WILDWOOD WAYS 



last days of the ice cap seems to have 

 got tangled in the spell and to dwell with 

 the mild-eyed melancholy of the place 

 the year round. In midsummer the ther- 

 mometer may stand at 120 in the quiver- 

 ing nooks where the sun beats down upon 

 the sandy plains above; the waters of 

 the fountain head are ice cold still, and 

 give their temperature to the brook and 

 its borders. In midwinter the mercury 

 may register twenty below, and the gales 

 from the very boreal pole freeze the 

 pines on those same sandy plains till their 

 deep hearts burst; the waters that flow 

 from those mysterious fountains will 

 have no skim of ice on their surface. 



From what unfathomed depths the 

 waters draw their constancy we may 

 never know, nor on what day may well 

 forth with them some new form of life 

 bred on the potency of their elixir. To- 

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