AMONG THE MUSKRAT LODGES 



I ALWAYS know the sound of the east 

 wind as it comes over the Blue Hills for 

 the twanging of the bow from which 

 winter has shot his Parthian arrow. The 

 keenest it is in all his quiver of keen 

 darts, for it penetrates joints in one's 

 armor that no gale from Arctic barrens 

 has been able to reach, that no fall of 

 snow or of temperature has weakened. 

 Facing it to-day and feeling its barbs 

 turn in the marrow of my breastbone as 

 I crossed Ponkapoag Pond I began to 

 wonder how it fared with my friends the 

 muskrats who were wintering in the very 

 teeth of it over on the northwest shore. 

 Atid so I turned my shoulder to the blow 

 and my face to the bog where tepees in a 

 217 



