ice
were supplying the wants of a family of famishing children, and I
invited myself to the family reunion. The young birds had left the
nest and were perched in a leafy tree. Most of the time they kept up a
great clamor for food--or, perhaps, they shrieked merely from force of
habit; but every few minutes one of the parent birds would utter a
shrill, commanding cry, at which all the noisy clamorings of the
youthful family would suddenly cease, and for a few moments perfect
quiet would reign in titmouse town; then the hubbub would begin again,
and continue until another order for perfect silence was given. So far
as I could see, there was no danger from raptorial foes at hand, but
the little family seemed to be in training against the approach of a
marauder.

It may be a far cry, but from green-robed spring fancy yourself
suddenly flung into the lap of snow-bound winter, to look upon scenes
quite different from the foregoing. The Frost King had been playing a
good many pranks for a week or two, and once, in a spasm of frigid ill
humor, had jammed the mercury in our thermometers a dozen or more
degrees below zero, and had held it there quite too long for our
comfort. More than once had he shrieked and blustered and stamped his
feet incontinently, and more than once sent his legions of wind, sleet,
and snow howling through the leafless woods. Everybody in our central
latitudes knows what an explosive old fellow the Frost King is, and how
fierce and savage he can become let the mood once seize him.

Sometimes, too, by the hour he had ground his ice crystals to powder in
mid-air and hurled them to the earth, covering its surface with a robe
of purest white, thus proving that, with all his rudeness and bluster,
he is an old gentleman of aesthetic tastes. One evening his mood
became blander, and he dropped his crystals from the sky in large, damp
flakes, which clung tenaciously to the branches and twigs; then during
the night his breath became chilled and froze the snowy cylinders, and
when morning broke the woods were a miracle of loveliness, every leaf
and twig bearing a ridge of gleaming pearls, while the sylvan floor was
pure white. Soon the sun was shining from an unmarred sky, and the
snow-clad earth smiled back in shimmering recognition. It was a day
for worship in God's first sanctuary.

Yet it was a day for watching the gambols of the birds, and such
occupation by no means interfered with the spirit of wo