not far enough for the unexpected. After
a time you get the point of view of gods about these things to save you
from being too pitiful.

The great snows that come at the beginning of winter, before there is
yet any snow except the perpetual high banks, are best worth while to
watch. These come often before the late bloomers are gone and while the
migratory birds are still in the piney woods. Down in the valley you see
little but the flocking of blackbirds in the streets, or the low flight
of mallards over the tulares, and the gathering of clouds behind
Williamson. First there is a waiting stillness in the wood; the
pine-trees creak although there is no wind, the sky glowers, the firs
rock by the water borders. The noise of the creek rises insistently and
falls off a full note like a child abashed by sudden silence in the
room. This changing of the stream-tone following tardily the changes of
the sun on melting snows is most meaningful of wood notes. After it runs
a little trumpeter wind to cry the wild creatures to their holes.
Sometimes the warning hangs in the air for days with increasing
stillness. Only Clark's crow and the strident jays make light of it;
only they can afford to. The cattle get down to the foothills and ground
inhabiting creatures make fast their doors. It grows chill, blind clouds
fumble in the canons; there will be a roll of thunder, perhaps, or a
flurry of rain, but mostly the snow is born in the air with quietness
and the sense of strong white pinions softly stirred. It increases, is
wet and clogging, and makes a white night of midday.

There is seldom any wind with first snows, more often rain, but later,
when there is already a smooth foot or two over all the slopes, the
drifts begin. The late snows are fine and dry, mere ice granules at the
wind's will. Keen mornings after a storm they are blown out in wreaths
and banners from the high ridges sifting into the canons.

Once in a year or so we have a "big snow." The cloud tents are widened
out to shut in the valley and an outlying range or two and are drawn
tight against the sun. Such a storm begins warm, with a dry white mist
that fills and fills between the ridges, and the air is thick with
formless groaning. Now for days you get no hint of the neighboring
ranges until the snows begin to lighten and some shouldering peak lifts
through a rent. Mornings after the heavy snows are steely blue,
two-edged with cold, divinely fresh and still, and