The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1861-01-09
THE COLGR OF WINTER.

words for saturdays Journal, grand
old snow storm is filling the air, and
white drifts are bundled in the fence
corners, and rough brown posts are cap
ped with alabaster, and the woods look
dm and gray, and the wind is having a
| froIic. and it all looks like leaf torn out
ola New England winter, and spread
abroad upon the prairie. What it may
be rs you rea !, is not foreshadowed in
Isaiah; April may be asleep in the open
air and the sunshine, for anything we
know, but to-day Tbompson's line Sin
bis own loose revolving feld,'is written
all abroad.
Such DAY is plcasanter to us than
June: it has a mnemonic charm that
| never fails, for it bears us back to the
October edge of winter in Northern
New York. As We wrote of it year
ago. so we write of it now. We see, az
we saw then, the ridged and rolling fields
grow yellow and gray; the rusty ranks
ofcorn shiver in the wind; the woods
stained with old sunsets; Indian Summer
washed away BY the cold rain, and the
mornings crisp and white with FROST
We begin to see our breaths in the air,
and the silvery pines on the window
panes, and the smoke from the chimney
turn beautiful, and the focks gather close
under the lee OF the barn.
The brown nests grow visible i'll the
trees, and tho apples that have resisted
the great ague of the gatberers, come
out Of their leafy eclipse into plain sight,
and the creek in tho woods in more aud
ible day by day; the yellow-birds hurry
away with the flying white down of the
thistle 1.-THE sparrows and black birds
have held meetings and gone; tho clouds
are sober and sad, and the winds full of
great sighs.
The barn is heaped TO the swallows
high zenith with the spoils of the reaper
and mower; the horses stamp IN their
stalls, and the cattle low to each other
from the sleds. The pile Of wood in the
yard grows day by day, and the sound
of the axe rings night and morning,
with the beat of the fails between. The
withered branches 10 the fire place fash
up and are gone, and the chairs are
drawn around tho hearth. We look out
ut the window at night; the clouds are
angry and ragged and dark, anil the
'snow-bank' III heaven lies off in the ut
termost cast. We look oat at the win
Cow at morning: the meadow is white
and the hills a great drift, and the woods
all in blossom with winter.
The School. master comes to mend
pens and board round; a call for the
mufilers and mittens is heard; the red
and white inittens, the white and blue
mittens, whose plastic touch should shape
the Snow man aud build the snow fort,
and hurl the White tempest Of balls.
How the old fashioned storm used to
set in. Thicker and darker gathered
the feathery clouds, and gloomier grew
the day; then from morning till night
from bed time till breakfast, fake after
fake il came, noiseless as the football of
thought; fell on the meek and silent trees !;
fell on the roof and crowned the dumb
caves: fell in the valley where the corn
was waving; fell in the meadow where
the reapers were singing; fell where the
blue bird sang; fell where the flowers had
been; fell where the grve was hea; ed !;
fell on our sumner paths; fell where tie
willows weep. Three feet on level, six
feet in the drifts where was the lane,
and where was the stream? Every
where snow!
Then we breathed lookout through
the frosty panes; then we cautiously
opened the door, and the snow on the
threshold fell on our little, care feet in
tbes.gfay morning, and there was "a cry
for strings 10 tie out the winter around
our ankles, and caps were in demand, and
the tethered mittens we're taken down
from the wall, and out We bounded into
the white harvest with shout. Up to
our waists we went; up to our ears and
over our heads in the drifts. Painting,
breathless, Joyous, on we plunged, and
we shufied paths to the barn and the
wood, and we shook the white bars and
the old apple-tree by the gate till showed
again, and we got out the sleds from the
garrett, and, they, the old red sleigh, from
the shed.
And as the day went on, tn, roads
were broken out, aud the paths were
srodden, end the music of Of bells was
all abroad, and the corners of buffalo
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