CHAPTER XXXy 
THE SNOW 
S INCE our garden has bloomed its best, and 
now rests sleeping, and since there is no 
longer any work there for either Joseph or me to 
do, we have turned to the spruces for greenness, and 
to the woods in their silent gauntness. We are not 
content tO' live apart from Nature, even though she 
wears the cloak of winter. 
The snow began in the night. Joseph and I 
awoke to see the outside world changed from grey- 
ness to the black and white of December. The 
flakes continued to fall silently throughout the 
morning, each one making the whiteness more com- 
plete and spotless. The trees rose darkly above it, 
while a solitary crow, the last perchance of his fel- 
lows, flew directly across the triangle as though 
intent on leaving it and its whiteness as far behind 
him as possible. 
“Now you children will learn something about 
life in the country,’’ Mrs. Keith assured us. “Win- 
ter is the real time to test the patience.” 
Timothy Pennell, who has changed his occupa- 
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