Christmas in the Woods 
when behind the dogs come the axe and the gun. So 
he has grown wary and enduring. He waits until the 
snow grows crusty, when without sign, and almost 
without scent, he can slip forth among the long 
shadows and prowl to the edge of dawn. 
Skirting the stream out toward the higher back 
woods, I chanced to spy a bunch of snow in one of 
the great sour gums that I thought was an old nest. 
A second look showed me tiny green leaves, then 
white berries, then mistletoe. 
It was not a surprise, for I had found it here be- 
fore, —a long, long time before. It was back in my 
schoolboy days, back beyond those twenty years, that 
I first stood here under the mistletoe and had my first 
romance. There was no chandelier, no pretty girl, in 
that romance, —only a boy, the mistletoe, the giant 
trees, and the sombre silent swamp. Then there was 
his discovery, the thrill of deep delight, and the 
wonder of his knowledge of the strange unnatural 
plant! All plants had been plants to him until, one 
day, he read the life of the mistletoe. But that was 
English mistletoe; so the boy’s wonder world of 
plant life was still as far away as Mars, when, ram- 
bling alone through the swamp along the creek, he 
27 
