JANUARY DAYS 



There is no response of airy voices to 

 the faint call of the winter birds. The 

 sound of the axe-stroke flies no farther 

 than the pungent fragrance of the smoke 

 that drifts in a blue haze from the 

 chopper's fire. The report of the gun 

 awakes no answering report, and each 

 mellow note of the hound comes sepa- 

 rate to the ear, with no jangle of rever- 

 berations. 



Fox and hound wallow through the 

 snow a crumbling furrow that obliter- 

 ates identity of either trail, yet there are 

 tracks that tell as plain as written words 

 who made them. Here have fallen, 

 lightly as snowflakes, the broad pads of 

 the hare, white as the snow he trod ; 

 there, the parallel tracks of another win- 

 ter masker, the weasel, and those of the 

 squirrel, linking tree to tree. The leaps 

 of a tiny wood-mouse are lightly marked 

 upon the feathery surface to where there 

 is the imprint of a light, swift pinion on 

 either side, and the little story of his 

 wandering ends — one crimson blood 

 drop the period that marks the finis. 



In the blue shadow at the bottom of 

 that winding furrow are the dainty foot- 

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