Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/102

 tune with the spirit of the blessed Yuletide; now, looking through our book-shelves, it was not to be found,—probably loaned to some one in the old home and thus left behind. So even that pleasure was denied us.

This afternoon we went up into the forest in search of Christmas decorations. Cloudy and dark outside, inside the woods we found the duskiness of twilight,—a restful solitude, solemn and still. Underneath our feet was a carpet of emerald moss, soft and velvety; overhead, a canopy of green so dense that not even a passing cloud could peer through it. All around us were the graceful, motionless fronds of the magnificent sword-fern, and pretty autumn-tinted climbing and trailing vines. Truly, the groves were not only God’s first temples, but his best, truest, and holiest always. We felt loath to leave such a peaceful sanctuary, loitering long in its cool moist gloom, selecting our woodland treasures with perplexity because of their bewildering profusion and perfection.

As we came out of the forest, just in its edge we scared up a flock of mountain quail. A whir of wings, a flash of jaunty topknots, and they were gone. A bushy-tailed squirrel frisked along the top rail of the fence. A saucy bluejay scolded us from the silvery moss of a young oak,—a fine setting for his military jacket. As we found it raining briskly out in the open, we took a short cut home, along the crest of a very