A NEW ENGLAND WOODPILE 



heard, one sees the regular puffs of the 

 team's breath jetting out and climbing 

 the cold air. The head and shoulders 

 of the muffled driver then appear, as he 

 sticks by narrow foothold to the hinder 

 part of his sled, or trots behind it beating 

 his breast with his numb hands. Prone 

 like a crawling band of scouts, endwise 

 like battering-rams, not upright with 

 green banners waving, Birnam wood 

 comes to Dunsinane to fight King Frost. 

 As the woodpile grows at the farm- 

 house door in a huge windrow of sled- 

 length wood or an even wall of cord 

 wood, so in the woods there widens a 

 patch of uninterrupted daylight. Deep 

 shade and barred and netted shadow turn 

 to almost even whiteness, as the axe saps 

 the foundations of summer homes of birds 

 and the winter fastnesses of the squirrels 

 and raccoons. Here are the tracks of 

 sled and team, where they wound among 

 rocks and stumps and over cradle knolls 

 to make up a load ; and there are those 

 of the chopper by the stump where he 

 stood to fell the tree, and along the great 

 trough made by its fall. The snow is 

 necked with chips, dark or pale accord- 

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