82 THE FALL OF THE YEAR 



The leaves pile up. The wind blows keen among 

 the tall, naked trees ; the dull cloud hangs low above 

 the ridge ; and through the cold gray of the maple 

 swamp below you, peers the face of Winter. 



You start up the ridge with your rake and draw 

 down another pile, thinking, as you work, of the 

 pig. The thought is pleasing. The warm glow all 

 over your body strikes into your heart. You rake 

 away as if it were your own bed you were gathering 

 as really it is. He that rakes for his pig, rakes also 

 for himself. A merciful man is merciful to his beast ; 

 and he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a 

 blanket of down over his own winter bed. 



Is it to warm my feet on winter nights that I pull 

 on my boots at ten o'clock and go my round at the 

 barn? Yet it warms my feet through and through 

 to look into the stalls and see the cow chewing her 

 cud, and the horse cleaning up his supper hay, stand- 

 ing to his fetlocks in his golden bed of new rye- 

 straw ; and then, going to the pig's pen, to hear him 

 snoring louder than the north wind, somewhere in 

 the depths of his leaf-bed, far out of sight. It warms 

 my heart, too ! 



So the leaves pile up. How good a thing it is to 

 have a pig to work for ! What zest and purpose it 

 lends to one's raking and piling and storing ! If I 

 could get nothing else to spend myself on, I should 

 surely get me a pig. Then, when I went to walk in 

 the woods, I should be obliged, occasionally, to carry 



