When the Birds Fly South by Stanton A. Coblentz

It would be pointless to dwell at length upon my second winter in Sobul. In everything essential, it was a repetition of the winter before. There were the same long solitary months, the same monotonous loneliness by the evening firelight, the same trudging through the snow on companionless expeditions, the same arduous gathering of faggots and the same fear of predatory wild things, the same howling of wolves from across the valley and the same clamoring of storm-winds, the same bleak questionings and the same impotent wrath at the unkindliness of my fate.

But in one respect my lot this year was harder to bear. For now there were memories to torment, memories that arose like ghosts when in the long evenings I sat musing by the golden-yellow light of the log blaze. A year ago there had also been memories; a year ago I had also thought of Yasma with sadness; but then there had been no endearing intimacy to haunt every object she had brightened with her presence and every spot her feet had pressed. Now the very cabin she had occupied with me seemed desolate because she had been there; the very pans and kettles and earthen vessels her fingers had touched became sorrowful reminders, while a little spray of wildflowers, gathered by her hands months before and now hanging gray and withered from the log wall, was the perpetual source of longing and regret. How strange and ironic that every gay moment we had passed together should have its melancholy echoes, and that her very smiles and laughter and little winning ways and little loving kindnesses should all return to mock me now!