II-VI

Winter comes down savagely over a little
town on the prairie. The wind that sweeps in
from the open country strips away all the leafy
screens that hide one yard from another in
summer, and the houses seem to draw closer
together. The roofs, that looked so far away
across the green tree-tops, now stare you in the
face, and they are so much uglier than when
their angles were softened by vines and shrubs.

In the morning, when I was fighting my way
to school against the wind, I couldn't see any-
thing but the road in front of me; but in the
late afternoon, when I was coming home, the
town looked bleak and desolate to me. The
pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not
beautify -- it was like the light of truth itself.
When the smoky clouds hung low in the west
and the red sun went down behind them, leav-
ing a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the
blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh,
with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: "This
is reality, whether you like it or not. All those
frivolities of summer, the light and shadow,

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v?