24: DAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



puzzling its poor brains to determine why such plenty 

 should be left in full view, and yet inaccessible. Every 

 movement of the crow suggested that it was thinking ; 

 certainly it was determined to reach that food, if within 

 its power. There are those who insist that birds can not 

 think. I would that all such could have seen this crow. 

 No single act bore special evidence of thought, but the 

 bird's whole manner spoke volumes. 



And toward the close of day, when most birds were at 

 rest, from a still open spring-hole started a great blue 

 heron. It flew slowly and sadly, as though it felt the cold, 

 but did not complain. That day is not bleak when I can 

 stand on the lee side of a broad oak and see this stately 

 heron watching the opening waters for unwary frogs. 

 And it is not an uncommon winter sight. 



But these cold, sunless days with chilling winds, that 

 seem so bleak to many, are often but the forerunners of 

 other days days of most marvelous beauty. Since my 

 last outing, an interim of warmth and much rain, filling 

 the hours of a long winter night, was quickly followed by 

 the returning north wind, and at sunrise the whole world 

 was encrystaled. Not even the tiniest twig nor any slen- 

 der blade of last year's grass but was incased with ice and 

 sparkling as never did fairy cave in our wildest flight of 

 fancy ; and with all this was music. The linnets, finding 

 no sure footing in the trees, sang as they drifted in the 

 fitful wind. And later, when the woods resounded with a 

 bell-like shower of falling crystals, the bluebirds caught 

 the spirit of the hour and warbled along the forest's vaulted 

 paths. 



In fact, birds were nowhere wanting ; and from what 

 strange places they sometimes appeared ! Tilted cakes of 

 ice covered the sloping banks of a creek I lately crossed, 

 and from a wide crevice came a winter wren, quick-winged 

 and restless as its summer-tide cousins of my door-yard. 



