THE CHRISTMAS WOODS
[Illustration]
The Southern woods hang their Christmas trimmings high. Laurel and
rhododendron, mistletoe and holly, reach up against the walls of tinted
bark. Our Northern forests trail greens along the floor, and roped
ground pine, pricking through the prone leaves or a gentle snow, appears
as a procession of tiny palm trees, come North for the holiday,
surprised and lost, but determined to keep together. Under the haw
bushes and over spruce roots, wherever shade was thick last summer,
partridge vines twine red-berried wreaths and the little plants of
wintergreen flavor and of that wandering name hold their rubies low on
the mountain side. After the enduring snows have come, these glimmering
fruits will be requisitioned--dug out by the furry owners of such
plantations on days when even covered roots seem barren of sap, and nuts
should really be saved awhile longer. Clumps of sword fern, beaten down
by November rains, are round green mats; other ferns long ago were
brown. But seldom save in its sunsets and woodlands has December color.
Ponds, fanged with ice, lie sullen or stir resentfully into whitecaps.
The sky is stony and often vanishes in brooding fog. Uncloaked, but
courageous in their gray armor, the trees wait tensely for the
intolerable onslaught of the cold: the blizzard with knives of sleet.
Over the marshes at the hour of dusk when the bronze and topaz are
quenched passes the breath of foreboding. December acknowledges an
unpitying fate--anything may happen. It is not the fireside month, softly
white outdoors and candlelit within. Time of miracles, it stands
expectant, and the thronging stars of the Christmas midnight wear a
restless look. Rutted paths answer harshly to the step. Delayed snow is
a menace in the air, but lands beyond the cities would be grateful
should it hasten, bringing safety to the soil and winter peace. Yet snow
is a betrayer, a sheet of paper upon which the feet of rabbit, mink, and
fox write a guide to their dwellings and to the whole plan of their
days.
Snow for Christmas there must be--on the lighted trees indoors, on our
far-scattered, similar cards. But save as a convenience to the reindeer
and a compliment to their driver, who cannot create his stocking stock
unless he is snowbound, and who must feel sadly languid as he tears
through Florida heavens, city people would quite willingly manage with
alum. Early in school life, however, comes the dangerous knowledge that
nothing is so easy to draw as Christmas Eve: a white hillside, a path of
one unchanging curve, a steeple or a chimney with smoke, a fir tree or a
star. Thus snow eases art for the credulous who think it white.
Glittering under starlight, shadowed with purple, lemon, or deep blue
as sunset turns to evening, taking on daffodil hues at noon, snow is
harder to paint. Fretted with windy tracery and drawn out into streaming
lines where the gale races along by a fence, snow is not, on Christmas
greetings, permitted to be seen.
[Illustration]
The first snowstorm of the year should be sent from Labrador on
Christmas Eve and sprinkled impartially and ornamentally over all the
land. Then, the Yule atmosphere once provided, the distribution should
be confined to the rural clientele until the next December, for on
streets the hoar frost is indeed like ashes. But why, in somber justice,
should the far South pretend to holiday snow at all? Why not Christmas
cards pranked with live oaks, alligators, lagoons, and other beauties of
an Everglade scene--an inspiring escape from tradition and sentiment? For
the antlered steeds must prance above hibiscus flowers as well as round
the Pole. Yet it must seem dull to hang stockings by a fireplace that
needs fire merely as a decoration and never to have loved a sleigh!
Abandoned, but still no downcast company, slanting corn shocks not
honored with winter shelter stand patient sentinels in the field.
Abandoned they may seem, yet could you suddenly tip one over there would
be a startled scurrying, for these are the choice snow-time residences
of field mice, cottontails, weasels, and meadow moles--not, of course,
together in harmony, but in their separate establishments. Let the
blizzard come; it only makes warmer a house of cornstalks properly
built, which bears, nevertheless, some of the dangers of a gingerbread
home--passing cows may feel tempted.
Vermilion heraldry of the wild rose is waved undimmed. Witch-hazel with
her yellow blossoms, last flowers of the year, gazes upon the vanquished
shrubs about her with a smile. Why, she will not even sow her seed until
February! There is plenty of time for hardy petals.
Massed against the stern horizon, the forest stands an unresponsive
gray; entered, the twigs are seen sleek brown, dark red, and a fawn soft
as the tan orchid. In towns December shows the iron mood. But in the
open places, where pools of light and shadow lie, it is a water-color
month, made fine with no gorgeous velvets of autumn, but hung with
blending veils of dawn mist and of new snow, so that the subdued day
rises in flushed, drifting vapors, like April's awakening, and when the
sun comes, pale, we wonder that there is no summons in his light.