248 DAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



ceased, and I was baffled and angry. Should I go on ? 

 I asked myself a dozen times, and while in doubt it re- 

 commenced. I hurried forward, and a huge black mass 

 stood up before me. What could it be? I stared and 

 listened, then stepped forward, and the mass took shape. 

 I was facing a locomotive on a side track. The wheezy 

 escaping of steam was the strange sound that had lured 

 me over fog-bound meadows. 



As the sun rose yesterday there came with it a dainty 

 film of cloud, that by noon had thickened and shut out 

 the sky ; later, a faint murmur only the trained ear could 

 catch filled the dark pine trees' lofty tops, telling a secret 

 to the favored few. So I gathered firewood to the music 

 of peeping hylas and whistling white-throats, knowing 

 full well the storm was on its way. The sun set, without 

 a sign, three hours ago, and the steady trickle and drip 

 from the trees and the low eaves of the cottage tell their 

 own story — October's northeast storm has come at last. 



I know not what others may be doing, cooped in the 

 burned air of their furnace-heated houses ; but what so 

 fitting on such nights as these as facing the andirons ? 

 The fire is not really needed for its warmth, but is wel- 

 come as the inspirer of pleasant fancy. It is too se- 

 ductive for the student, for the hours prove as light- 

 footed as the flickering flames; but for idle whim or 

 retrospection, a crackling blaze upon the andirons has no 

 equal. 



Safe from the storm without, I still think of the happy 

 creatures I met while gathering wood. Where are they 

 now? They need a shelter quite as much as man. If 

 they had yesterday an inkling of what was coming they 

 heeded it not, and until afternoon to-day the squirrels 

 barked, the birds sang, the hylas peeped, the green frogs 

 croaked. Even the south-bound warblers were not mute, 



