32 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



and its passing a beautiful thing. All Winter it has 

 covered the ground, protecting the shrubs and flower 

 beds, conserving our gardens, our woods, even our 

 soil. Then, on a March morning, it begins to feel the 

 deadly breath of the south wind and knows that its 

 time has come. I have unconsciously personified it, 

 falling into Mr. Ruskin's "pathetic fallacy" and violat- 

 ing the no doubt excellent principles once taught me by 

 the worthy " Rhetoric " of Professor Hill. But occasion- 

 ally one's instincts kick over the traces of rule and 

 reason, and the kindly snow, which has covered our 

 world the season through, will demand its place in our 

 pagan pantheon, our secret temple of the ancient 

 deities none of us has quite destroyed in his heart. Yes, 

 the snow feels the mortal kiss of the south wind and 

 knows that its time has come. By noon the roads are 

 water brooks, two silvery streams dancing and flashing 

 down the runner ruts. On exposed sections, where the 

 wind has blown the snow thin, bare ground begins to ap- 

 pear and the sleigh runners crunch and grind behind the 

 straining horse. On a southern slope of autumn plough- 

 ing, the brown tops of furrows begin here and there to 

 poke up above the white, like tiny islands in the sea. 

 The eaves drip. The chickadees are sounding their 

 love call. Then it is we go out into the buried garden 

 and see the dark cone of the manure pile melted off and 

 rising above the white, a happy harbinger of flowers. 

 A second day, a third day, of caressing south wind, 



