Some Winter Days in Iowa | Page 7

better to observe the exceeding beauty of these six pointed stars.
They are among Nature's most exquisite forms, and they are shown in
bewildering variety. The molecules of snow arrange themselves in
crystals of the hexagonal system, every angle exactly sixty degrees.
The white color of the snow is caused by a combination of the
prismatic colors of these snow crystals. Some of them are regular
hexagons, with six straight sides; others are like a wheel with six
spokes, with jewels clinging to each spoke. Many men have spent a
lifetime in the study of these fairy forms. W. A. Bentley, of the United
States weather bureau, after twenty years of faithful work, has more
than a thousand photographs of these crystals, no two alike. Every
storm yields him a new set of pictures.
* * * * *
For a little while the snow grows damp and the flakes grow larger,
making downy blankets for the babes in the woods--the hepaticas, the
mosses, the ferns. The catkins of the hazelbrush are edged with white.
The slender stems of the meadow-sweet begin to droop beneath the
weight of the snow. The delicate yellow pointed buds of the wild
gooseberry look like topaz gems in a setting of white pearl. The snow
falls faster and the wood becomes a ghost world. The dull red torches
of the smooth sumac are extinguished. The fine, delicate spray of the
hop hornbeam is a fairy net whose every mesh is fringed with

immaculate beauty. The little clusters of fine twigs here and there in the
hackberry grow into spheres of fleecy fruit. The snow sticks to the tree
trunks and makes a compass out of every one, a more accurate compass
than the big radical leaves of the rosin weed in the early fall.
As the day darkens the ghost-like effect of the storm in the woods is all
the more marked. The trees stand like silent specters, and at every turn
in the path you come upon strange shadow shapes of shrub and bush.
The snow is piling high under the hazelbrush and the sumac, stumps of
trees become soft white mounds, and the little brook has curving banks
of beauty.
There is a thrill and an exaltation in such a storm. The depressing
influences of the earlier day are no more. As you resolutely walk
homeward through the storm and the deep snow, you feel the heart
grow strong as it pumps the blood to every fiber of your being. You
know why the men of the north, Iowa men, have virile brain and
sovereign will. The snow is deep and the way is long, but yet you
smile--a reverent smile--as you think of Hawthorne writing of a snow
storm by taking occasional peeps from the study windows of his old
manse.
* * * * *
Next morning the world seems to have been re-created. It is as fresh
and pure and full of light and beauty as if it had just come from the
Creator's hand with not one single stain or shame or pain. It is one of
the few rare mornings that come in all seasons of the year when
Nature's every aspect is so beautiful that even the most unappreciative
are charmed into admiration; a great white sparkling world below, and
a limitless azure world above. The clouds have all been blown away
and you rejoice in the loftiness of the big blue dome. It is so very high
that there seems to be no dome. You are looking straight through into
the boundless blue of interstellar space, the best object lesson of
infinity which earth has to offer. The ocean that washes the shores of
continents has its bounds which it may not pass, and mariners have
well-known ways across it. The ocean of human thought is vaster, but it,
also, has finite bounds and man shall hardly make great voyages upon

it without crossing, perhaps following, the track of some earlier
Columbus. But this limitless ocean which we call the sky has no finite
bounds, no tracks, no charts, no Cabots. It is measureless and
all-embracing as Divine love. You and Polaris are enwrapped by both.
The farthest star is but a beacon light on some shore island of this
sublime sea of space; and it beckons upward and outward to the
unknown beyond.
* * * * *
Yesterday's three-mile diameter of the horizon has been multiplied by
ten. There is a far sweep of the landscape which makes the soul thrill.
This is the supreme pleasure of the prairies. The Iowa man who goes to
the Rockies is at first awed and charmed by the mountain grandeur, but
soon he pines like a caged bird. The high peaks shut him in as a prison.
He