A Window in Arcady 
midair with the aromatic steam that rises from the coffee 
pot at my elbow. So fortified, I am ready to fare forth 
by frozen paths to meet the sun, already sending yellow 
shafts of light through the silent aisles of the woods. 
Few people realize the wealth of color which the pine 
barrens hold even in midwinter, and which is revealed on 
a sunny day. This color is due principally to the pre¬ 
valence of evergreen plants whose foliage the frost turns 
to many shades of crimson and yellow and green. There 
are verdant banks of laurel streaked with the scarlet of 
the season’s twigs, and inkberry bushes in blue-black. The 
tiny green leaves of the sand myrtle are lit up by the sun 
with sparkles of white light reflected from them as from 
so many little mirrors, the cranberry vines, fast in the 
embrace of the marsh ice, stand blushing deep crimson, as 
though ashamed of having been so caught, and the minia¬ 
ture forests of teaberry make splashes of dull red over the 
ground, with here and there a flash of scarlet where a 
berry shows. In great patches of emerald green or sul¬ 
phur yellow the mosses of the upland sands grow, but in 
the swamps the spongy peat-moss is dyed in exquisite 
shades of red and old gold and looks like a rich carpet. 
Rarest of all treats to the eye, however, in these flower¬ 
less days is the sight of the open marshes and savannas, 
where, ringed about by the dark-green pines, the cassandra 
bushes are gathered into billowy lakes of foliage. The 
leaves of this shrubby little plant, which covers great areas 
in open bogs and in the wet grounds along the pine barren 
streams, are in winter the dullest of dead browns, dotted 
with minute points of gray. In cloudy weather no one 
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