e for him by his sponsors that he should "hear sermons," and who
fared forth into the woods instead, first reciting "The groves were
God's first temples," and then softly singing, "When God invites, how
blest the day!"

* * * * *

They err who think the winter woods void of life and color. Pause for
a moment on the broad open flood-plain of the river, the winter fields
and meadows stretching away in gentle slopes on either side. There are
but few trees, but they have had room for full development and are
noble specimens. All is gaiety. A blue-jay screams from a broad-topped
white ash which is so full of winged seeds that it looks like a mass
of foliage. The sable-robed king of the winter woods, the American
crow, in the full vigor of his three-score years, maybe, (he lives to
be a hundred) caws lustily from the bare white branches of a big
sycamore, that queer anomaly of the forest which disrobes itself for
the winter. The merry chickadees divide their time between the
rustling, ragged bark of the red birches and the withered heads of
heath-aster and blue vervain below. In the one they get the meat
portion of their midday meal, and in the other the cereal foods. No
wonder they are sleek and joyous.

A few steps farther and we leave this broad alluvial bottom to enter
the canon through which the river, ages ago, began to cut its course.
These ridges of limestone, loess and drift rise a hundred feet or more
above the level of the plain from which the river suddenly turns
aside. They are thickly covered with timber. There is no angel with a
flaming sword to keep you from passing into this winter paradise! The
river bank is lined with pussy willows; they gleam in the sunshine
like copper. Farther back there are different varieties of dogwood,
some with delicate green twigs and some a cherry red. The wild rose
and the raspberry vines add their glossy purplish and cherry red stems
to the color combination, and a contrast is afforded by the silvery
gray bark of stray aspens. A still softer and more beautiful shade of
silver gray is seen in the big hornet's nest of last year which still
hangs suspended from a low sugar maple. On all of these the sunlight
plays and makes a wondrous color symphony. "Truly the light is sweet
and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." To be
sure, this colorful arrangement of the stems and twigs is not
brilliant, like the flaming vermilion blossoms