312 DATS OUT OF DOORS. 



breathe a new soul into his declining faith. So it was, at 

 least, when I last turned meadowward, bent upon a ram- 

 ble, caring not where nor how long, merely hopeful of 

 finding some green spot. 



It is true the cedars and the pine trees are green, 

 and, where the hill-foot springs are bubbling, ferns still 

 hold their freshness, but it is a weariness to the flesh 

 to sit all day in a tree-top, even when, by so doing, 

 you keep company with the birds ; and then one can not 

 enter the little territory of a single spring. While he 

 gathers summer in his arms, Jack Frost is tugging at his 

 heels. Between green growths and the snow-bank you 

 can not lay your cane without encroaching upon both. Is 

 there no greater green-clad spot than a hill-foot spring ? 



The birds' songs cease, as I pass from the hill-side, on 

 my quest for color, but ears and eyes must be separately 

 humored in midwinter, and I turn to the glowing win- 

 terberry and climbing bittersweet with pleasure, where 

 they make an almost vain effort to restore the summer 

 freshness of vine-tangled fences, and then pass on to an 

 uncertain glow of green in the heart of a smilax wilder- 

 ness ; but attempting to pass through it proves the ver- 

 dancy to be more a feature of yourself than of it. 



The thin vaulted ice roofs that protect the ditches' 

 banks shut in long strips of green that need a sharp eye 

 to detect ; and here crouch hardy spotted frogs, patiently 

 waiting for spring or the January thaw, and never so stiff- 

 ened with cold but that they can leap into the depths 

 when my shadow warns them. They sprawl into the gray 

 mud that a moment before was but the smooth floor for 

 the liquid crystal that sparkled above it now the current 

 is a troubled flow of smoky quartz. There is ever a bit of 

 summer lingering by the brook-side, but ever too small a 

 bit to satisfy. 



But afar, beyond my neighbor's pasture and over Poset- 



