290 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



level flight from the black waves of the mid- 

 Atlantic by a wild sea gale. Very white they 

 looked as they flew along the black ice, yet when 

 I picked a handful of them from the pond margin 

 I saw that they were anything but white. In- 

 stead they were dirty, in places fairly black. The 

 air had seemed crystal clear for weeks, yet the 

 snow had found in it the soot of a thousand 

 factory chimneys and brought it to earth. 



The air seems full of a magical new life always 

 after it has been snowing for an hour or two. 

 People who are out in it may have cold feet and 

 tingling ears and fingers, yet they feel the intoxi- 

 cation of this renewed vitality till the very team- 

 sters, half-frozen though they may be, shout 

 cheerily to one another and laugh with the de- 

 light of it all. I fancy it is because the cleansing 

 snow has swept all the impurities out of it in its 

 fall, and all breathe its oxygen disentangled from 

 soot and dust. 



An hour or two more and visible snowflakes 

 were falling in increasing numbers. The grind 

 of winds in the upper air must have lessened a 

 little, for the crystals came down no longer 

 crushed into grains but with their primary, six- 



