PEPACTON 



of the year. A severe stress of weather will drive 

 the foxes off the mountains into the low, sheltered 

 woods and fields, and a thaw will send them back 

 again. In the winter the fox sleeps during the day 

 upon a rock or stone wall, or upon a snowbank, 

 where he can command all the approaches, or else 

 prowls stealthily through the woods. 



But there is seldom a false note in any of Whit- 

 tier's descriptions of rural sights and sounds. What 

 a characteristic touch is that in one of his " Moun- 

 tain Pictures : " 



"The pasture bars that clattered as they fell." 



It is the only strictly native, original, and typical 

 sound he reports on that occasion. The bleating of 

 sheep, the barking of dogs, the lowing of cattle, the 

 splash of the bucket in the well, " the pastoral cur- 

 few of the cowbell," etc., are sounds we have heard 

 before in poetry, but that clatter of the pasture 

 bars is American; one can almost see the waiting, 

 ruminating cows slowly stir at the signal, and start 

 for home in anticipation of the summons. Every 

 summer day, as the sun is shading the hills, the 

 clatter of those pasture bars is heard throughout the 

 length and breadth of the land. 



"Snow-Bound" is the most faithful picture of 

 our Northern winter that has yet been put into 

 poetry. What an exact description is this of the 

 morning after the storm : 

 110 



