THE WINTER WOODS 



our own wood-lot. Familiar paths are obliterated 

 by pendulous boughs drooping to the earth, while 

 in the pasture tree-sparrows hop upon the snow 

 among the protruding tops of the tallest ragweeds. 



Realize if you can in your walk, over how many 

 sleepers you step all unknown; how many wood- 

 chucks in their burrows, and frogs in the mud 

 under the ice ; how many torpid snakes and dozing 

 chipmunks. Here is an enchanted household 

 underground. They are at peace and their timid 

 hearts know no fear. The dreaming toad has no 

 terror of writhing blacksnakes, and the snoozing 

 woodchuck has forgotten the dog. Presently they 

 will awake to hunger and fear again. Woodchucks 

 will be up long before breakfast, to go shivering 

 in the cold dawn of the year waiting for the table 

 to be spread. Snakes do not come out till the 

 sun is well up, to lie basking in the noonday heat, 

 catching the first unwary grasshoppers. 



Every fresh snowfall makes some revelation of 

 its own, recording crepuscular journeys and prowl- 

 ings in the night. The broad track of the skunk 

 meanders in and out among the bushes. That he 

 had no definite direction, took never a straight 

 course, nor apparently did he hurry, is in itself 



1 SS 



