1 86 Ways of Wood Folk. 



Near me was a solitary fir tree with a bushy top. 

 The bird, whoever he was, had gone to sleep up there, 

 close against the trunk, as birds do, for protection. 

 Durino; the nisht the soft snow gathered thicker and 

 thicker upon the flexible branches. Their tips bent 

 with the weight till they touched the trunk below, 

 forming a green bower, about which the snow packed 

 all night long, till it was completely closed in. The 

 bird was a jDrisoner inside, and singing as the morning 

 sun shone in through the walls of his prison-house. 



As I listened, delighted with the carol and the 

 minstrel's novel situation, a mass of snow, loosened 

 by the sun, slid from the snow bower, and a pine- 

 grosbeak appeared in the doorway. A moment he 

 seemed to look about curiously over the new, white, 

 beautiful world ; then he hopped to the topmost twig 

 and, turning his crimson breast to the sunrise, poured 

 out his morning song ; no longer mufBed, but sweet 

 and clear as a wood-thrush bell ringing the sunset. 



Once, long afterward, I heard his softer love song, 

 and found his nest in the heart of a New Brunswick 

 forest. Till then it was not known that he ever built 

 south of Labrador. But even that, and the joy of dis- 

 covery, lacked the charm of this rare sweet carol, 

 coming all unsought and unexpected, as good things 

 do, while our own birds were spending the Christmas 

 time and singing the sunrise in Florida. 



