THE SNOW-WALKERS 43 



sharply-defined figures, the great green flakes of 

 hay, the long file of patient cows, the advance just 

 arriving and pressing eagerly for the choicest mor- 

 sels, and the bounty and providence it suggests. 

 Or the chopper in the woods, — the prostrate tree, 

 the white new chips scattered about, his easy tri- 

 umph over the cold, coat hanging to a limb, and 

 the clear, sharp ring of his axe. The woods are 

 rigid and tense, keyed up by the frost, and resound 

 like a stringed instrument. Oc/the road-breakers, 

 sallying forth with oxen and sleds in the still, white 

 world, the day after the storm, to restore the lost 

 track and demolish the beleaguering drifts. / 



All sounds are sharper in winter; the air trans- 

 mits better. At night I hear more distincly the 

 steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it 

 is a sort of complacent purr, as the breezes stroke 

 down its sides; but in winter always the same low, 

 sullen growl. 



A severe artist ! No longer the canvas and the 

 pigments, but the marble and the chisel. When 

 the nights are calm and the moon full, I go out to 

 gaze upon the wonderful purity of the moonlight 

 and the snow. The air is full of latent fire, and 

 the cold warms me — after a different fashion from 

 that of the kitchen stove. The world lies about me 

 in a "trance of snow." The clouds are pearly and 

 iridescent, and seem the farthest possible remove 

 from the condition of a storm, — the ghosts of 

 clouds, the indwelling beauty freed from all dross. 

 I see the hiUs, bulging with great drifts, lift them- 



