BARE HILLS IN MIDWINTER 



bushes together with its spiny twine that 

 it is almost impossible to pass through 

 them to the water. Button-ball and 

 high-bush blueberry grow with it and 

 hold out their branches for its smilax- 

 like decoration, and the solemn and secre- 

 tive witch-hazel stalks meditatively about 

 wherever the overhead foliage is dense 

 enough to make the mysterious twilight 

 that it best loves. It strolls up the gully 

 beneath the shade of the chestnuts and 

 you can but fancy it smiling sardonically 

 at their revelry and the prim indignation 

 of the schoolgirl beeches. Here and 

 there swamp maples, strangely out of 

 place on hilltops, glow gray in the dusk 

 as you stand below them, or blush red in 

 the clear sun as you look at their branch 

 tips from the cliffs. It is a picturesque 

 little three-spurred peak lying here be- 

 tween Great Blue and Hancock so shel- 

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