Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/101

Rh large, black weasel, to appearance, worming its supple way over the snow. Where it ran, its tracks were thus, = = = = the intervals between the fore and hind feet sixteen or eighteen inches, and between the two fore and the two hind feet two inches and a half.

The distant view of the open-flooded Sudbury meadows all dark blue, surrounded by a landscape of white snow, gave an impulse to the dormant sap in my veins. Dark blue and angry waves contrasting with the white but melting winter landscape. Ponds, of course, do not yet afford this water prospect, only the flooded meadows. There is no ice over or near the stream, and the flood has covered or broken up much of the ice on the meadow. The aspect of these waters at sunset, when the air is still, begins to be unspeakably soothing and promising. Waters are at length and begin to reflect, and instead of looking into the sky, I look into the placid reflecting water for the signs and promise of the morrow. These meadows are the most of ocean that I have fairly learned. Now, when the sap of the trees is probably beginning to flow, the sap of the earth, the river, overflows and bursts its icy fetters. This is the sap of which I make my sugar after the frosty nights, boiling it down and