The Big Snow 205 



wide plank, scrape off the snow under the 

 plank, bait the ground well, tie er rope ter the 

 trigger, an' carry the rope inside — thar you 

 wus ! All you had ter do wus watch. When 

 the snowbirds crope under the plank, er flew 

 under the plank — zip ! you pulled the rope 

 — plank fell down — an' every bird hit ketched 

 went right ter kingdom-come. Some flew 

 away, of co'se, when the plank lit down, but 

 hit ketched enough — except when thar wus 

 sech er cussed heap er children ter eat as he 

 happened terwrastle with. Hit warn'tjest no 

 sort o' use tryin' ter fill 'em up on nothin' — 

 not eben rabbits, ef the dogs an' the boys had 

 ketched sech er God's plenty on 'em." 



Snow time has nowhere a cheerier sight or 

 sound than the wee bit of gray fluff, winging 

 and twittering about, hopping daintily on one 

 foot, pecking, preening his smart white waist- 

 coat, or huddling cosily with his fellows, asleep 

 in the shelter of evergreen boughs. Such shel- 

 ter was plenty at White Oaks. There was an 

 overgrown cedar hedge between the back yard 

 and the front. Some trees in it had shot up 

 thirty feet. They were sharply conical and 

 so thickly branched the snow weighing down 

 one branch upon another had transformed 

 the whole hedge into a real Sierra Nevada — ■ 

 which is Spanish for " the saw-tooth range of 

 snow." Birds flying in and out rifted the snowy 



