10 SILVER FIELDS 



to the Indians, for on the southwest bank are to 

 be found plenty of flint chips of the old arrow- 

 makers. Only a little brook trickles through it 

 now, complaining with a faint, muffled whimper 

 under its concave glare of shell ice, of its dimin- 

 ished strength and babbling in a feeble voice of 

 the days when it brawled bravely over the stones 

 into the pond all the droughtiest summer through 

 and tumbled down the rocks below it with in- 

 cessant clatter. 



Hush! ; Stand stock still, breathe softly and 

 whisper no louder, for there, just out of the shad- 

 ows of the hill, sits a fox bolt upright and alert. 

 A stump? Nonsense! No wood nor stone un- 

 touched by the hand of the most cunning carver 

 ever had such lifelike form, such expression of 

 alertness. You can see, if your eyes are sharp 

 enough, the slight motion of his ears as he pricks 

 them toward us, as his nose points, for he has 

 seen or heard, not smelled, us; for the light breeze 

 sets from him to us, and, I fancy, touches our 

 nostrils with a faint waft of his pungent odor. 

 You can see the curve of his back, his fluffy brush 

 lying along the snow nearly make out the white 

 tip of it. The ruddiness of his coat almost shows, 

 but moonlight is a poor revealer of color; the pines 

 are not green, as we know they are, but black, and 

 everything is black or blue, or gray or white. 

 Now he moves his head a little. He is growing 



