After my first visit to Boston, I spent almost every winter in the
North. Once I went on a visit to a New England village with its frozen
lakes and vast snow fields. It was then that I had opportunities such as
had never been mine to enter into the treasures of the snow.
I recall my surprise on discovering that a mysterious hand had stripped
the trees and bushes, leaving only here and there a wrinkled leaf. The
birds had flown, and their empty nests in the bare trees were filled
with snow. Winter was on hill and field. The earth seemed benumbed by
his icy touch, and the very spirits of the trees had withdrawn to their
roots, and there, curled up in the dark, lay fast asleep. All life
seemed to have ebbed away, and even when the sun shone the day was
Shrunk and cold,
As if her veins were sapless and old,
And she rose up decrepitly
For a last dim look at earth and sea.
The withered grass and the bushes were transformed into a forest of
icicles.
Then came a day when the chill air portended a snowstorm. We rushed
out-of-doors to feel the first few tiny flakes descending. Hour by hour
the flakes dropped silently, softly from their airy height to the earth,
and the country became more and more level. A snowy night closed upon
the world, and in the morning one could scarcely recognize a feature
of the landscape. All the roads were hidden, not a single landmark was
visible, only a waste of snow with trees rising out of it.
In the evening a wind from the northeast sprang up, and the flakes
rushed hither and thither in furious melee. Around the great fire we sat
and told merry tales, and frolicked, and quite forgot that we were in
the midst of a desolate solitude, shut in from all communication with
the outside world. But during the night the fury of the wind increased
to such a degree that it thrilled us with a vague terror. The rafters
creaked and strained, and the branches of the trees surrounding the
house rattled and beat against the windows, as the winds rioted up and
down the country.
On the third day after the beginning of the storm the snow ceased. The
sun broke through the clouds and shone upon a vast, undulating
white plain. High mounds, pyramids heaped in fantastic shapes, and
impenetrable drifts lay scattered in every direction.
Narrow paths were shoveled through the drifts. I put on my cloak and
hood and went out. The air stung my cheeks like fire. Half walking in
the paths, half working our way through the lesser drifts, we succeeded
in reaching a pine grove just outside a broad pasture. The trees stood
motionless and white like figures in a marble frieze. There was no odour
of pine-needles. The rays of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the
twigs sparkled like diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched
them. So dazzling was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that
veils my eyes.
As the days wore on, the drifts gradually shrunk, but before they were
wholly gone another storm came, so that I scarcely felt the earth under
my feet once all winter. At intervals the trees lost their icy covering,
and the bulrushes and underbrush were bare; but the lake lay frozen and
hard beneath the sun.
Our favourite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In places
the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's edge. Down these
steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on our toboggan, a boy
would give us a shove, and off we went! Plunging through drifts, leaping
hollows, swooping down upon the lake, we would shoot across its gleaming
surface to the opposite bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For
one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and
joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine!