so ye had to quit 'em. But they spiled you fer the
habitations o' man. It's a born stranger and an alien you was, an'
there wa'n't no place fer ye neither here nor there!"

The Silver Frost

In the heart of an almost impenetrable thicket of young firs the
rabbit had crouched all night, sometimes sleeping the light sleep of
the woodsfolk, sometimes listening to the swish of the winter rain on
his roof of branches. In spite of the storm, he had been warm and dry
all night, only a big drop coming through from time to time to make
him shift his couch. Hearing the rain, he was vaguely puzzled because
he felt so little of it; for he knew that even the densest of fir
thickets were not proof against a prolonged and steady rainfall. He
was glad to profit, however, by a phenomenon which he could not
comprehend, so he lay close, and restrained his impatient appetite,
and kept his white fur dry and warmly fluffy. Had the night been fine,
he would have been leaping gaily hither and thither over the deep,
midwinter snow, and browsing on the tender, aromatic shoots of the
young birches which dotted the little woodland valley.

Early in the night, soon after the rain began, the lower air had
turned cold, and every wet branch and twig had found itself on a
sudden encased with ice. Meanwhile, in the upper dark a warm and
moisture-laden current had kept drifting up from the southwest, and
ceaselessly spilling its burden on the hushed world. Had this fine
rain been less warm, or had the wrapping of cold air next to the earth
been deeper, the drops would have frozen in their descent, and fallen
as sleet; but as it was, they waited till they fell, and then froze
instantly. Thus every limb, and branch, and twig, and every delicate,
perennial frondage of fir and hemlock, gathered an ever-increasing
adornment of clearest crystal. And thus it was that the rabbit in the
fir thicket slept dry through the storm, the branches above him having
been transformed into a roof of ice.

The rain had stopped a little before dawn, and just as the sunrise
colours began to spread down the valley, the rabbit came hopping out
from his snug retreat. He stopped in surprise, sat up, and waved his
long ears to and fro, while his large, bulging eyes surveyed the world
in wonder. He was a young rabbit, born the spring before, and his
world had changed in the night to something he had never dreamed of.
He hopped back beneath the firs for a moment, and sniff