Some Winter Days in Iowa | Page 9

leading to a cell in the
center and that the outer end of this passage is protected by a membrane
window. After some balancing and pirouetting he smashes the window
with his bill, runs his long tongue down the passageway, gulps the grub
and away he flies to join his comrades down in the birches, chirping
gaily as he goes.
Downy woodpecker "pleeks" his happiness as he excavates the twig of
a silver maple. Probably he has found the larvæ which the wood wasp
left there in the fall. The big hairy woodpecker flies across the clearing
with a strident scream. Next to the crow and the jay he is the noisiest
fellow in the winter woods. He hammers away at a decaying basswood
and the chips which fall are an inch and a half long. His hammering is
almost as loud as the bark of a squirrel in the trees across the river. The
blood-red spot on the back of his head has an exquisite glow in the
sunshine, and you get a fine look at it, for he is busily working little
more than a rod from where you stand. He does wonderful work with
that strong bill. One decaying basswood found recently was eighteen
inches in diameter and the woodpeckers had drilled big holes clear
through it. The pile of their chips at the base would have filled a bushel
basket.

By the time you have reached the spring the woods are full of life and
sound, and the spring itself adds to the winter music. The rocks where
it bubbles out are thickly covered with hoar frost. One of the big blocks
of limestone in its causeway is covered with ice, clear and viscid as
molten glass. The river is bridged over with ice twenty inches thick,
save only the little gulf stream into which the spring pours its waters.
From the surface of this stream thin smoky wreaths of vapor rise and
are changed into crystals by the frosty air. But the waters of the spring
gush forth as abundantly and musically now as they did in the hot days
of last July, and the clam-shell with which you then drank is still in its
place by the rock. The pure, melodious, beautiful spring makes its own
environment, regardless of surroundings. Its sources are in the unfailing
hills. It suggests the lives of some men and women whose friendship
you enjoy, and who are ever ready to refresh you on life's way.
* * * * *
The wind of last night has carried much of the snow over the top of the
ridge and deposited it in this sheltered slope of the river cañon. Here
are wind-formed caves of sculptured snow, vaulted with a tender blue.
Turrets and towers sparkle in the splendid light. All angles are softened,
and everywhere the lines of the snow curves are smooth and flowing.
The drift sweeps down from the footpath way on the river bank to the
ice-bound bed of the river in graceful lines. Where the side of the cañon
is more precipitous there is equal beauty. Each shrub has its own
peculiar type amidst the broken drift. The red cedar, which is Iowa's
nearest approach to a pine, except in a few favored counties, hangs
from the top of the crag heavily festooned with feathery snow. Those
long creeping lines on which the crystals sparkle are only brambles,
and that big rosette of rusty red and fluffy white is the New Jersey tea.
Those spreading, pointed fingers of coral with a background of
dazzling white are the topmost twigs of the red osier dogwood. The
strip of shrubs with graceful spray, now bowed in beauty by the river's
brink, is a group of young red birches, and this bunch of downy brown
twigs, two feet above the snow, sparkling with frost particles, is the
downy viburnum. The great tangle of vine and lace work mixed with
snow is young hop hornbeam, supporting honeysuckle.

* * * * *
Viewed from the window of a railway train, the February fields and
woods seem dead and dreary. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Every twig is lined with living buds, carefully covered with scales.
Inside those scales are leaves and blossoms deftly packed, as only
Mother Nature could pack them. Split one down the middle and
examine it with your lens. You will see the little tender leaves, and
often the blossoms, ready to break out in beauty when the warm days
come and flood the world with color. Men try to photograph nature, but
no photograph could do justice to the clustered buds of the red maple or
the downy buds of the slippery elm. The long green gray buds of the
butternut, pistillate flowers in some,