miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the roads or
ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of adventure
as I cannot describe.

Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts of
snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly
like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled a path the heaps
are nearly as high as my shoulder....

This perfect morning a faint purplish haze is upon all the hills, with
bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke
rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with
unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure heaps around the
barns. All the hillsides glisten and sparkle like cloth of gold, each
glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the
long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses' feet
crunch upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the
creamery--the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white
scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly,
and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of
superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow
their wood sled. They are bantering one another noisily. I see a man
shovelling snow from his barn doors; as each shovelful rises and
scatters, the sun catches it for an instant and it falls, a silvery
shower. ... I tramped to-day through miles of it: and whether in broken
roads or spotless fields, had great joy of it. It was good to stride
through opposing drifts and to catch the tingling air upon one's face.
The spring is beautiful indeed, and one is happy at autumn, but of all
the year no other mornings set the blood to racing like these; none
gives a greater sense of youth, strength, or of the general goodness of