a wild delight in the free, wild winter, that 

 leads the gray squirrel to swing his hammock 

 from the highest limb of the tallest oak that 

 will hold it. He dares and defies the winds, and 

 claims their freedom for his own. From his 

 leafless height yonder he looks down into the 

 Hollow upon the tops of the swamp trees where 

 his dizzy roads run along the angled branches, 

 and over the swamp to the dark pines, and over 

 the pines, on, on across the miles of white fields 

 which sweep away and away till they freeze 

 with the frozen sky behind the snow-clouds that 

 drift and pile. In his aery he knows the snarl 

 and bite of the blizzard ; he feels the swell of 

 the heaving waves that drive thick with snow 

 out of the cold white north. Anchored far out 

 in the tossing arms of the strong oak, his leaf nest 

 rocks in the storm like a yawl in a heaving sea. 

 But he loves the tumult and the terror. A 

 night never fell upon the woods that awed him ; 

 cold never crept into the trees that could chill 

 his blood ; and the hoarse, mad winds that swirl 

 and hiss about his pitching bed never shook a 

 nerve in his round, beautiful body. How he 

 must sleep ! And what a constitution he has ! 

 [64] 



