I-?8 PASTORAL DAYS. 



puff is happier and more sprightly in proportion as the cold increases, 

 and that even the sight of a frozen thermometer would be, perhaps, an 

 especial inspiration for his song. Not so the little snow-birds. When 

 those raw and bitter winds sweep like a blight over the face of nature, 

 their little song is frozen, and their familiar forms are seen no more. 

 You hunt amid the evergreens and hedge-rows, but they are not there. 

 But when the shingle-vane on the old barn-gable veers and points toward 

 the south or west, should you chance to be in the neighborhood of the 

 barrack mow, you would hear the muffled twittering of the little thawing 

 voices underneath the conical roof. Here they have assembled among 

 the wheat-sheaves still unthreshed, finding a warm and cosy shelter — 

 " a pavilion till the storm is overpast." 



The winter woods are full of life and beauty, if we will only look for 

 them. We do as much for the summer woods, why not for the winter ? 

 Were we to seclude ourselves in-doors in June, and shut our eyes to all 

 its loveliness, it would be only what so many do from November till the 

 budding spring. In one respect, at least, the woods are even more 

 beautiful in winter than in summer ; for in their height of leafy splen- 

 dor — sometimes to me almost oppressive in its universal greenness — the 

 true and living tree is hidden from sight, its exquisite anatomy is con- 

 cealed, and, to a certain degree, all the different trees melt into a mass 

 of " nothing but leaves." 



No one ever sees the full charm of the forest who turns his back 

 upon it in the winter, for its clear-cut tree-forms are an unceasing de- 

 light and wonder. Look at the exquisite lines of that drooping birch, 

 the intricate interlacing tracery of the minute branching twigs ! Could 

 anything be more graceful or more chaste ? could any covering of leaves 

 enhance its beauty? And so the apple-tree by the old stone wall — how 

 different its various angles ! how individual in its character ! how beauti- 

 ful its silhouette against the sky ! Thus every separate tree affords a 

 perfect study, of infinite design. See that mottled beech trunk yonder. 

 What ! never noticed it before ? That was because its drooping leaf-clad 

 branches concealed its beauty ; but now not only does it emerge from 

 its wonted obscurity, but the whiteness of the snowy ground beyond gives 

 added value to every subtle tint upon its dappled surface. Step nearer. 

 With what variety of exquisite tender grays has nature painted the clean 

 smooth bark ! See those marbled variegations, each spot with a distinct 

 tint of its own, and each tint composed of a multitude of microscopic 



