Looking back into childhood, these stony-hearted months when frost and snow reign king and queen over earth, seem, indeed, the most joyous—and not without reason. For then the “Christman” and the youth so full of promise, the bright New Year, are never-failing guests by the mid-winter fire-side. There is joy for the child on the ice-bound hill, on the glassy, frozen lake, in the gurgling, merry sound of the sleigh-bells, in the sight of the cheerful home-fire, in the bracing out-door air, in the huge snow-drifts—everywhere, everywhere there is joy for the child! And why? Because of bounding hopes and joyous dreams, and the careless yielding up of oneself to every passing enjoyment—because of freedom from labor—because of ignorance of the worth and supremacy of gold—because of utter innocence of the strict “proprieties” of life! There is joy for the child, because he has not yet learned much of disappointments; he does not know how uncomfortable is the close-fitting garment of manhood. He is not wise enough to see in the winter storms, in the driving blasts in which he so much delights, the type of what assuredly awaits him. He does not know that the life-storms with which he will have to struggle, will come suddenly and furiously upon him—that he will, perforce, then fling aside his mittens and grapple open handed with his foes. And it must certainly be at the warm and genial hearth-fire of truth and honesty, and no stifling stove-heat by which he must keep his heart, and its hopes and affections warm and in health, else they will die away suddenly and utterly, even as the fire of the “patent air-tight” dies! Hark! now I hear the flapping of wings; and lo, here, almost close beside my window, are passing pigeons—snow-white pigeons; and, where _could_ it have streamed from, there is a ray of sunlight on their wings! and since I have begun writing, the clouds seem to have “spent their fury,” they are less dull and dreary—they are slowly breaking away. The view from the window by which I am writing is not especially charming. In one direction there are sheds, and barns, and barren trees, and a little farther on, the spire of an unpretending church, and sundry chimney-tops, together with the roofs of a few loftier buildings meet my eye. These are all certainly very _suggestive_ scenes, and might make so many important heads of a very interesting discourse; but, in another direction from this same window there are great fields, and farther on, woods and hills, and between them and me, there are two points in the landscape on which very often my eyes rest, and many are the recollections, bitter and sweet, they awaken. One is a village school-house, the other a thickly-populated grave-yard.