/IDp Mintet (Barren 



ence bandied about by the gusts. Beside 

 a wall, or in the warmest angle of a cot, 

 the lush banana-stalks, clumpered pictur- 

 esquely against a hedge of Cherokee rose- 

 vines, suddenly renew their upper leaves ; 

 and scattered here and yonder some 

 gnarled peach-trees blow wavering whiffs 

 of tender pink from their bare branches. 



It may be that early in February, or 

 even late in January, a mulberry-tree be- 

 gins to show fruit. Once I saw the ripe 

 berries *' cooked to a turn " by a singeing 

 frost on the second day of March; but 

 that was a memorably unusual freak of 

 weather. The mocking-birds were begin- 

 ning to build, the brave males in full 

 feather and song, when the norther 

 swooped upon us, and it was pitiful to see 

 how dazed they looked. It was as if the 

 blast from Michigan or Kansas had blown 

 their frozen songs in choking crystals back 

 down their throats. 



The Winter Garden is a shifting and 



elastic domain ; for in the low country of 



the South no such thing as a boundary is 



seriously considered. All the adjoining 



6 



