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A WHITE DAY AND A RED FOX 



rMHE day was indeed white, as white as three 

 JL feet of snow and a cloudless St. Valentine's 

 sun could make it. The eye could not look forth 

 without blinking, or veiling itself with tears. The 

 patch of plowed ground on the top of the hill, where 

 the wind had blown the snow away, was as wel- 

 come to it as water to a parched tongue. It was the 

 one refreshing oasis in this desert of dazzling light. 

 I sat down upon it to let the eye bathe and revel 

 in it. It took away the smart like a poultice. For 

 so gentle and on the whole so beneficent an element, 

 the snow asserts itself very proudly. It takes the 

 world quickly and entirely to itself. It makes no 

 concessions or compromises, but rules despotically. 

 It baffles and bewilders the eye, and it returns the 

 sun glare for glare. Its coming in our winter climate 

 is the hand of mercy to the earth and to everything 

 in its bosom, but it is a barrier and an embargo to 

 everything that moves above. 

 We toiled up the long steep hill, where only an 



