* * * * *
One Christmas morning, a few years ago, the new-fallen snow lay white
and pure over all the woods and fields. It was soft and clinging as it
fell on Christmas eve. Now every old wall and fence was a carved bench
of gleaming white; every post and stub had a soft white robe and a
tall white hat; and every little bush and thicket was a perfect
fairyland of white arches and glistening columns, and dark grottoes
walled about with delicate frostwork of silver and jewels. And then
the glory, dazzling beyond all words, when the sun rose and shone upon
it!
Before sunrise I was out. Soon the jumping flight and cheery
good-morning of a downy woodpecker led me to an old field with
scattered evergreen clumps. There is no better time for a quiet peep
at the birds than the morning after a snow-storm, and no better place
than the evergreens. If you can find them at all (which is not
certain, for they have mysterious ways of disappearing before a
storm), you will find them unusually quiet, and willing to bear your
scrutiny indifferently, instead of flying off into deeper coverts.
I had scarcely crossed the wall when I stopped at hearing a new bird
song, so amazingly sweet that it could only be a Christmas message,
yet so out of place that the listener stood doubting whether his ears
were playing him false, wondering whether the music or the landscape
would not suddenly vanish as an unreal thing.
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