FEBRUARY 



23 



Look up or down the open river channel now so 

 smooth. Like a hibernating animal, it has ven- 

 tured to come out to the mouth of its burrow. One 

 way, perhaps, it is like melted silver alloyed with 

 copper. It goes nibbling off the edge of the thick 

 ice on each side. Here and there I see a musquash 

 sitting in the sun on the edge of the ice, eating a 

 clam, and the shells it has left are strewn along 

 the edge. Ever. and anon he drops into the liquid 

 mirror and soon reappears with another clam. 



THOKEAU : Early Spring in Massachusetts. 



24 



The sunshine, the bracing air, the swaying 

 boughs of the pines and hemlocks beckoning at 

 the woodside, and the firm smooth footing, irresis- 

 tibly invite you forth. Your feet devour the way 

 with crisp bites, and you think that nothing could 

 be more pleasant to them till you are offered a few 

 yards of turf, laid bare by winds and sun, and 

 then you realize that nothing is quite so good as 

 the old stand-by, a naked ground, and crave more 

 of it, even as this is, and hunger for it with its 

 later garnishing of grass and flowers. 



ROBINSON: In New England Fields and Woods. 



