Ill 



NATURE WITH CLOSED DOORS 



DECEMBER in our climate is the month when 

 Nature finally shuts up house and turns the 

 key. She has been slowly packing up and putting 

 away her things and closing a door and a window 

 here and there all the fall. Now she completes the 

 work and puts up the last bar. She is ready for 

 winter. The leaves are all off the trees, except that 

 here and there a beech or an oak or a hickory still 

 cUngs to a remnant of its withered foliage. Her 

 streams are full, her new growths of wood are rip- 

 ened, her saps and juices are quiescent. The musk- 

 rat has completed his house in the shallow pond or 

 stream, the beaver in the northern woods has com- 

 pleted his. The wild mice and the chipmunk have 

 laid up their winter stores of nuts and grains in their 

 dens in the ground and in the cavities of trees. The 

 woodchuck is rolled up in his burrow in the hill- 

 side, sleeping his long winter sleep. The coon has 

 deserted his chamber in the old tree and gone into 

 winter quarters in his den in the rocks. The winter 

 birds have taken on a good coat of fat against the 

 coming cold and a possible scarcity of food. The 

 47 



