THE UPLANDS IN WINTER 123 



beach grass looked like curving crystal saws with 

 with narrow dark centers and long icicle teeth 

 below. The last years' fruiting stalks of the sea- 

 side golden-rod were thickly coated with ice. 

 Every hip and berry had its natural color en- 

 hanced through a covering of transparent ice, 

 just as beach pebbles are made to glow by wet- 

 ting or varnishing. Glace fruit adorned the 

 trees and bushes. Each little knob on the pen- 

 dant balls of the buttonwood trees could be seen 

 through the ice. The clusters of barberries, the 

 catkins of the birches and the great red torches 

 of the staghorn sumachs were all encased in clear, 

 transparent ice. 



The ice was thickest on the north and east 

 sides whence the storm had come. Indeed the 

 west and south sides of the tree trunks lacked the 

 icy armor, but the berries and fruit as well as the 

 smaller branches and twigs were for the most 

 part completely encased. Careful scrutiny, how- 

 ever, showed that the sumach torches and even 

 some of the smaller fruits and seeds were vulner- 

 able on the southwest side, the lea side, so that 

 here the birds might get at their contents. Yet 



