AUNT SUE'S SNOWBANK 289 



slender flame above her head and drowned in it. 

 Aunt Sue's snowbank had circled the horizon and 

 was rising steadily toward the zenith. 



The sky does not give up its moisture readily 

 this year, else the snow prophets had had their 

 way weeks ago. The morning after that night 

 on which the young moon drowned should have 

 seen the air whirling with white flakes, but only 

 in mid- forenoon did the clouds give up, and then 

 grudgingly. All it had for us was a few gran- 

 ules, first-form crystals consisting of the tiniest 

 crossed ice needles ground out of shape by the 

 pressure between the opposing forces of the air. 

 In the woodland the eye caught a glint of one of 

 these now and then, but I had to go to the lee 

 shore of the pond to know that the storm was 

 really beginning. There the northeast wind 

 swept the ice for a half-mile, collected these tiny 

 snow nodules and sent them whirling along the 

 smooth black surface to bank them in miniature 

 drifts against the southern shore. They did not 

 seem to come from the air, instead the ice seemed 

 to give them up under the pressure of the keen 

 wind. It was as if the edge of it scraped them 

 off. The winding streams of them were very 

 like the spindrift I have seen swept in tortuous, 



