THE COUNTRY IN WINTER 



How like children they act, peering from their coign of 

 vantage on the gable, ignoring my menacing gestures! 

 Leave the window box? Yes, if I insist; but the roof 

 and the trees are theirs ; and they leap from swaying 

 branch to slippery shingles in conscious superiority. 

 Why can they not be contented with the peanuts on their 

 own table on the other side of the house? I shake my 

 pen warningly at the gray scout on the maple tree wink- 

 ing his bead-like eyes, but the chickadees on the sill 

 within two feet of that weapon go on placidly snatching 

 their bit of nut one after another; even the nuthatch 

 seems to understand that this violent language is not for 

 him and whirs away only after securing the biggest 

 piece on the table. 



Of course, all days are not bright. Infinite variety is 

 one of the charms of the country. In the city the 

 weather is of small importance and scarcely influences 

 our daily life, but in the country it decides it. An- 

 other phase of the world appears when the sky is gray 

 after a warm night and much of the snow has vanished, 

 when after an hour or two of fine rain the air grows 



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