"When snow flies." New England has many idioms rich and expressive, but none so beautiful as this. There is a softness, a merriment, a silence, a simple beauty about it that the rigorous, taciturn upcountrymen seldom achieve. This idiom, casually dropped across the counter of the general store when the mountains swelter in midsummer sun, brings to mind the far off ring of sleigh bells, and the white antiguity of hills.

And now at last snow flies in New England. Hulking pungs slide off quietly into the slashing behind the pump horse. The new town truck drones along the highway casting up furrows of white foam. With a sharp jar as the sled strikes ground, a cheerful gnome starts off belly flopper down the hill to school. A tall pine stands out in the pasture with the blackness of a widow in her weeds. There is the delicate, syncopated tinkle as a Morgan in a red cutter swerves through town. The mountains stare down upon the valleys grown old, and spare, and bleak over night. Young boughs trail their white burden on the road way. In the woods, where the sun falls, snow slides off the needles and drops with a soft thud. A tiny rabbit scurries off on hastily remembered business and a grouse whirrs up into the blue. The world is quiet, and tranquil, and fair to see. The world is new, and merry, and very friendly.

In Cambridge a foot of slush lies in the Square, mute tribute to a Street Department which feels that destruction of snow is a unique act of God. Galoshes appear, gutters run, taxis spatter, professors swear, officials sit. Students get wet feet, students get colds, students consider Stillman, students do not consider Stillman. Women slip, men assist, men slip. Clothes are changed, there are no clothes to change. Umbrellas are lost, cars skid, fenders crumble, the Yard is beautiful, Mt. Auburn is not, officials sit, board walks are shoveled. Cambridge is slush girt. Cambridge is noisy and hurried, and surpassingly ugly. Cambridge is old and dull, and very dingy. Snow flies in New England.