How often in the woods and by-ways have I stopped and chatted with this diminutive friend as he nestled in some oscillating spray of golden-rod, or perhaps with jaunty strut shook down the new-fallen snow from some drooping branch of hemlock. I say “chatted,” for he is a talkative and entertaining little fellow, always ready to tell people “all about it,” if they will only ask him. He is generally too busy searching amid the dead and crumpled leaves for the indispensable bug to intrude himself on any one; but once draw him into conversation and he will do his share of the talking—only, mind you, remove those big fur gloves and tippet, or he will put you to shame by crying, “See! see!” and showing you his little, bare feet. This pert atom can be saucy and cross if things don’t exactly suit his fancy; and, for whatever reason, he always seems out of patience at the sight of a man all bundled up and mittened. I have noticed this repeatedly. “Take off some of those things,” he seems to say, “and let me see who you are, and then I’ll talk with you,” and with feathers puffed up like an indignant hen in miniature, he scolds and scolds.
Then there are the little snow-birds, too. When the sad autumn days are upon us, when the dying leaves with ominous flush yield up their hold on life, and are borne to earth on wailing winds, and all nature seems filled with mocking phantoms of the summer’s life and loveliness; when we listen for the robin’s song and hear it not, or the thrush’s bell-like trill, and listen in vain; when we look into the southern sky and see the winged flocks departing behind the faded hills—it is at such a time, while the very air seems weighed with melancholy, that the snow-birds come with their welcome, twittering voices. All winter long these sprightly little fellows swarm the thickets and sheltering evergreens, frolicking in the new-fallen snow like sparrows in a summer pool. Sometimes they unite in flocks with the chickadees and invade the orchard, and even the kitchen door-yard, with their ceaseless chatter. If you open the window and scatter a few crumbs upon the porch, they are soon hopping among the grateful morsels with twittering thankfulness. And on a very cold day, should you leave the kitchen window standing open, they will perch upon the sill and preen their ruffled feathers. Always trusting and confiding when appreciated, but often coy and distant for want of just such kindness.
Although loving the cold, and choosing the winter season to be with us, the snow-birds cannot hold their own against the little hardy chickadee. Indeed, I sometimes think that this little frost-proof puff is happier and more sprightly in proportion as the cold increases, and that even the sight of a frozen thermometer would be, perhaps, an especial inspiration for his song. Not so the little snow-birds. When those raw and bitter winds sweep like a blight over the face of nature, their little song is frozen, and their familiar forms are seen no more. You hunt amid the evergreens and hedge-rows, but they are not there. But when the shingle-vane on the old barn-gable veers and points toward the south or west, should you chance to be in the neighborhood of the barrack mow, you would hear the muffled twittering of the little thawing voices underneath the conical roof. Here they have assembled among the wheat-sheaves still unthreshed, finding a warm and cosy shelter—“a pavilion till the storm is overpast.”
The winter woods are full of life and beauty, if we will only look for them. We do as much for the summer woods, why not for the winter? Were we to seclude ourselves in-doors in June, and shut our eyes to all its loveliness, it would be only what so many do from November till the budding spring. In one respect, at least, the woods are even more beautiful in winter than in summer; for in their height of leafy splendor—sometimes to me almost oppressive in its universal greenness—the true and living tree is hidden from sight, its exquisite anatomy is concealed, and, to a certain degree, all the different trees melt into a mass of “nothing but leaves.”
No one ever sees the full charm of the forest who turns his back upon it in the winter, for its clear-cut tree-forms are an unceasing delight and wonder. Look at the exquisite lines of that drooping birch, the intricate interlacing tracery of the minute branching twigs! Could anything be more graceful or more chaste? could any covering of leaves enhance its beauty? And so the apple-tree by the old stone wall—how different its various angles! how individual in its character! how beautiful its silhouette against the sky! Thus every separate tree affords a perfect study, of infinite design. See that mottled beech trunk yonder. What! never noticed it before? That was because its drooping leaf-clad branches concealed its beauty; but now not only does it emerge from its wonted obscurity, but the whiteness of the snowy ground beyond gives added value to every subtle tint upon its dappled surface. Step nearer. With what variety of exquisite tender grays has nature painted the clean smooth bark! See those marbled variegations, each spot with a distinct tint of its own, and each tint composed of a multitude of microscopic points of color. Here we see a fimbriated blotch of dark olive moss, spreading its intertwining rootlets in all directions, and further up a spongy tuft of rich brown lichen tipped with snow. Who could pass by unnoticed such a refined and exquisite bit of painting as this? And yet they abound on every side. See the shingly shagbark, with its mottlings of pale green lichen and orange spots, its jagged outline so perfectly relieved against the snow, and, beyond, that group of rock-maples, with its bold contrasts of deep green moss, and striped tints of most varied shades, from lightest drab to deepest brown. And there is the yellow birch with its tight-wound bark, fringed with ravellings of buff-colored satin. Here we come upon a clump of chestnuts, their cool trunks set off in bold relief against a background of dark hemlocks, whose outer branches, clothed in snow, like tufted mittens, hang low upon the ground.
Passing from the wood, we now pick our way through a neglected by-path shut in on either side with birches, whose brown and slender branches spring from a trunk so white as to be almost lost in the background tint of snow. At every step we dislodge the glistening wreaths of snowy flakes from the bluish raspberry canes. The little withered nests on the tips of the wild-carrot stems hurl their fleecy burden to the ground; and each in turn the phantom shapes give place to homely yarrows, golden-rods, or thistles. Further on we see a wild-rose
