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A Happy Winter in New England

THE winter of 1889-90 I spent in the North. One day I went on a visit to a New England village with its frozen lakes and vast snow-fields. It was then that I had opportunities such as had never been mine to enter into the treasures of the snow.

I recall my surprise on discovering that a mysterious hand had stripped the trees and bushes, leaving only here and there a wrinkled brown leaf. The birds had flown, and their empty nests in the bare trees were filled with snow. Winter was on hill and field. The earth seemed benumbed by his icy touch, and the very spirits of the trees had withdrawn to their roots, and there, curled up in the dark mould, lay fast asleep. All life seemed to have ebbed away, and even when the sun shone the day was

"Shrunk and cold,
As if her veins were sapless and old,
And she rose up decrepitly
For a last dim look at earth and sea."

The withered grass and the bushes were transformed into a forest of icicles.

Then came a day when the leaden sky portended a snowstorm. We rushed out-of-doors to feel the first few tiny flakes descending. Hour by hour the flakes dropped silently, softly from their airy height to the earth, and the country became more and more level. A snowy night closed upon the world, and in the morning one could scarcely recognize a feature of the landscape. All the roads were hidden, not a single landmark was visible, only a waste of snow with gray trees rising out of it.

In the evening a wind from the northeast sprang up, and the flakes rushed hither and thither in furious mêlée. Round the great fire we sat and told merry tales, and frolicked and quite forgot that we were in the midst of a desolate solitude, shut in from all communication with the outside world. But during the night the fury of the wind increased to such a degree that it thrilled us with a vague terror. The rafters creaked and strained, and the branches of the trees surrounding the house rattled and beat against the windows, as the winds rioted up and down the country.

When the First Snowstorm was Over

ON THE third day after the beginning of the storm the snow ceased. The sun broke through the clouds and shone upon a vast, undulating white plain. High mounds, pyramids heaped in fantastic shapes, and impenetrable drifts lay scattered in every direction.

Narrow, winding paths were shoveled through the drifts. I put on my cloak and hood and went out. The air stung my cheeks like fire. The whole country was white and gold. Half walking in the narrow paths, half working our way through the lesser drifts, we succeeded in reaching a pine grove just outside a broad pasture. The trees stood motionless and white like figures in a marble frieze. There was no odor of pine-needles in that fairyland. The rays of the sun fell upon the trees, so that the twigs sparkled like diamonds and dropped in showers when we touched them. So dazzling was the light, it penetrated even the darkness that veils my eyes.

As the days wore on the drifts gradually shrank, but before they were wholly gone another storm came, so that we scarcely saw the brown earth once all winter. At intervals the trees lost their icy covering, and the bulrushes and underbrush were robbed of their diamonds; but the lake lay frozen and beautiful beneath the sun.

Our favorite amusement during that winter was tobogganing. In places the shore of the lake rises abruptly from the water's edge. Down these steep slopes we used to coast. We would get on our toboggan, a boy would give us a shove, and off we would go! Plunging through drifts, leaping hollows, swooping down upon the lake, we would shoot across its smooth, gleaming surface to the opposite bank. What joy! What exhilarating madness! For one wild, glad moment we snap the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we feel ourselves divine!

Eagerness to Learn to Speak

IT WAS in the spring of 1890 that I learned to speak. For I a long time I had known that the people about me used a method of communication quite different from mine. The impulse to utter audible sounds had always been strong within me. I used to make noises, keeping one hand on my throat while the other hand noted the movement of my lips. I was pleased with anything that made a noise and liked to feel the cat purr and the dog bark. I also liked to keep my hand on a singer's throat, or on a piano when it was being played. Before I lost my sight and hearing I was fast learning to talk, but after my illness it was found that I had ceased to speak because I could not hear a sound. I would sit in my mother's lap all day long and keep my hands on her face because it amused me to feel the motions of her lips; and I moved my lips, too, although I had forgotten what talking was. My laughter and cries were natural; and for a while I made many sounds and word-elements, not because they were a means of communication, but because the need of exercising my vocal organs was imperative. However, there was one word the meaning of which I still remembered: "water." I pronounced it "wa-wa," and even this became less and less intelligible until the time when Miss Sullivan began to teach me. I stopped using it only after I had learned to spell the word on my fingers.