WINTER SUNSHINE. 



I S 



curious they look, and as if surprised in undress. Next 

 year they will begin to shoot out branches and make 

 themselves a screen. Or the farm scenes — the winter 

 barn-yards littered with husks and straw, the rough- 

 coated horses, the cattle sunning themselves or walking 

 down to the spring to drink, the domestic fowls mov- 

 ing about — there is a touch of sweet homely life in 

 these things that the winter sun enhances and brings 

 out. Every sign of life is welcome at this season. I 

 love to hear dogs bark, hens cackle, and boys shout ; 

 one has no privacy with Nature now, and does not 

 wish to seek her in nooks and hidden ways. She is 

 not at home if he goes there ; her house is shut up 

 and her hearth cold ; only the sun and sky, and per- 

 chance the waters, wear the old look, and to-day we 

 will make love to them, and they shall abundantly re- 

 turn it. 



Even the crows and the buzzards draw the eye 

 fondly. The National Capital is a great place for buz- 

 zards, and I make the remark in no double or allegori- 

 cal sense either, for the buzzards I mean are black and 

 harmless as doves, though perhaps hardly dovelike in 

 their tastes. My vulture is also a bird of leisure, and 

 sails through the ether on long flexible pinions as if that 

 was the one delight of his life. Some birds have wings 

 others have "pinions." The buzzard enjoys this latter 

 distinction. There is something in the sound of the 

 word that suggests that easy, dignified, undulatory 

 movement. He does not propel himself along by sheer 



