THE VINTAGE OF THE LEAVES , 183 
its middle, carrying my pet owl 4 6 Puffy ” perched 
upon my gun-barrel, A squall came over the 
white ice, bearing stinging snow-dust in its van; 
it caught Puffy from his perch and set him down 
upon the ice with feet helplessly spread, and 
then as he opened his wings and tail and strug¬ 
gled in the breeze, it spun him southward, slid¬ 
ing and rolling, poor wisp of feathers that he 
was, until he was landed, more dead than alive, 
in the woods on the southern shore. 
The pines below my breezy hilltop tempted 
me by their music into their aisles. Under 
them was spread the new carpet of their needles, 
dry, warm, and tempting as a couch of eider¬ 
down. The wind sang in their tops, oh so 
sweetly, and it took me back to the moment in 
my earliest childhood when I was first conscious 
of that soft, soothing music. I do not know 
when it was, nor where it was, nor how young 
I may have been, but I can recall as from an 
almost infinite distance the memory of a sudden 
feeling of happiness at hearing the voice of the 
pines, and knowing that it was something kind 
and soothing. If we are in tune with Nature, 
all her music can find a way into the heart and 
satisfy something there which yearns for it, and 
never can be wholly happy without it. The 
man who trembles at thunder is more to be 
pitied than the poor Esquimau who was fright- 
