A walk on a Snowy Day

Snowy das appeal to mhere is a hush on those days, unlke any other day  A hush falls on the world under a blanket of white.
Well Saturday was not exactly a snowy day, but it was close.  We had at least two inches of sleet, which is considerably more dangerous than snow  Still,  it had the same effect.  The world stopped for two days.  How many times do we see that? 
Saturday afternoon, I donned my snow boots an headed out for a walk.  I carried a small digital camera with me, not to take the usual snowscape pictures, but to look for the little wonders that you find nestled in the storm--icicles on trees,  pine cones lying on the ground half hidden,  the pattern of snow on a wood shake roof, that kind of stuff. 
It was cold,  very cold.  The windblown ice slapped into my face and froze my beard.  Nowhever did I see liquid water.  I looked behind me on the path, and could see no foodprints. I was walking on a bed of ice crystals. 
I started for downtown, and got about three quarters there, when I suddenly realized my face was freezing,, so I decided to turn around. No use getting frostbite.  Along the way home, I go by the Museum of the Waxhaws,  our local museum.  Its a small building,  only about twice the sze of my house.  this year, they had added some new features in the small patch of woods beside it. There is a pioneer farm now,  and a Catawba Indian encampment in the woods. I decided it would be a good place to tak pictures.
What a treat! It was a still, silent place,  and I felt transported back a couple of hundred years.  I took pictures of the log cabin walls, the barn, the green wagon parked beside it,  the spring house, and just about everything else. Then I walked into the woods,  over a wooden bridge, and took pictures of the black and white woods.  A little bird hopped beside the path,  trying to keep warm. 
It is a very small wood. A few minutes later,  I came out into the clearing beyone.  Just then, there was a racket to my left.  About thirty yards in front of me,  a large white-tailed deer leapt out of the woods and bounded in front of me.  It had a beautiful rack of six pointed antlers.  Before I could reach for my camera it was gone,  It did get a picture of it, though,  about a hundred yards away stopped and looking at me behind a wooden fence.
I wonder why it stopped?  It would have been more sens
ible for the animal to keep running, but it didn't  It stopped and was staring at me. If it had a camera, it might have taken my picture.  Was it curiI hous?  Why should a deer be curious? Was it afraid, and wanted to observe a potential predator. Or was it enjoying the sight of me, the same way I enjoyed the sight of him. 
I might have been a bit too anthropomorphic in this.  there were other sounds of branches in the woods behind me. Perhaps it had a family in those woods, and was looking back in terror,  hoping they would make it out.  I do not know. 
I was glad for the sight of it, though.  He and I, and the bird I saw before, seemed to be the only living things in that icy landscape.  Just the three of us.  I was glad that day to be counted in their number.