CHAPTER XVIII 
IN WINTER WOODS 
The Night is Mother of the Day. 
The Winter of the Spring; 
And ever upon old Decay 
The greenest mosses cling. 
Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, 
Through showers the sunbeams fall; 
For God, who loveth all his works, 
Has left His Hope with all—Wazttzer. 
WHEN the ‘‘ leaves have forsaken the trees and 
the forest is chilly and bare’’ it seems that the 
wandering botanist will find nothing there to inter- 
est or amuse him. 
But botany, like evil doing, has all seasons for 
its own, and even when leaves and flowers are gone, 
there are still in the woodlands a few signs that 
the world’s heart is beating still under its slumber- 
robe of snow. 
Some humble plants go on growing, even at a 
season when one would suppose all vegetation to 
be benumbed with winter’s icy breath. 
In sheltered hollows, where the sunshine causes 
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