where old Dobbin, scorning barnyard and 

 shelter, with whitened back and icicled sides, paws 

 away the snow down to the withered grass which 

 he crops with as great apparent relish as if it was 

 the herbage of June. 



Across meadow and pasture to the woodland the 

 youngsters go, and take the old wood-road, now 

 only a winding streak of white through the gray 

 of tree-trunks and outcropping rocks, its autumnal 

 border of asters, goldenrods, and ferns all lain 

 down to sleep beneath the snow. Here Reynard's 

 track crosses it, he having gone forth hare- or 

 partridge-hunting, and so lately passed that the 

 human nose can almost catch the scent of his foot- 

 steps — what an ecstatic song the old hound would 

 sing over it ! Here is the trail of the gray squirrel, 

 where he scampered from tree to tree — one pair 

 of little tracks and one pair of larger ones, as if 

 two-legged animals had made them; and here is 

 a maze of larger footprints, where the hare's broad 

 pads have made their faint impress on the snow. 

 Jays scream overhead and chickadees flit from 

 tree to tree along the roadside. Now, almost at 

 their feet, a ruffed grouse breaks forth from his 

 snowy covering in a little whirlwind of his own 

 making, and goes off with a startling whir and 

 clatter through the snow-laden branches, a dusky 



