THE DRAWBRIDGE. 283 



past decade, when firm ice offered a safe footliold over 

 every rod of the treacherous marshes. Tangled nooks 

 in the boggy meadows, familiar only to the heron and 

 wary mallard, are now open to all comers, and we can 

 boldly explore where before we have not ventured to 

 approach. But it is not of these in all their varied as- 

 pects that I have now to speak. Beyond the flooded 

 meadows, now a field of ice, along the steep north bank 

 are sheltered crannies, where there is sure to be found 

 abundant warmth, light, color, and music. Even if 

 there be no birds within sight or hearing it is all the 

 same, scattered everywhere are half acres of emerald set 

 in miles of crystal. 



The background of glistening snow, flecked only by 

 faint shadows, gives cheerful prominence to the leafless 

 branches of winter-berry, crowded to the tips of their 

 tiniest twigs with brilliant scarlet fruit. The dark, taper- 

 ing spires of the cedar are as green and gloomy as in 

 June. The varied lichens still clothe many a tree-trunk 

 with a motley gray-green garb. The intricate maze of 

 the smilax is as fresh as when its spring-time growth 

 first twined and twisted upon itself until both begin- 

 ning and end were irrecoverably lost. The white-oaks 

 still flutter and rattle their dusty golden leaves in every 

 passing breeze. Beneath the sheltering branches of tall- 

 er growths trim sassafras sprouts still keep their dark- 

 green, lengthy, leathery leaves, as rich in color and in 

 freshness as ferns at the flood-tide of summer sunshine. 

 Surely there is no lack of color. 



The ice, fashioned fantastically by the deft fingers of 

 Frost, yields to the searching rays of the noontide sun, 



