“When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail.” —Shakespeare. In zero weather, in mid-winter, when the earth is frozen to a great depth below the surface, when in driving over the unpaved country roads they give forth a hard metallic ring; when the trees are all stripped of their coverings, with the exception of a few forlorn brown leaves, which cling tenaciously to the skeleton branches, which crack and sway in the chilly blasts; then indeed we may be fully assured that nature has utterly succumbed to the advances of the Frost King, and that “Jack Frost” himself has arrived in earnest. How he tweaks and nips exposed ears and noses, and how they tingle and ache because of his stinging caress. Jack Frost, we read, is “the very personification of frost and cold.” All of us are more or less familiar with the mischievous pranks of Jack Frost, and they are quite separate and apart from those of the gentle white hoar frost, which is frequently seen early in autumn, upon the first still, cool mornings. “Jack Frost,” as the great Frost Spirit is familiarly known the world over, is a most important, if rather mythical personage, and very few of us are really familiar with the works which he creates in his more serious moods, and the really wonderful methods which he displays. For, with all his mischief-making, he finds abundant opportunity to work out and display much really fine artistic ability in his choice etchings and decorative schemes. [Illustration: 45. One of Jack Frost’s masterpieces] [Illustration: 46. A mass of feathers scattered upon glass] The night time seems to be most favourable for the finest efforts of Jack Frost; usually in mid-winter or early spring. He prefers to select a still, cold night, zero weather, for his best out-of-door display, but it is usually in the coldest winter weather that he applies his very choicest designs upon the glass of our windows, and just how charming and interesting they are, you may judge by the photographed designs herein shown. Upon a still moonlit night, when Jack Frost is astir, if you chance to be out of doors, especially in the open country, you will be made aware of his presence in many ways besides the tingling of your ears. Suddenly a sharp mysterious report will occur in the forest, and a great tree trunk is cleft mysteriously in twain. Again an ominous cracking, as loud as a rifle report comes from the still ice-covered pond. It is merely Jack Frost indulging in a bit of rifle-practice.