They went to it,
and found it was a man, dead, and still standing as he had stiffened in
the snow, the clothes hanging on his withered body, and the eyes gone
from the sockets, picked out by the crows. It is only one of many similar
accounts, and it is thought between twenty and thirty unfortunate persons
perished. Such miserable events are of rare occurrence, but show how
open, wild, and succourless the country still remains. In ordinary
winters it is only strangers who need be cautious, and strangers seldom
appear. Even in summer time, however, a stranger, if he stays till dusk,
may easily wander for hours. Once off the highway, all the ridges and
slopes seem alike, and there is no end to them.
FOREST
The beechnuts are already falling in the forest, and the swine are
beginning to search for them while yet the harvest lingers. The nuts are
formed by midsummer, and now, the husk opening, the brown angular kernel
drops out. Many of the husks fall, too; others remain on the branches
till next spring. Under the beeches the ground is strewn with the mast as
hard almost to walk on as pebbles. Rude and uncouth as swine are in
themselves, somehow they look different under trees.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232