“Give me to struggle with weather and wind;

    Give me to stride through the snow;

Give me the feel of the chill on my cheeks,

    And the glow and the glory within!”

 

March 17th.

 

The joy of winter: the downright joy of winter! I tramped to-day through miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the roads or ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of adventure as I cannot describe.

 

Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts¹ of snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled² a path the heaps are nearly as high as my shoulder....

 

This perfect morning a faint purplish haze³ is upon all the hills, with bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure⁴ heaps around the barns. All the hillsides glisten⁵ and sparkle like cloth of gold, each glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses' feet crunch⁶ upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the creamery—the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly, and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow their wood sled. They are bantering⁷ one another noisily. I see a man shovelling⁸ snow from his barn doors; as each

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