DECEMBER 



17 



JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, 1807. 



The alder is one of the prettiest trees and shrubs 

 in the winter. It is evidently so full of life, with 

 its conspicuously pretty red catkins dangling from 

 it on all sides. It seems to dread the winter less 

 than other plants. It has a certain heyday and 

 cheery look, less stiff than most, with more of the 

 flexible grace of summer. With those dangling 

 clusters of red catkins which it switches in the 

 face of winter, it brags for all vegetation. It is 

 not daunted by the cold, but still hangs gracefully 



over the frozen stream. 



THOREAU: Winter. 



18 



Plum-colored masses of berry bushes encroached 

 upon the wide expanse of snow as headlands reach 

 out into a calm sea. Tiny forests of wiry grass 

 reared their heads above the snow. In color they 

 were what is called "sandy." Goldenrod and 

 aster stems, holding aloft dry and brittle sugges- 

 tions of long-lost flowers ; the heads of brunella, 

 looking like chess castles, and of the Indian pipe, 

 upright and pineapple-shaped ; and many delicate 

 hairlike stems from which all trace of leaf and 

 flower had departed, broke the evenness of the 

 snow-fields and were beautiful in an unassuming, 

 unconscious, unintentional way. 



BOLLES: At the North of Bearcamp Water. 



