The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-03-03
IN No-MAN's LAND.
Writer Camrares Woods to No-Man's
Land.

=
Though we arranged an armistice for
men, the warfare between forces and
peoples goes on. Many of the wood
folks dug themselves in, long before
Christmas, and these zero mornings are
being well endured by thousand forms
of life that dwell, with less discomfort
than man, in the heart of the forest.
Passing through the woods, where the
early sunshine makes the scene fair,
one sees the silent pines that have
,breathed into their old boards. hold Il
wonder show of jewels. On the lower
ground the Young maple shoots that
viii be rods of fire when spring APP
pears, grow thiekly, and the marsh
weeds dead, yet with moisture in them,
have been contracted by the cold till
!! the water has come forth and changed
10 frost upon their skeleton limbs. 1t
| is here that the trench system exists,
wherein, as on a line in Flanders, the
lesser creatures bid defiance to winter.
/ You may, hear the ehickadee, as he
| is cheerfully inspecting his pine cup
boards. but otherwise there is no APP
parent life in the stiffness of the cold.
But if YOU scrape away the snow above
the marshy land You will find, under
dead grass, green grcwths. Under these
are the dugouts of the little peoples.
Philosophic frogs have buttoned green
coats under white ehins and with gas
masks of peat are defying the lombard
ment of the Winds Toads, fat old gen
erals of many frcst campaign, ar
lraged according to custom in muddy
kahki, wait the victorious march of
their allies, Spring and Sunshine. Until
The floods shall roar salutes they wait
in perfect peace of triumph of light
over darkness. Brahmins for five
months, they have attained Niryana.
What other forms may. be there one
cannot tell. The lizards we met after
last summer S rains, the paeifist snails
snakes green and striped, red-leggeo
turtles and their cousins with yellow
dots and splashes of red that indicate
their divisions and the honorable rec
ords their race has won by hard fight
ing, are somewhere comfortably wait
ing out the barrage of those boomin:
guns of the air. Tonight the tempera
ture may drop to any place it can, blu
there, under some inches of snow, lee
wafer, coverings of swamp grass am
: mud. wait the battaiions that will NOV
forth by millions when proud pie
April has .'put a spirit of youth i,
everything.
As the man, out with the steamin
horses and a sled for load of wood
, works in the brilliant sunshine, tn
j ehipmnnk awakens and dozes agar
, dreaming of red APPLES. The man strike
rotten stick with his axe and an GA
worm, white and fat, has its comm
, out party. With q pair of jaws. d
gestive tract and nothing else, this cit
zen OF deeaying republic has live
r Hooverizingly upon oak sawdust Sc
entists can find in it no brain, no hor
! of Immediate improvement. But had I'll
/ axe not brought it into the light out c
= due season it would have come fort
after while into summer sunshin
, with eyes, feelers, wings, eggs TO la
Q and feathers to astonish mankind, an
: lived happy season on the wings {
). the wind. Perhaps the farmer who TIN
Q intruaed is himself in the stage of lif
/. as we all may be, waiting in the co
: hall of an enclosed life until faeulti
and powers, and an existence we ca
: not comprehend, come to us after
y chrvsalis state that we must leave,
: the oak worm leaves his, before II
4 Great Adventure.
! The farmer gets his load OF wood al
: goes home, watched from hidden plac
n under little hemlocks or among t
G hriars by rabbits, that flop their Ion
ears that hear SO much from which 4
u creatures learn so little. As he 90
I the ereaking sled brushes the wit
u hazel blossoms that November broug
d to full bloom. Soon the birds will
d inspecting the bare ground where t
wocdpile was placed. Tonight, with t
thermometer dropping again, sol
wood-mouse will sit upon dry Oh
for = moment. see the white mo
of through the waving chestnut limbs
the nearby ridge, seek some seed
edible root amid the rubbish and dod
ut back to safety. Across the SHOWS W