He peered this way and that, wondering what kind of birds they could be whose plumage was being shed so freely. It must be a flock large enough to cover the whole sky, he decided, mystified.
He crept stealthily from the den, afraid, because he did not understand.
The instant his black feet touched the cold stuff, he leaped high into the air, with a yip of fright and amazement. But when he opened his mouth he got a taste of the falling flakes.
“Ha!” he said to himself, “that accounts for it. It is just rain turned white.”
Still, he crept warily down to Pollywog Pond for his breakfast, stepping high, because he hated wet feet.
Arrived at the pond he stopped for a drink, when his lapping tongue came plump against a film of something hard and shining that seemed to cover the water. What could it be, he asked himself, lapping up a mouthful of the snow-flakes to ease his thirst. (He wisely held them in his mouth till they had melted, for fear of chilling his stomach.)
It was certainly very queer. Now the very trees were beginning to be outlined in white. It made the world look quite a different place.
As for the deer, they took to a thicket of poplar, birch and spruce, on which they could feed when the snow lay deep.
There was one other to whom winter brought a change and that was Old Man Lynx.
Now it is very, very seldom that good luck falls right at one’s feet undeserved.