6 SILVER FIELDS 



When the full moon comes pulsing up behind 

 the evergreen-crested hill, with the black sil- 

 houette of a pine slowly sliding down its yellow 

 disk, trunk, dry limb, and bristling branch clear- 

 cut against it, and slowly draws toward it the 

 long blue shadows, it is no time to bide within 

 doors. In every cold night of the year that gives 

 many such to us Northern folk we may have fire- 

 side and lamplight at some price, but not for love 

 nor money many times in a winter such a night 

 as this, such warmth out of snow and frost, such 

 celestial light shed on silver-paved fields. Let 

 us set our faces toward the moon and trail our 

 shadows behind us till we lose them among the 

 shadows of the pines and hemlocks of Shellhouse 

 Mountain. 



Solid and appetizing food is this firm crust for 

 our feet! How they devour the way with crunch- 

 ing bites, reminding our teeth of the loaf sugar of 

 youthful days when the snowy cones, swathed in 

 the purple paper that our mothers used for the 

 concoction of dyestuff , tempted us to theft. What 

 better wine than this still, sharp ah*! 



The even, smooth surface of the snow has been 

 preserved; it is not pitted, nor in places cut into 

 fleecy texture as the sun and wind of March carves 

 it sometimes. The dark blue shadows of the tree- 

 trunks lie clear-edged upon it, not jagged and 

 toothed as when they fall on grass ground. Every 



