FEBRUARY 



I hear a fine, busy twitter, and looking up, see a 

 nuthatch hopping along and about a swamp white 

 oak branch, inspecting every side of it, as read- 

 ily hanging head downwards as standing upright, 

 and then it utters a distinct quah, as if to attract 

 a companion. Indeed, that other finer twitter 

 seemed designed to keep some companion in tow, 

 or else it was like a very busy man talking to him- 

 self. The companion was a single chickadee, which 

 lisped six or eight feet off. There were perhaps 

 no other birds than these within a quarter of a 

 mile. When the nuthatch' flitted to another tree 

 two rods off, the chickadee unfailingly followed. 



THOREAU: Winter. 



10 



Summer has few finer pictures than this winter 

 one of the farmer foddering his cattle from a stack 

 upon the clean snow, the movement, the sharply 

 defined figures, the great green flakes of hay, the 

 long file of patient cows, the advance just arriving 

 and pressing eagerly for the choicest morsels, and 

 the bounty and providence it suggests. Or the 

 chopper in the woods, the prostrate tree, the 

 white new chips scattered about, his easy triumph 

 over the cold, coat hanging to a limb, and the 

 clear, sharp ring of his axe. The woods are rigid 

 and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound like 

 a stringed instrument. 



BURROUGHS: Winter Sunshine. 



