roar and snap of hickory logs, at long intervals a deeper breath
from the dog stretched on his side at my feet, and the crickets
under the hearth-stones. They have to thank me for that nook. One
chill afternoon I came upon a whole company of them on the western
slope of a woodland mound, so lethargic that I thumped them repeatedly
before they could so much as get their senses. There was a branch
near by, and the smell of mint in the air, so that had they been
young Kentuckians one might have had a clew to the situation. With
an ear for winter minstrelsy, I brought two home in a handkerchief,
and assigned them an elegant suite of apartments under a loose
brick.

But the finest music in the room is that which streams out to the
ear of the spirit in many an exquisite strain from the hanging shelf
of books on the opposite wall. Every volume there is an instrument
which some melodist of the mind created and set vibrating with music,
as a flower shakes out its perfume or a star shakes out its light.
Only listen, and they soothe all care, as though the silken-soft
leaves of poppies had been made vocal and poured into the ear.

Towards dark, having seen to the comfort of a household of kind,
faithful fellow-beings, whom man in his vanity calls the lower
animals, I went last to walk under the cedars in the front yard,
listening to that music which is at once so cheery and so sad--the
low chirping of birds at dark winter twilights as they gather in
from the frozen fields, from snow-buried shrubbery and hedge-rows,
and settle down for the night in the depths of the evergreens, the
only refuge from their enemies and shelter from the blast. But this
evening they made no ado about their home-coming. To-day perhaps
none had ventured forth. I am most uneasy when the red-bird is