WINTER SKETCHES. I93 



Many of the perennial plants are starting up by 

 the stream. Here are rosettes of water -cress 

 leaves, and one bud of the skunk cabbage, I see, 

 has pushed itself out of the ground three or four 

 inches. It grows where the running water is con- 

 tinually washing it, and has bleached the outer 

 leaf wrapper as white as ivory ; the whole resem- 

 bling a large walrus tusk. How accurately Nature 

 has rolled together the tender lemon-colored leaves 

 within ! 



The earth that was nearly bare yesterday 

 appears this morning in a thin, wafer-like veneer- 

 ing of white, as if an immense army of colossal 

 confectioners with seven-leagued boots had been 

 busy through the night, striding over the hills and 

 hollows and spreading with sparing hand the huge 

 brown loaf with flaky frosting. After the army- 

 had passed on, the "snow walkers" came from 

 their coverts and wrote their names in bold, run- 

 ning foot, and imprinted the plastic covering with 

 pretty trails and records of their journeyings. By 

 the stream, that appears almost as black as ink 

 in contrast to the surrounding whiteness, are 

 the impressions of various filigrees, meshes and 

 chains, twisted and entangled in every conceivable 

 manner. What odd, roundabout, random errands 

 they were sent on in the darkness ! Here in the 

 Autumn, the snow betrayed the course of that 

 nocturnal prowler, the skunk. He had visited the 



