WILDWOOD WAYS 



comes up out of the south, but the muskrat 

 knows wells up out of the ground be- 

 neath, is already at his door. Its warmth 

 is in the bog below and has softened and 

 even melted the ice all about the tepees. 

 The ice on the pond is a foot thick still, 

 but the water beneath it is thrilled with 

 this same potency and you have but to 

 stir it to sniff its fragrance. Below the 

 pond the brook which is its outlet splashes 

 over the long-abandoned sills of what was 

 a gristmill dam in the days of the early 

 settlers. Here in spite of the keen lances 

 of the wind and its roar in the frozen 

 maples overhead, I heard the soft tones 

 of the coming season in every babble of 

 the brook. All the air was full of a fresh, 

 inviting fragrance which the water gives 

 off as it flows. All the pond is full of it 

 beneath the ice already, and the muskrat 

 breathes it in his every excursion under 

 230 



