NATURE AND THE PSALMIST 287 



sun was up, the world of men was astir and had gone 

 forth to its labour until evening. I lifted my eyes to 

 the yellow sand bar, while my nostrils sniffed the salt. 

 Yonder was the sea, "great and wide"; yes, and there 

 went the ships, trailing their long smoke-plumes far 

 out where Block Island lay like a blue cloud on the 

 horizon line. The Psalmist's cycle had been completed, 

 and I walked homeward strangely at peace, the salt 

 wind and the sunshine for my companions. 



It is Winter now, and the snow has come, the deep 

 snow which settles over our mountain world, trans- 

 forming all the landscape for three or four months, al- 

 tering its colour values, softening its outlines, and giv- 

 ing us a season which those who dwell in cities know 

 nothing of. How expectantly we awaited the first 

 steady storm from the northwest! The bare, frozen 

 earth awaited it expectantly, too, each flower-root chill 

 for its coverlid. I once heard of a little girl who ex- 

 claimed, when she saw her first snowfall, "Look, 

 mamma! God has busted His feather-bed!" I like 

 that exclamation. It is picturesque, and it is instinct 

 with primitive devotion. Does it not suggest, indeed, 

 the words of the Psalmist: 



He giveth snow like wool; 



He scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. 



"He giveth snow like wool." We go out in the first 

 storm, away from our warm house amid its spruces, and 



