A NEW ENGLAND WOODPILE 



ing to their kind, just as they alighted 

 from their short flight, bark up or down 

 or barkless or edgewise, and with dry- 

 twigs and torn scraps of scattered moss. 



When the chopper comes to his work in 

 the morning, he finds traces of nightly 

 visitors to his white island that have 

 drifted to its shores out of the gray sea 

 of woods. Here is the print of the hare's 

 furry foot where he came to nibble the 

 twigs of poplar and birch that yester- 

 day were switching the clouds, but have 

 fallen, manna-like, from skyward to feed 

 him. A fox has skirted its shadowy mar- 

 gin, then ventured to explore it, and in 

 a thawy night a raccoon has waddled 

 across it. 



The woodman is apt to kindle a fire 

 more for company than warmth, though 

 he sits by it to eat his cold dinner, cast- 

 ing the crumbs to the chickadees, which 

 come fearlessly about him at all times. 

 Blazing or smouldering by turns, as it is 

 fed or starved, the fire humanizes the 

 woods more than the man does. Now 

 and then it draws to it a visitor, oftenest 

 a fox-hunter who has lost his hound, 

 and stops for a moment to light his pipe 

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