The Modoc, who had gone
bareheaded through the winter, assumed hers as a turban of impressive
altitude, while the diminutive Carietta and the infant Sophronia appeared
but as vagrant telescopes on insufficient pegs.
In March the "pipers" lifted up their homesick notes at nightfall, in the
meadows. On the last day of that month, I found arbutus in bloom under
the leaves in the cedar woods.
Scarcely had the first faint signs of herbage appeared on the earth ere
the Wallencamp cows and horses were given over exclusively to the
guardianship of nature, and to wander whithersoever they would, for the
Wallencamp fences had ceased to present themselves as obstacles in the
way. Indeed, some portions of them had been utterly obliterated, and this
was easily traced to a habit prevalent among the Wallencampers of
resorting to them for fuel when, on some winter night, other resources
were found to be low.
Other portions of them were decayed, or blown over in the wind, so that
there was just enough left to sit on for private soliloquy, or social
debate, and to give a picturesque charm to the landscape; yet, it was a
fact which I found worthy of notice, that, in going from one place to
another, no true Wallencamper ever walked over a broken-down part of the
fence, or went through a gap in the fence; he always selected an upright
part of the fence to climb over, even going a little out of the way, if
necessary, to effect this purpose.
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