THE SNOW-WALKERS 43 



sharply-defined figures, the great green flakes of 

 hay, the long file of patient cows, the advance just 

 arriving and pressing eagerly for the choicest mor- 

 sels, — and the bounty and providence it suggests. 

 Or the chopper in the woods, — the prostrate tree, 

 the white new chips scattered about, his easy tri- 

 umph over the cold, coat hanging to a limb, and 

 the clear, sharp ring of his axe. The woods are 

 rigid and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound 

 like a stringed instrument. Or the road-breakers, 

 sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white 

 world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost 

 track and demolish the beleaguering drifts. 



All sounds are sharper in winter; the air trans- 

 mits better. At night I hear more distinctly the 

 steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it 

 is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke 

 down its sides; but in winter always the same low, 

 sullen growl. 



A severe artist! No longer the canvas and the 

 pigments, but the marble and the chisel. When 

 the nights are calm and the moon full, I go out to 

 gaze upon the wonderful purity of the moonlight 

 and the snow. The air is full of latent fire, and 

 the cold warms me — after a different fashion from 

 that of the kitchen stove. The world lies about me 

 in a "trance of snow\" The clouds are pearly and 

 iridescent, and seem the farthest possible remove 

 from the condition of a storm, — the ghosts of 

 clouds, the indwelling beauty freed from all dross. 

 I see the hills, bulging with great drifts, lift them- 



