In the Christmas Woods. 



wise enough to keep indoors when it rains, and I 

 find myself longing to go forth and take my share 

 of Nature's beautiful Christmas gift. A happy 

 thought, that. I am quick to act upon it, and soon 

 go tramping through the rain, eager to learn how 

 my friends of wood and canon are enjoying their 

 wet Christmas. 



The birds, I find, have fled to the thickest 

 shelter they can find the redwoods in the canon. 

 They have no pockets, and no use even for 

 aqueous twenty-dollar-pieces; so they summon 

 what philosophy they can to tide them over the 

 storm. Swinging down a slippery trail I catch an 

 overhanging bough, to save myself from a fall, and 

 incidently disturb a feathered congregation that has 

 taken refuge in this particular tree. I shake the 

 branch and the birds rush out. The rain is sheet- 

 ing down from the strip of sky just visible between 

 the towering hills, and the startled flock fly heav- 

 ily, with many a chirping protest, to another tree, 

 where they perch and huddle again. 



A solitary brown towhee, sleek and trim, is peck- 

 ing about in the soft leaf-mold, with the air of mack- 

 intoshed and over-shoed comfort that this bird al- 

 ways wears in a storm. The little creature has some- 

 how learned the secret of unfailing contentment. He 

 reminds me, when I see him under adverse circum- 

 stances, of that other object-lesson in cheerfulness, 

 the wee pimpernel, sunny-faced anagallis, growing so 

 bravely about the hills. In very early Springtime, 

 when everything is green and lusty after the winter 



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