10 After the Snow. 



An old man comes across the field with a hand-saw 

 and a ladder. He talks about the day — " how sunny it 

 is," and that he is going to cut cedar limbs for the cows ; 

 they like something green. While they come up and rub 

 their noses against him, he tells their names : that Lesa 

 was born on Inauguration day ; that he " brought her up 

 like a baby, fed her by hand, because her mother was 

 sick," and that on the 4th of March this year she had her 

 third calf. Though Lesa is trustful of him, he is plotting 

 against her offspring, and asks concerning a butcher that 

 might buy it, for " it is now three weeks old." Soon the 

 application of the proper name for one of the three roan 

 cows becomes a question, and we ask for enlightenment. 

 " Don't you see Hannah is bigger than Jane, higher, Jane 

 is two months older, though, and Lesa has the broken 

 horn." The old man goes down the hill to the cedars, 

 the cows go running after, and he every now and then 

 slaps them with the flat of the saw, to keep them at a 

 proper distance, and when the cedar-limb falls off its 

 foliage is devoured with evident satisfaction. 



The purple tiger-beetles fly along the wood-paths ; the 

 honey-bees congregate where the sap oozes from the 

 stumps of trees cut down in the winter, and the damp piles 

 of cordwood give off a strong, pleasant fragrance — 'tis 

 the odor of vegetable blood. A beautiful deep orange, 

 black, and brown moth flies in numbers in the young 

 growth, every now and then resting on a branch-tip, for 

 Brephos infa?is comes on the warm days in March, with 

 the lingering snow. 



The male wood-frogs are numerous in the pools, and 



