DANVIS FARM LIFE 45 



But now comes an afternoon with a breathless 

 chill in it "a hard, dull bitterness of cold"; 

 when the gray sky settles down upon the earth, 

 covering, first, the blue, far-away mountains with 

 a gray pall, then the nearer, somber hills with a 

 veil through which their rough outlines show but 

 dimly, and are quite hidden when the coming 

 snowfall makes phantoms of the sturdy trees in 

 the woods hard by. Then roofs and roads and 

 fence-tops and grassless ground begin slowly to 

 whiten, and boughs and twigs are traced with a 

 faint white outline against a gray background, and 

 the dull yellow of the fields grows paler under the 

 falling snow, and a flock of snowbirds drifts across 

 the fading landscape like larger snowflakes. The 

 nightfall comes early, and going out on the back 

 stoop you find yourself on a little island in a great 

 sea of misty whiteness, out of which looms dimly 

 the dusky barn, with its freight of live-stock, 

 grain, and hay, the only ship within hail. 



Aroused next morning by the stamping feet of 

 the first risers who have gone forth to explore, we 

 find that a new world seems to have drifted to us 

 while we were lying fast anchored to the old chim- 

 ney. Roofs are heaped and fences coped and trees 

 are whiter than in May with bloom, with the uni- 

 versal snow. The great farm-wagon, standing 

 half hub-deep in it, looks as out of place as if at 

 sea. The dazed fowls peer wonderingly from the 



