In the blur of storm or under clear skies, the span of daylight
stretches farther from the fading dusk of dawn to the thickening dusk of
evening. Now in the silent downfall of snow, now in the drift and whirl
of flakes driven from the sky and tossed from the earth by the shrieking
wind, the day's passage is unmarked by shadows. It is but a long
twilight, coming upon the world out of one misty gloom, and going from
it into another. Now the stars fade and vanish in the yellow morning
sky, the long shadows of the hills, clear cut on the shining fields,
swing slowly northward and draw eastward to the netted umbrage of the
wood. So the dazzling day grows and wanes and the attenuated shadows are
again stretched to their utmost, then dissolved in the flood of shade,
and the pursued sunlight takes flight from the mountain peaks to the
clouds, from cloud to cloud along the darkening sky, and vanishes beyond
the blue barrier of the horizon.
There are days of perfect calm and hours of stillness as of sleep, when
the lightest wisp of cloud fleece hangs moveless against the sky and the
pine-trees forget their song. But for the white columns of smoke that,
unbent in the still air, arise from farmstead chimneys, one might
imagine that all affairs of life had been laid aside; for no other sign
of them is visible, no sound of them falls upon the ear. You see the
cows and sheep in the sheltered barnyards and their lazy breaths arising
in little clouds, but no voice of theirs drifts to you.
No laden team crawls creaking along the highway nor merry jangle of
sleigh bells flying into and out of hearing over its smooth course, nor
for a space do the tireless panting engine and roaring train divide
earth and sky with a wedge of dissolving vapor. The broad expanse of the
lake is a white plain of snow-covered ice: no dash of angry waves
assails its shore still glittering with the trophies of their last
assault; no glimmer of bright waters greets the sun; no keel is afloat;
the lighthouse, its occupation gone, stares day and night with dull eyes
from its lonely rock, upon a silent deserted waste.
In the wood you may hear no sound but your own muffled footsteps, the
crackle of dry twigs, and the soft swish of boughs swinging back from
your passage, and now and then a tree punctuating the silence with a
clear resonant crack of frozen fibres and its faint echo. You hear no
bird nor squirrel nor sound of woodman's axe, nor do you catch the
pungent fragrance of his fire nor the subtler one of fresh-cut wood.
Indeed, all odors of the forest seem frozen out of the air or locked up
in their sources. No perfume drops from the odor-laden evergreens, only
scentless air reaches your nostrils.
One day there comes from the south a warm breath, and with it fleets of
white clouds sailing across the blue upper deep, outstripped by their
swifter shadows sweeping in blue squadrons along the glistening fields
and darkening with brief passage the gray woodlands. Faster come the
clouds out of the south and out of the west, till they crowd the sky,
only fragments of its intense azure showing here and there between them,
only now and then a gleam of sunlight flashing across the earth. Then
the blue sunlit sky is quite shut away behind a low arch of gray,
darkening at the horizon with thick watery clouds, and beneath it all
the expanse of fields and forest lies in universal shadow.
The south wind is warmer than yesterday's sunshine, the snow softens
till your footsteps are sharply moulded as in wax, and in a little space
each imprint is flecked thick with restless, swarming myriads of
snow-fleas. Rain begins to fall softly on snow-covered roofs, but
beating the panes with the familiar patter of summer showers. It becomes
a steady downpour that continues till the saturated snow can hold no
more, and the hidden brooks begin to show in yellow streaks between
white, unstable shores, and glide with a swift whisking rush over the
smooth bottom that paves their rough natural bed; and as their yellow
currents deepen and divide more widely their banks, the noise of their
onflow fills the air like an exaggeration of the murmur of pines, and
the song of the pines swells and falls with the varying wind.
After the rain there come, perhaps, some hours of quiet sunshine or
starlight, and then out of the north a nipping wind that hardens the
surface of the snow into solid crust that delights your feet to walk
upon. The rivulets shrink out of sight again, leaving no trace but
water-worn furrows in the snow, some frozen fluffs of yellow foam and
stranded leaves and twigs, grass and broken weeds. The broad pools have
left their shells of unsupported ice, which with frequent sudden crashes
shatters down upon their hollow beds.
When the crust has invited you forth, you cannot retrace your way upon
it, and the wild snow walkers make no record now of their recent
wanderings. But of those who fared abroad before this solid pavement was
laid upon the snow, fabulous tales are now inscribed upon it. Reading
them without question, you might believe that the well-tamed country
had lapsed into the possession of its ancient savage tenants, for the
track of the fox is as big as a wolf's, the raccoon's as large as a
bear's, the house cat's as broad as the panther's, and those of the
muskrat and mink persuade you to believe that the beaver and otter,
departed a hundred years ago, have come to their own again. Till the
next thaw or snowfall, they are set as indelibly as primeval footprints
in the rocks, and for any scent that tickles the hounds' keen nose,
might be as old. He sniffs them curiously and contemptuously passes on,
yet finds little more promising on footing that retains but for an
instant the subtle trace of reynard's unmarked passage.
The delicate curves and circles that the bent weeds etched on the soft
snow are widened and deepened in rigid grooves, wherein the point that
the fingers of the wind traced them with is frozen fast. Far and wide
from where they fall, all manner of seeds drift across miles of smooth
fields, to spring to life and bloom, by and by, in strange,
unaccustomed places, and brown leaves voyage to where their like was
never grown. The icy knolls shine in the sunlight with dazzling
splendor, like golden islands in a white sea that the north wind stirs
not, and athwart it the low sun and the waning moon cast their long
unrippled glades of gold and silver. Over all winter again holds sway,
but we have once more heard the sound of rain and running brooks and
have been given a promise of spring.