Of all the vagaries of winter weather, one of the rarest is the
ice-storm; rain falling with a wind and from a quarter that should bring
snow, and freezing as it falls, not penetrating the snow but coating it
with a shining armor, sheathing every branch and twig in crystal and
fringing eaves with icicles of most fantastic shapes.
On ice-clad roofs and fields and crackling trees the rain still beats
with a leaden clatter, unlike any other sound of rain; unlike the
rebounding pelting of hail or the swish of wind-blown snow.
The trees begin to stoop under their increasing burden, and then to
crack and groan as it is laid still heavier upon them. At times is heard
the thin, echoless crash of an overladen branch, first bending to its
downfall with a gathering crackle of severed fibres, then with a sudden
crash, shattering in a thousand fragments the brief adornments that have
wrought its destruction.
Every kind of tree has as marked individuality in its icy garniture as
in its summer foliage. The gracefulness of the elms, the maples, the
birches, the beeches, and the hornbeams is preserved and even
intensified; the clumsy ramage of the butternut and ash is as stiff as
ever, though every unbending twig bears its row of glittering pendants.
The hemlocks and firs are tents of ice, but the pines are still pines,
with every needle exaggerated in bristling crystal.
Some worthless things have become of present value, as the wayside
thistles and the bejeweled grass of an unshorn meadow, that yesterday
with its dun unsightliness, rustling above the snow, proclaimed the
shiftlessness of its owner.
Things most unpicturesque are made beautiful. The wire of the telegraph
with its dull undulations is transformed to festoons of crystal fringe,
linking together shining pillars of glass that yesterday were but bare,
unsightly posts.
The woods are a maze of fantastic shapes of tree growth. Wood roads are
barricaded with low arches of ice that the hare and the fox can barely
find passage beneath, and with long, curved slants of great limbs bent
to the earth. The wild vines are turned to ropes and cables of ice, and
have dragged down their strong supports, about whose prostrate trunks
and limbs they writhe in a tangle of rigid coils. The lithe trunks of
second growth are looped in an intricate confusion of arches one upon
another, many upon one, over whole acres of low-roofed forest floor.
The hare and the grouse cower in these tents of ice, frightened and
hungry; for every sprout and bud is sheathed in adamant, and scarlet
berries, magnified and unattainable, glow in the heart of crystal
globules. Even the brave chickadees are appalled, and the disheartened
woodpecker mopes beside the dead trunk, behind whose impenetrable shield
he can hear the grub boring in safety.
Through the frozen brambles that lattice the doorway of his burrow the
fox peers dismayed upon a glassy surface that will hold no scent of
quarry, yet perhaps is comforted that the same conditions impose a
truce upon his enemies the hounds. The squirrel sits fasting in his
chamber, longing for the stores that are locked from their owner in his
cellar. It is the dismalest of all storms for the wood folk, despite all
the splendor wherewith it adorns their realm.
One holds out his hand and lifts his face skyward to assure himself that
the rain has ceased, for there is a continual clattering patter as if it
were yet falling. But it is only the crackling of the icy trees and the
incessant dropping of small fragments of their burden.
The gray curtain of the sky drifts asunder, and the low sun shines
through. It glorifies the earth with the flash and gleam of ten million
diamonds set everywhere. The fire and color of every gem that was ever
delved burn along the borders of the golden pathway that stretches from
your feet far away to the silver portals of the mountains that bar our
glittering world from the flaming sky.
The pallid gloom of the winter night falls upon the earth. Then the full
moon throbs up behind the scintillating barrier of the hills. She
presently paves from herself to us a street of silver among the long
blue shadows, and lights it with a thousand stars; some fallen quite to
earth, some twinkling among the drooping branches, all as bright as the
eternal stars that shine in the blue sky above.