sketchbook stories: the yule dog

…over the river and through the woods

“It was an expedition, on this snowy afternoon, to bring back Christmas greens from the woods. They put on their skis, the mother and the son, and took baskets; the spotted Dane, like a great merle wolf, bounded along beside them.

“The setting sun glinted low on the horizon, gilding the tops of the ridges, etching with fire the icier parts of the landscape below. The familiar scene lay there before them, the meadow stream winding among the willows, enfolded by the protecting hills. Yet it was transmuted by winter into a differing pattern, made finer, barer than at other seasons.”

illustration by my grandfather, Edward Shenton; excerpt from “The Color of the Country,” a novel by my grandmother, Barbara Webster

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Wishing you a season of peace and joy,

Amie