er
in the days to come, when she would walk back and forth before the
bars, warping the yarn to be woven into cloth for his and Benny's
clothes; how she would regard the harmless frame as an uncanny thing,
endowed with supernatural powers, and look askance at it, and shrink
from touching it; how she would watch for the sign to come true, and
tremble lest it come.

He turned about, dragging and tugging this weight of concealment after
him, reentered the house, and sat down beside the fire.

His uncle Jacob Smith had gone to his own home. The others were telling
stories, calculated to make one's hair stand on end, about signs and
warnings, and their horrible fulfillment.

"Granny," said Solomon suddenly.

"Waal, sonny?" said his grandmother.

When the eyes of the family group were fixed upon him, Solomon's courage
failed.

"Nothin'," he said hastily. "Nothin' at all."

"Why, what ails the boy?" exclaimed his mother.

"I tell ye now, Solomon," said his grandmother, with an emphatic nod,
"ye hed better respec' yer elders,--an' a sign in the house!"

Solomon slept little that night. Toward day he began to dream of the
warping-bars. They seemed to develop suddenly into an immense animated
monster, from which he only escaped by waking with a sudden start.

Then he found that a great white morning, full of snow, was breaking
upon the black night. And what a world it was now! The mountain was
graced with a soft white drapery; on every open space there were vague
suggestions of delicate colors: in this hollow lay a tender purple
shadow; on that steep slope was an elusive roseate flush, and when you
looked again, it was gone, and the glare was blinding.

The bare black branches of the trees formed strangely interlaced
hieroglyphics upon the turquoise sky. The crags were dark and grim,
despite their snowy crests and the gigantic glittering icicles that here
and there depended from them. A cascade, close by in the gorge, had
been stricken motionless and dumb, as if by a sudden spell; and still
and silent, it sparkled in the sun.

The snow lay deep on the roof of the log cabin, and the eaves were
decorated with shining icicles. The enchantment had followed the zigzag
lines of the fence, and on every rail was its embellishing touch.

All the homely surroundings were transfigured. The potato-house was a
vast white billow, the ash-hopper was a marble vase, and the
fodder-stack was a great conical ermine cap, belonging to