He was full of
persimmons. A good happy world this, where such fare could be had for
the picking! What need to hurry home, except one were in danger of
falling asleep by the way? So I thought, too, as I followed his winding
path; and if I was tracking him to his den, it was only to wake him for
a moment with the compliments of the season. But it was not even a
momentary disturbance; for when I finally found him in his hollow gum,
he was sound asleep, and only half realized that some one was poking him
gently in the ribs and wishing him a merry Christmas.
The 'possum had led me to the center of the empty, hollow swamp, where
the great-boled gums lifted their branches like a timbered, unshingled
roof between me and the wide sky. Far away through the spaces of the
rafters I saw a pair of wheeling buzzards and, under them, in lesser
circles, a broad-winged hawk. Here, at the feet of the tall, clean
trees, looking up through the leafless limbs, I had something of a
measure for the flight of the birds. The majesty and the mystery of the
distant buoyant wings were singularly impressive.
I have seen the turkey-buzzard sailing the skies on the bitterest winter
days. To-day, however, could hardly be called winter. Indeed, nothing
yet had felt the pinch of the cold. There was no hunger yet in the
swamp, though this new snow had scared the raccoons out, and their
half-human tracks along the margin of the swamp stream showed that, if
not hungry, they at least feared that they might be.
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