A WINTER'S WALK IN HIGHWOOD 
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“Under the snowdrifts the blossoms are sleeping, 
Dreaming their dreams of sunshine and June, 
Down in the hush of their quiet they’re keeping 
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Trills from the throstle’s wild summer-sung tune.” 
Harriet Prescott Spofford. 
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X WAS fourteen years of age and Bud was twelve, when we 
received our first shotguns. I am nearly sixteen now, but 
I look back to the event as the first great episode of our 
lives. We had wished for guns from the time we knew what 
hunting was, and that was long, long ago; for the love of out¬ 
door sport came to us through heredity and environment. Dad 
was Nimrod of old and many were the stories he told us of sports 
afield when we were small boys, which made our trigger-fingers 
tingle, and our blood surge to the surface in anticipation of like 
experiences. [ J 
Our guns were single-barreled 16-gauge, breech loaders, 
bored for nitro powder. We received them two days before the 
close of the quail and rabbit season, so we importuned Dad 
to take us out before the season closed. 
^Accordingly, on December fourth, we boarded the six 
o'clock traction for York, a little town a few miles distant. 
