the cañon through which the river, ages ago, began to cut its course.
These ridges of limestone, loess and drift rise a hundred feet or more
above the level of the plain from which the river suddenly turns
aside. They are thickly covered with timber. There is no angel with a
flaming sword to keep you from passing into this winter paradise! The
river bank is lined with pussy willows; they gleam in the sunshine
like copper. Farther back there are different varieties of dogwood,
some with delicate green twigs and some a cherry red. The wild rose
and the raspberry vines add their glossy purplish and cherry red stems
to the color combination, and a contrast is afforded by the silvery
gray bark of stray aspens. A still softer and more beautiful shade of
silver gray is seen in the big hornet's nest of last year which still
hangs suspended from a low sugar maple. On all of these the sunlight
plays and makes a wondrous color symphony. "Truly the light is sweet
and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." To be
sure, this colorful arrangement of the stems and twigs is not
brilliant, like the flaming vermilion blossoms of the _Lobelia
cardinalis_ in August, the orange yellow of the rudbeckias in
September, or the wondrous blue of the fringed gentian in early
October. It is more like the delicate tints and shadings of an arts
and crafts exhibition, stained leather, hammered copper and brass, art
canvas, and ancient illuminated initials in monks' missals. The
tempered winter sunlight is further softened by the trees; as it
illuminates the soft red rags of the happy old birch it seems
sublimated, almost sanctified and spiritual, like that which filters
through rich windows in cathedrals, and makes a real halo around the
heads of sweet-faced saints.

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