VII 



WINTER NEIGHBORS 



rpHE country is more of a wilderness, more of a 

 -^ wild solitude, in the winter than in the sum- 

 mer. The wild comes out. The urban, the culti- 

 vated, is hidden or negatived. You shall hardly 

 know a good field from a poor, a meadow from a 

 pasture, a park from a forest. Lines and boun- 

 daries are disregarded; gates and bar-ways are 

 unclosed; man lets go his hold upon the earth; 

 title-deeds are deep buried beneath the snow; the 

 best-kept grounds relapse to a state of nature; 

 under the pressure of the cold, all the wild creatures 

 become outlaws, and roam abroad beyond their usual 

 haunts. The partridge comes to the orchard for 

 buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; 

 the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn- 

 crib, the snow buntings to the stack and to the barn- 

 yard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; 

 the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and 

 shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls 

 about your premises at night; and the red squirrels 

 find your grain in the barn or steal the butternuts 

 from your attic. In fact, winter, like some great 

 calamity, changes the status of most creatures and 



