In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota winter shut
down like the white lid of a box, Dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the
fairways of the golf course. At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound
melancholy--it offended him that the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted
by ragged sparrows for the long season. It was dreary, too, that on the tees where the
gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate sand-boxes kneedeep
in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery, and if the
sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted up against the hard dimensionless
glare.