CHOCORUA IN NOVEMBER . 
203 
relate, I found three fresh blossoms of the lions- 
tonia. Like the sweet peas at my cottage, the 
witch-hazel by the brook, and the tiny sprig of 
goldenrod picked in the pasture, these frail 
flowers had endured frosts by the dozen and a 
recent fall of snow which must have buried them 
several inches deep. Over them a red maple 
was doing its best to keep them company, for 
its crimson buds seemed as plump and full of 
color as they ought to be next March. A 
flower of another kind bloomed in profusion 
upon the sand close to the lake’s rim. It was 
like frosted silver in sheen, and the sunbeams 
loved to play in its beautiful petals. How it 
grows I know not, but it comes up from the 
sand in a single night, rank by rank and cluster 
by cluster, often lifting up great masses of sand 
upon its spearheads. This flower is the ice 
flower, whose wonderful armies of needle-like 
crystals sprout under the influence of the frost 
from every damp mass of sand or gravel, ready 
to be crunched under foot in the morning as 
horse and man pass over the uplifted roads. 
In the first brook which I passed beyond the 
pond I saw two small trout, the longer of the 
two being not over an inch and a half from 
snout to tail. They seemed to me to be a little 
sluggish, or rather a trifle less instantaneous 
than in warm months. Two or three green 
