WILDWOOD WAYS 



while all among the figures great and 

 small was the plaided level of open water. 

 This solidified, dreamless, about and 

 under the decorations, and the pond was 

 frozen in from shore to shore. Thus I 

 found it the next morning, level and 

 black under one of those sunrises which 

 seem to shatter the great crystal of the 

 still atmosphere into prisms. The cold 

 has been frozen out of the sky, and in 

 its place remains some strange vivific 

 principle which is like an essence of 

 immortality. 



New ice thus formed has a wonderful 

 strength in proportion to its thickness. 

 It is by no means smooth, however. The 

 embossing of the reproductions of these 

 pond dreams of fern and palm and plesio- 

 saurus makes hubbies under your steel 

 as you glide over it, though little you 

 care for that on your first skate of the 

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