NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The awa- 
kening of 
nature, 
The icy landscape is not a sight of any long 
duration. The sun soon melts the ice, the 
trees rock in the wind, and the glassy covering 
slips and rattles upon the frozen ground. When 
once nature begins to move, it is not easy for 
cold winds and blustering sleet to stop it. The 
grass starts under the snow, the early plants 
begin to stir, the stems and buds grow redder ; 
and when the last patch of dirty white in the 
deep gulch among the bowlders is slipping and 
melting away, the trees above it are perhaps al- 
ready showing a fuzzy, muffled look, the moss on 
the bowlders has shot its pale, pin-like points of 
green upward toward the sun, and the grass 
grows in thick tufts where the brook winds 
through the meadow. 
